SAFETY WARNING!

[Badger]

An AWT health grill, model HG11, bought may 04 failed with a visible flash from within.

As a technical specialist I investigate equipment failures as part of my job, I have also worked as a cooker service engineer for Belling in the past.

Opening the grill I discovered a mains connector cable had burnt out causing the wires to melt, after burning off the insulation. An insulation assembly was also burnt.

In my experience such failures are usually due to poor design/specifications, rather than workmanship, the series of house fires caused by Belling ovens in the 80s/90s being a case in point.

I feel this product needs an urgent product recall/replacement before others are injured. It is NOT fit for purpose, this failure not being due to normal wear and tear.

photos

Later HG21 model may be also affected.

Badger.

[Andrew Gabriel]

It looks to me like it was a faulty crimp on the AMP connector, although it's not possible to tell for sure from your pictures. The other similar connector above does not look like it has overheated, although the crimp quality doesn't look good (maybe it's spot welded?). I can't tell if they will both have carried the same current for the same time, not being familiar with the product.

Again, can't comment on poor design/specifications rather than workmanship based solely on your pictures. It could be there is too much flexing force at that connector (poor design), through to the crimp having been improperly made (poor workmanship).

Who was injured? It doesn't look to me (again from what little I can tell from the pictures) as though there is any chance this failure could injure anyone or start a fire.

Take it back and ask for another one or your money back.

[John]

I suggest you step back and take a critical look. IMHO the most likely cause of the overheated wire was a poorly made connection between the wire and the spade terminal. ONE failure is hardly sufficient to warrant a recall of the product. I suggest you take a look at the number of failures of a similar ilk which occur in imersion heater terminal boxes and nobody is rabbiting on about recalling all the immersion heaters installed in the uk. Or are you trolling?

[Peter Parry]

Your area of expertise and qualifications being?

In your photographs it is clear they have not melted and indeed are made of heat resistant material.

Possibly your experience is insufficient?

The fault you show is a classic case of a poor crimp or loose blade connector (usually caused by faulty workmanship when fitting it). The fault has been contained and minimal damage has occurred, why do you think this points to poor design or specification?

Who was injured in this case? What aspect of the design would you think might cause injury?

So tell the manufacturers.

[BigWallop]

The photographs you link to show a lack of sufficient heat resistant sleeving over the flex conductors. This would point me to a show of bad workmanship rather than a design fault. If the person putting the sleeving on before crimping the flex to the heating element had done it properly, then this would more than likely not have happened. Tell the makers they have a "Made on Friday Afternoon" appliance they have to replace. :-)

[s--p--o--n--i--x]

To me it looks like the crimp overheated at the point where the wire entered the crimp. In other words the crimp was not crimped correctly.

Surely if it were an inherent design fault the other crimp would have failed the same way?

sponix