Belkin PureAV Home Theater Power Console PF40 £38.87

n.simpson

I've been thinking a little more about the safety aspect of the swap. If the unit develops a live to earth fault then the even if the breaker popped there would still be 240V through the chassis. The likelihood of the fault is minimal but it still exists.

n.simpson

From memory it's a ribbon cable that connects the LCD to the main board. I can double check tomorrow if you're keen to know.

Mr Incredible

I've got an earth leakage on my main board anyway.

Even so, if the moulded plug is wired with neutral/live reversed, I am not sure why swapping the incoming wires around on the terminal block in the unit would make any difference to the operation/safety of it.

Mr Incredible

I think Flimber just wants the back light to be off.  Perhaps the entire ribbon will remove all the info as well?

n.simpson

I'd suspect so but you could simply bend a pin on the connector if you knew which one controlled the back light. It probably wouldn't be too difficult to work out with a multimeter.

n.simpson

The only difference is that the circuit breaker is no longer on the incoming live feed. It will still be in the overall path and therefore should operate as expected but there may be a small number of possible faults that could leave the unit in a potentially dangerous state. However, you ought to have protection elsewhere in your wiring for these faults and so it's not likely to be of any major concern. Let's face it, most electrical appliances don't have additional circuit breakers and nobody loses any sleep over the same potential faults with them. I think too much time dealing with broken/faulty hardware makes me look at things from a negative view first.

Ianfromnotts

I have an old school retail back ground the days when customer service was paramount - I am very impressed by Ballicom but less so with belkin right now.  

Yesterday when I hadnt heard back on the questions I posed via email/web site I phoned them. But today I notice a RMA isnt listed on my account details and the technical representative has updated my contact details - the only problem being he struggled with my accent and despite spelling my name and address for him one character at a time and using the police type alpha bravo phonetics he got it all wrong - I struggle to understand why he updated it any way - probably some standard call centre procedure - check and update customer address details

Other than that my account shows no record of the conversation or the promise that they would sent replacment units.

When I tag on that. The customer service number in the manual looked like a USA number so I used the UK local call rate one on the Belkin web site. It took a very long while to get through to a customer services representive who then transferred me to a Technical Assistance Representative who struggled to understand the problem at even a basic level.

I will wait till close on Monday and if I havent heard anything phone Rushden direct on 01933 352000

Peridot

Not surprisingly I've confirmed that mine also has the live and neutral incorrectly connected within the moulded plug.

Swapping the wires at the PCB connection within the unit gets the correct indication on the display.

However, as discussed above, this is not correcting the problem and leaves the potential for unsafe fault conditions.

I had intended to cut the moulded plug off anyway and connect the cable via a fused connection unit (spur) so I have returned the internal wiring to its original condition and will keep the unit.

It's very disappointing that a reputable company like Belkin can let this one through and somewhat ironic that they provide a unit with the unusual feature of being able to detect wiring faults and then supply it with a wiring fault

Some pics attached, including one of the display connector which is 'all in one' unfortunately.

jwyg

yeah i ordered one from ebay and paid last night - this morning it's been refunded.

Mr Incredible

Is the circuit breaker built into the moulded plug that plugs into the mains?  If not, where does it sit in the scheme of the circuit?

If the circuit breaker is internal to the unit and if the only "fault" is the incorrectly wired live/neutral in the plug, then swapping of the live-neutral on the unit terminal block would revert the breaker's position to what it should have been if the plug had been wired correctly in the first place.

.... unless of course my assumptions are wrong!!