Tinned conductors are far more corrosion resistant than bare copper. Should they be terminated under screw terminals? In theory the extreme thermal cycling could create a degraded connection that would in-turn cause further heat and more intense thermal cycling…. But wait, we are talking about relatively low currents for any reasonable wire size and a thermally uninsulated connection. Where is this initial extreme heat coming from? If we are thermal cycling the tin/copper connection enough to loosen a screw terminal and start an arcing fire…. Something else is wrong.
Moreover, countless mains connections are terminated via SOLDER directly on PCBs in devices, many of which operate in the 15A-20A range. If we are melting solder, or generating enough heat to delaminate or char a PCB… something else is wrong.
Are these ‘screw terminals’ bare screws on barrier blocks or do they have pressure plates or washers?
Are you a UL, CE or CSA listing engineer or certification tester or expert? Are you an electrical Engineer? Can you cite the relevant UL, CE or CSA guidelines that would govern the approval or disqualification of these “dangerous” connections? Not being flippant here at all - honestly wonder what credentials or knowledge you bring to bear with your observations. I have spent some time in the past reviewing said requirements out of curiosity and have a lifetime of electrical and electronics design and experience, but am by no means well versed or an expert in any of the mentioned certifications.
Do you have photos of these “dangerous” connections?
How many ‘fires’ or near-miss or catastrophic failures have you documented that are unequivocally the result of a tinned wire to screw terminal failure?
Do you know what it costs to get (and maintain) even a simple device listed under one (let alone all three) of those bodies? Do you realize the number of ‘listed’ devices that are not actually listed or use long expired listings or listings approved prior to significant design changes or parts substitutions, etc?
I have never looked inside a Hydros and don’t really care. I am not defending them, but at the same time sense a bit of over-the-top rhetoric. The insults directed toward other responders don’t help.
Hey, you tend to get short when you get the same "responders" on every post that has a mention of hydros, and the same "responders" with undisclosed relationship with the company. You will find the same ones on just about every post that mentions hydros and generally attacking the person making the post if they are not singing hydros praises, that or trying to spruik a hydros product in a discussion about another products thread.
As to the technical side, yes I hold qualifications in this area hence why I called it out and also called out the "responder" who was trying to mislead others into thinking their experience in fiddling with consumer electronics negates the major fire risk because they had a look inside, made oh so worse by the comment about "wires coming loose"..... seriously
The issue here is the tinning of the cable/wire end then putting it into a clamp terminal (be it a screw/ spring/ washer/ self latching or other terminal). Had they soldered the wires directly to the board or had they put crimp ends on (without solder) and jammed them into the terminals or just twisted the wires without solder and jammed them in it would be all hunky dory. But they did the worst possible thing and twisted the wires, tinned them and jammed them into a terminal block (and that is before you look at the rubbish quality cable used). This results in areas of high and low resistance at the terminal face (cable is compressed against terminals contact surface) combined with a soft, low melting point conductive material on a connection with potentially high current at mains AC voltage, this is your fire hazard. Putting aside the contact issues over time with the surface of solder, the pressure from the terminator on the conductor will reduce over time due to the solder slowly moving away from the compression it is under increasing the areas of high resistance causing the contact surface to heat up and have less contact with the cable causing a runaway and the eventual fire. Cable diameter and terminal block type makes little difference to this type of fire hazard, in fact very little current is actually needed to cause an issue either and is why it is a massive no no for any electrical engineer or electrician to do this (go ask your lecky if he would tin a wire before he jammed it into a terminal block).
I can provide pictures of these devices coming out with this fire hazard, but there is little point as there is no argument the main AC supply cable ends are tinned and have been put into screw down terminal blocks. There are also many documented stories of people burning their houses down with this type of issue (not from hydros), most recently in the 3D printing world were there have been a tremendous amount of incidents due to uneducated people playing with 3D printer kits and not knowing any better. And yes, fires caused specifically due to tinned cables in terminal blocks causing the fire and many of these being relatively low currents compared to what the XP8 is "rated" for (and certainly less current than most heaters draw). But hey, don't take my word on it, a basic google search will bring up plenty for you to read on the topic.
I absolutely understand what is required for many of the certifications, and this is for good reason. A company trying to deliberately mislead you into thinking a product has the same certification/ standard/ quality as something they don't actually hold is realistically fraud, I am not sure what else you call it. You can't say a golf cart is design to meet a 5 star safety rating unless it has been tested and passed this certification and I am pretty sure the the Ocean Gate sub was also designed to meet a dive depth of 3700 meters.....
So now you know the actual issue, you can read about how wrong it is to do this yourself, you can have a chat to a independent "qualified" electrician or electrical engineer about the standards and see this issue should be immediately corrected and there should be a notice/contact to existing customers to notify them of the significant risk so they can have this issue corrected (be it CV pays for a electrician to correct, or recall the product) before someone ultimately pays a very serious price. The fact we are having affiliates try to downplay/squash the issue is ludicrous, let alone the fact the company is well informed about the issue and continue to sell the product unchanged or correct the existing problem units. But hey, apparently raising major safety defects about hydros is "Hydros bashing".....
