A mains product I purchased at Kmart appears to be for the North American market!

"rowan194"

** Probably not dangerous - since the item is ( allegedly) built to class 2 insulation standards.

Likely blow a (thermal) fuse or go up in smoke - see the shield symbol for safety isolating/ inherently fail safe.

However, it is NOT legal to sell that unit in Australia.

The " N " approval number on the back is a worry.

Taken it up with K-mart yet ??

Love to see the check-out chick dy offer you ANOTHER one just the same.

...... Phil

I thought that was odd also. The manual mentions two versions - wouldn't they have been tested separately by the relevant authorities? It's not like they were trying to save some $ by printing identical cases, as the two versions *do* have different wording to cover the input voltage difference.

I went a bit further than that, and pointed out that it was not a product that was meant to be used in Australia. She got her manager to pull the remaining stock off the shelves and check them. Out of 4, only one was the 120V version... it had to be the one I chose!! At least it's out of sight now and should be returned to the manufacturer.

I'm still curious how a single US/CA unit managed to get into a batch of AU units.

I'm even more curious as to why the 120V US version's got the Australian 'C-Tick' approval number on it....

BTW there's quite a lot of info about these chargers on the net. However when I tried to access the manufacturer's website

the connection kept timing out.

"rowan194"

** Nice work Rowan, - you did exactly what I would have done.

** Never got a satisfactory explanation of the dead cockroach included in the plate of fried rice I ordered at the local Chinese, either.

Hard to see it in the dim light, too.

Least the waitress did not try to claim it was a new delicacy.

...... Phil

The N number next to the C-tick is the ACMA supplier code and only indicates it complies with EMC standards. These are often confused with the N number used by the NSW DFT. A battery charger is a decalared item and requires a safety approval before it can be sold.

The printed rating contains the 120V details and therefore no approval. I guess the rating detail for the 240V version has the appvl number present. The use of a string of EMC compliance symbols is pretty standard for a lot of products and simplifies labelling. The same string is inserted into all the labelling artwork.

No, most likely the two variants appear on the one compliance test report, with additional test results for the differences in components. This one report is then used all over the world to apply (or declare) for approval.

Actually its more common than you might realise. For products like this, Australia/NZ only buys a comparatively small number oif units, broken into shipments over a set period. During production faulty units get weeded out and sometimes if a production run has a high number of failures they need to "borrow" from another production run to make up numbers. The borrowed units often have EU type cordsets and incorrect labelling but the correct voltage. Sometimes, fortunately rarely, the wrong voltage units get picked instead.

Also, for many items there are no spare parts provided. Instead an additional quantity (typically between 0.5 and 1.5% of the total quantity) are supplied to cover goods that need to be replaced or to be cannibalised. If ordered separately from the main shipment they might be picked from whatever is passing down the line at the time or borrowed as I mentioned above.

For the same reason the Australian unit will probably have the FCC and CE marks, etc on it. It is probably a common piece of label art. Quite likely the 120V unit does comply with the ACMA EMC Standards, so technically it is OK to have the C-tick on it if the 120V variant appears in the importers copy of the EMC report. The EMC standards don't cover safety and the ACMA has no ability to enforce it (apart from telecomms equipment).

As Phil said, the internal transformer is marked as fail safe so it would have most likely gone fzzztttt and either taken out the thermal fuse or the series fuse. Not as big an issue as it might seem.

However, there have been kettles, toasters and other appliances supplied to the AU market that have all the right cords, plugs and labells but fitted with 120V elements. Applicance importers have learnt the hard way to batch test shipments as they are received , but the electronic goods importers often just deliver on an indent basis (straight into the distribution channel) without local batch checking. So these types of products are (at present) more susceptible to production errors.

These days product conformity, quality assurance and factory inspection makes up 70% of what I do for a crust.

Best bit of protein in the meal.

Jason

Here's the relevant parts of the rear of both versions. There's an extra "SA" mark on the 120V version and a couple of different numbers.