Don't do what they do in china!

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I'd love to have an electric bike with an IEC plug. It would make electric bikes cheaper!

I can't understand why anyone would plug their bike directly into the wall if it takes 30v, regardless of the shape of the plugs. If you can't practice proper electrical safety, you shouldn't be messing with electric bikes! Do European governments think adults are like 5 year olds?
 
What, you expect everyone to be educated on electrical safety? For the average person voltage and current don't matter one bit and it's no surprise that when asked to choose the right cord they get it wrong, given the opportunity. Would you insist everyone took a class on basic electronics? Would that ever happen? And what about children who still have to use household appliances?

I don't think it's "sad" at all for the average person not to understand basic electronics. I think that's a ridiculous suggestion. Neither children nor anyone else else should be at risk simply because they have to choose which cord to plug in and one of them will cause a fire.
 
at least here the IEC female socket is widespread and on basically every single device ever made that runs off mains.

And to use it for DC, or any other mains connector, is tantamount to murder.

Because you don't know who is going to use the device that you've made after you're done with it, if you sell it it is still your responsibility for the users safety, their family could sue you if the user of the device is killed.

It was stupid of the chinese to use it on the bikes, but what I find staggering is that it was even stupider of the regulators to allow these things to be imported into their country.
 
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I was doing a search for something related to IEC earlier today and thought I'd share and get the message out there and make sure that no one was doing the same as what this article depicts.

Btw your account predates my old one "Layberinthius" by 1 year, interesting.
 
When designing equipement, even equipement to be used by trained people, technicians, engineers etc it is always good practice to design anything that plugs in so that they are all diferentiated and the wrong thing cannot be pluged in to the wrong socket. Its saftey and trying to minimise any mistakes that could cause the equipement to fail, or more serious death. We all make mistakes and trying to avoid mistakes is common sense. How many people do you know who have been on an electrical saftey course (outside of the industry), here Hair curlers are becoming a bit of a problem, left pluged in and on. Even better though is designi9ng gear for Squaddies, you now the first thing they will do is try and break whatever you give them...
As to avoiding Chinease products, 80% of the worlds electronics is now produced in Aisa, the number of PCB manufacturers, electronic and electrical assemblers etc that have disapeared from both Europe and the USA in the last few years is frightening, I know look at redundancy as a part of life, twice in the last 5 years, firms re-structuring and design and production outsource to a cheeper part of the world.
 
What I'm saying now should not be taken as an insult but as a basic safety mindset:
**Design for Morons**
That way you can *almost* guarantee safety.

Do I think most people are Morons? Not at all.
Do I think average people are uninformed? Yup !!

Even 10% uninformed people are a lot, they must be considered.

After all, *most* people who buy a bike (in this case) do it because it's fun/cool/healthy/practical.
None of these choices implies technical savvy per se.

Only a few (us?) will buy these because they are Nerds.
Yes, there's quite a few of us around here :eek: .... but not that many "outside".:p
 
What, you expect everyone to be educated on electrical safety? For the average person voltage and current don't matter one bit and it's no surprise that when asked to choose the right cord they get it wrong, given the opportunity. Would you insist everyone took a class on basic electronics? Would that ever happen? And what about children who still have to use household appliances?

I don't think it's "sad" at all for the average person not to understand basic electronics. I think that's a ridiculous suggestion. Neither children nor anyone else else should be at risk simply because they have to choose which cord to plug in and one of them will cause a fire.


This happen quite a lot, a good example are the protoypes massage chair we have came from Japan which having 100V supply voltage. I set up a few, put a step-down trasnformer each machine and each AC cord I put a label 100V only but still some MORONS inserted the plug to 220V..why the hell on earth some people cannot understand the basic principle of electricity?
 
It surprises me that there is no international standard plug for medium power, low voltage applications. With the growth in people running off-grid homes, powered from renewable energy and a 48V large battery pack, a suitable safe plug/socket combination is needed to cope with (say) 48V at up to 20A. I don't know of any easily available plug/socket combinations, that can also cope with the sort of abuse that normal 115/230V ac mains plugs and sockets can tolerate.
 
It surprises me that there is no international standard plug for medium power, low voltage applications. With the growth in people running off-grid homes, powered from renewable energy and a 48V large battery pack, a suitable safe plug/socket combination is needed to cope with (say) 48V at up to 20A. I don't know of any easily available plug/socket combinations, that can also cope with the sort of abuse that normal 115/230V ac mains plugs and sockets can tolerate.

Did you check with suppliers for the marine or farm irrigation industry? I have found some less expensive 250A switches as marine surplus.

In general you don't have carry around and plug in applications for off grid appliances, I guess a 48V electric chain saw would be nice. I wanted to turn a used 12V winch into a log splitter, 900A peak draw :eek:.
 
The wife plugged my 110v KitchenAid blender into the 220v outlet and cooked it.

In my kitchen - in China.

The woman is completely clueless about electricity. That said she was the lead attorney on the Palabora mine buyout by Hebei Iron & Steel this month, so everyone has their knack shall we say....
 
Agree.
That's why I firmly stand by the idea that labels are *NOT* enough, different voltage plugs and sockets should be made in such a different and incompatible way, that it becomes *impossible* to plug them wrong, even forcing them.
It's not a "woman" thing (although it explains at least some of it ;) ) , but a *human* one.
As another example: every year I visit neighbouring Brazil's "Expo Música", a huge NAMM style event.
Now Brazil has some cities with 110V , and some with 220V, so most stuff sold there is bivolt, with the proper switch very visible in the front or back panel, because a traveling Musician must switch often.
Expo Música is set in the middle of São Paulo, a 18 million people city which runs on 110V everywhere between its limits.
Expo Música is 220V , with NO warning labels visible :confused: :eek: :mad:
They *should* have a BIG postcard in every access, very visible, stating "YOU ARE ENTERING A 220V AREA" .... but none of that.
Their (stupid) theory is that the guys who install stands there already know it, and use 220V lights, air conditioning, etc .
Fine, but what about the public?
A friend of mine went to play there, happily plugged his 110V VOX AVT100 (or some similar name) and instantly burnt it.
And people working there told me it was an epidemic of burnt Guitar stuff.
My friend was lucky that I was visiting him, so I had to go downtown and buy a cheap multimeter, soldering gun, assorted cheap screwdrivers and tools, to repair it.
Double lucky because I could get the fried Sanken or STK power module.
Oh well.
 
If I saw an IEC receptacle on something like an ebike, I'd assume it was because it had a built-in charger that accepted AC line voltage. Which is a pretty reasonable thing to have on an ebike.

I'm trying to choose a good connector to use with 12V devices. The standard lighter plug is bulky, and it makes a poor connection: run 4 amps through it and they get hot. Jones connectors would be better, but the ideal connection would be weather resistant as well.
 
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anderson power poles, 30 or 45 amp variants.

Use the ham standard method of alignment.
For use in amateur radio, the community has adopted a standard polarity for assembling the Singlepole connectors, using one red and one black housing, as well as a mnemonic for remembering the arrangement for the positive connector: Red Right—Tongue Top. The ham standard is nominal 12 volts (actually 13.8 volts), with red positive and black negative.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anderson_Powerpole
 
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