Tacima Mains Conditioner
 

I ran out of mains sockets recently so I decided to get a 6 way mains block. The Tacima 6 way Mains Conditioner has had good reviews so I paid £40 for one on Ebay. I asked the guy I bought it off if the mains plug was detachable as I needed to feed the cable through holes in my shelving. The seller confirmed the plug was detachable.

Anyway the Tacima turned up today with a moulded non-detachable plug !! In my haste to try it out - I cut off the moulded plug so that I could fit a detachable plug. I noticed that as well as the normal insulated Live, Neutral and Earth cable there was an uninsulated wire (the shield?). I decided to wrap the uninsulated cable with insulating tape and to insert it with the Earth cable. The Tacima seems to work OK.

However, I gave Tacima a ring to check if what I had done was correct. The chap at Tacima shocked me by telling me I had wrecked the Mains Conditioner and it now would not work properly. Can anyone with an Electrical background comment on this view.

Hi,
Did you ever work out what damage, if any, was done to the Tacima by taking the plug off?
I bought one so I could add an Australian plug to it and discovered your post. Yet to hear back from Tacima.
Thanks,
Andrew

I suspect that the plug contains part of the conditioning circuit. Are you able to dismantle it to find out?

Tony

It sure looks as if all the components are in the block itself in a transparent window so can't see why they'd put any parts in the plug. You are talking about the plastic £40 one right?

I have one of these metal Tacimas (got it cheap from Ebay) and there's nothing in the captive mains plug.


http://www.vickers-hifi.co.uk/images/tacima/IF123.JPG

So, I would say that mains leads are shielded and the reason they tell you it's 'wrecked' is that getting two conductors safely into the earth pin is not something that they consider safe for the general public to do themselves. In fact, I'm sure I read that on a lable somewhere on mine ....