How dodgy is this?

[Tim+]

These are a couple of photos of a fan oven element connections.

This first photo is of the old element.

This second one is of the new replacement.

You can see that because of the length of the protruding element end, there's significantly less "tab" for the spade connector to grip.

If I hadn't been in a hurry to mend the oven I would have sent it back but I chose instead to grind off the excess element end back to the spot weld to provide the necessary length of tab for a good connection.

I emailed the pictures to the supplier but I've heard nothing since.

How dangerous is this and should I be pestering the supplier more about supplying potentially dangerous elements?

Tim

[Harry Bloomfield]

Tim+ laid this down on his screen :

I suspect it might have fitted fine, with the open side of the terminal sliding on face up, so it misses the wire end. Its not dangerous, more a bit of an inconvenience, providing the terminal is a good tight fit, all will be well.

[Tim Watts]

On Wednesday 20 November 2013 10:52 Tim+ wrote in uk.d-i-y:

It's probably OK if you put the spade receptable on so the "slot" is on the same side as the weld.

All the same, sloppy work IMO.

[Tim+]

Um, no. The slot is too narrow to fit either side of the central element terminal. It would only slide on rather loosely about 5mm.

Tim

[Tim+]

If it had been as simple as that I wouldn't have taken all the time to photograph the ends and contact the supplier!

Well that was rather my point, the terminal was anything but a good tight fit. I'm sure there must be international standards for spade terminals and this sure as heck wasn't meeting anything I'd consider safe.

Tim

[Dave Liquorice]

Did it latch into the hole or couldn't you get it on that far?

Agree that loose is not good, is the blade the correct thickness?

Could you get better grip/fit by gently squeezing the spade with pair of pliers?

[Tim+]

Nope. If you look at the photo you can see that excluding the tapered end of the blade, there is only about 5mm of blade that was being gripped by the connector as it couldn't be pushed on properly. On the old one there's the best part of 9mm accessible to the connector to grip.

Well, it's the same as the old one in thickness.

Shouldn't have to. My point is that other customers probably won't and will probably burn out the connection in fairly short order.

Tim