Faulty Chinese generators....

The evil is a bit more hidden that what you see there, on the surface.

Planned obsolescence causes you to purchase new items to replace the old. The costs in resources, energy, oil, creation of pollution/toxins, dumps fill with obnoxious wastes, etc. is slowly poisoning not only all of us, but the whole planet.

The impetus should be placed on strong, durable, long lasting products, if possible, possessions which will last a lifetime, or even be handed down. The benefits in cost, heath and happiness would be astounding ...

Instead, we are a bunch of "moronic consumers." Trained to buy products which wear our quickly, so we will consume more ... etc., the cycle is a very vicious one. Not only depriving us of wealth and happiness, but even our health and life.

To turn this absurdity of "consumerism" around, at this point, looks like a monumental task bordering on the line of impossible!

Indeed, laws are constructed to aid in the filling of dumps, and for questionable reasons and refusal to debate other alternatives ...

Regards, JS

d'.

Watch your local newspapers this winter and note the incredible number of house fires that will be occurring courtesy of Chinese made space heaters. There has been a record number of winter house fires across the USA the past decade. A phenomenon undoubtedly linked to the horrendous quality of the made in commie China junk being imported into this nation. It is truly criminal. It wasn't that long ago that the Chinese were caught counterfeiting the Underwriters Laboratory stamp of approval and putting on the junk they imported to the USA. Thanks to the criminals in D.C. we can't buy Cuban cigars or sugar but Red China destroying our economy and killing our citizens (and pets via poison pet foods) isn't a problem.

Counterfeit UL Labels from China

My mother in law got some power strips that were so badly made that if you turned them upside down the plugs fell out. They had a UL label, so I wrote a letter to UL describing the unit and and suggesting they were likely counterfeiting the UL label. Never even got a thank-you from UL. I replaced the duplex outlet units with ones from the hardware store.

Jon

It was hard rubbish collection time in our suburb this week.

The verges were lined with working TVs - everyone has upgraded to cheap LCD/Plasma. The other things that stuck out were hooded BBQ's. Almost every third or fourth house had one out the front. Cheap chinese crap rusting away, most only a year or two old. At between $200 and $400 each its a disgusting waste of money & resources.

I believe that most of the time the buyers are aware that there is something fishy and look the other way. Very good quality terminal blocks from China with tracable cUL and VDE approvals are X CNY, less good ones without approvals are X/2.5.

What kind of irresponsible buyer fails to check the certification number with CSA/UL/ETL or fails to schedule a pre-shipment inspection at the factory? The added cost is a small percentage of even a small shipment of a container load or two.

I've heard some of these jokers (last week, as it happens) say that the product "must have UL _markings_". That's all they care about, and the factory must comply or they lose the order.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

This is the first I heard of fake UL stickers.

By buyer, you mean the store and not the customer. Well, I hope that is what you mean. The customer sees the UL label and just assumes it is legit.

Occasionally I will get cheap ass stuff from Harbor Freight, but I refuse to buy anything from them that plugs into the mains. I was in the store once when a guy was returning a sawzall that caught fire.

Getting back to generators, a Yamaha costs about 3x the Chinese junk. I can see why people buy Chinese, but I'd sure hate to have to depend on the Chinese item working when I need it.

Unfortunately, I can't say the same. I was tempted to buy a big roll of green RoHS or CE stickers to stick all over the place, but..

Yes, of course- the professional buyers for the store or the wholesaler or the importer. The end purchaser should be able to trust the store (and steer clear if it's a guy selling from the back of a truck or whatever).

I bought some metal power bars recently (about 4' long) that looked pretty decent, but I don't usually buy their electric power tools. Their air tools seem decent.

The power bars are marked with the factory name and their model number, but interestingly the model I have (EM1201) is not listed in the ETL/Intertek database, but the similar EM1201M is.. and Harbor Fright seems to have discontinued the product. As it's all metal I'm not particularly worried- unless the sockets pull out, it can't do much that's bad.

There's good and bad- the worst stuff is pretty bad. You don't hear about the AC adapters made for Dell or Apple causing much trouble, despite enormous quantities and cutthroat cheap prices. There are several basic kinds of factories in China- from wholly owned foreign ones to joint ventures, to state companies, to local firms. Unless they have some history of supplying picky customers (especially European and Japanese exports) the lower end ones can be pretty dodgy.. many, many concentrate on the large and (so far) less discriminating domestic market. There are probably as many as 1,000 factories making generators, for example, certainly in the hundreds.

Best regards, Spehro Pefhany

On a sunny day (Thu, 27 Oct 2011 19:30:46 -0600) it happened m II wrote in :

There was a warning a couple of years ago about Chinese rubber. This had to do with Chinese scooters, the rubbers seem to fall apart after a year and you can throw the whole thing away. You want Taiwan. I had Chinese rubber bands that just fell apart after some weeks. Bought from a respectable place (Albert Heijn here). So stay clear of anything that has Chinese rubbers in it.

The cheap 3 dollar 4 some cents Chinese multimeters I bough have also great lead free soldering, note how the shunt is soldered: I do no cry easily, but you must have read in the news that Bangkok flooded:

oops

There are a lot of very cheap tool sets around made of steel 10 (if that exists).

Generalisation is a very dangerous thing. They have good stuff too. Lots of it.

Inform yourself before you buy, google will tell you how the situation is for a particular product.

If you did not type the product name and something like 'review' or 'problem' or 'experience' in google, then you were gambling. The same goes for any country, or product. My opinion of my Samsung 3D TV is there as a warning on my site for anybody for example. And that is not Chinese. Sometimes you learn the hard way. And, for that money you got to accept some things sometimes too, especially if it can be easily fixed, as with that cheap meter,

The most interesting fact is that everything is made in China these days. That Yamaha generator is also made in China but Yamaha is probably on top of quality control. The same generators are probably sold under many different brands with lesser components.

Do you want "cheap" or do you want "good"?

Pick ONE.

Yeah, I had a generator, this summer, throw a rod through the garage wall. The finest Chinese machine work you'd ever like to see punch a hole in a building.

Went with a Generac from Whitewater, Wisconsin.

Be careful. Longevity is one thing, but safety standards were not nearly as high in the old days-- both insulation safety standards and inclusion of things like approved thermal cutoffs. There used to be hundreds of people dying every year from fires caused by televisions, and I've been shocked a few times by the old metal power tools that developed internal shorts. Some old TVs and radios were "hot" chassis.

pid'.

The same company who made the generator that failed after 5 months. They won't honor the two years warrenty because i am over-using it (200 hours). It's a standby generator, i am not suppose to use it, stupid.

By the way, should I sue a WI company in Federal court? I don't think they registered in CA.

Mine is a continuous service generator. So, it's built to a different standard. A standby is a different animal.

That said, you don't really get to pick when your power is out. That distinction may be due for a revision.

ch

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But failed after 200 hours? That's less than two weeks of use.

'Stupid'.

True. Depending on maintenance, that should be a brisk walk for this kind of product. Regardless of build.

How often did you change the oil? And did you do a break-in change? That will make an enourmous difference.

d'.

or American

Sound like the same problem with my WI made GenXXX standby generator. I haven't open it up yet, The rotor lock up, perhaps by the starter.

Where are the Germans and Japaneses?

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They says every 200 hours. I didn't know they mean changing the machine every 200 hours.

Yes.

The rotor lock up, perhaps by the starter.