12:41 when you _know_ something is hot and shouldn't be touched but muscle memory doesn't care. Also I wouldn't mind videos like this more often. It's unfortunately very needed to literally demostrate the state of this bullshit. Because with how easily reviews can be botted, people who write legit reviews about the bad state can be just called botted reviews too. If they don't get nuked before that...
@@rossmanngroupbasically anything with a lumen rating. Insanely high lumen flashlights are plentiful on Amazon, and no 500,000 lumen flashlight is going to slip into your pocket.
@@rossmanngroupwhat if it's an entire class of product? 18650 batteries are being advertised with 11,100 mAh ratings, about 3 times that of the highest confirmed ratings on the market. Complete with spelling errors.
@@rossmanngroup I'd say that basic electronic components would be a great start, since you're already very familiar with what they _should_ be like vs what to expect from Amazon. Kinda like ProjectFarm does his comparisons, just instead of going from "absolute discount bargain bin" to "most _high end_ brand name" you'd pick the 5-10 "best" products by manufacturer from Amazon and show how many end up in flames, or causing flames. And as the others suggested, 18650 cells would be indeed a great start to the series, as basically EVERY DIY'er ever is gonna end up needing some.
This might be a negligent homicide investigation if someone actually tracked all the faulty fuzes that have been installed and researched the outcomes. This level of misrepresentation probably has a body count.
@@marcogenovesi8570 The sellers are also at fault. Even if US law doesn't reach the manufacturers, they can shoot down the businesses operating within the US.
Even if we assume that the manufacturer did put identifying markers on the fuses to make them traceable, they are Chinese and will thus suffer no consequences.
@@robertsmith2956 You mean creating carvings on wood using microwave transformers? Its not about the fuse, you probably can't even do that with a fuse. It's extremally dangerous, you aer working with amps so high that rubber gloves will melt instantly and you will be electrocuted anyway. No one should attempt that in any way, if you want wood carvings use normal methods to do them
@@michasokoowski6651 soldering irons work well for wood carving with a "burnt" look to it. They're also perfectly safe as long as you maintain basic safety procedures and keep a bucket of water nearby, just in case
Platforms such as Amazon should be made legally responsible for the safety of goods sold through their sites. They would soon weed out the dodgy stuff then.
It would be enough if they're required to remove fraudulent listings. And a 2A fuse that blows at 5A is fraud. So is one that blows at 1A. It should blow at 2A and nowhere else.
They are. If the manufacturer can't be gotten ahold of, and since Amazon guarantees to some degree every 3rd party seller, they bear secondary responsibility for not vetting or engaging in any form of quality control for those who sell and resell on their platform. The question is, will someone bring up a lawsuit. They would have to prove negligence and damages as a result of something purchased on Amazon, coming from Chinese sellers. The other issue is it's become VERY expensive to build any form of manufacturing business in the US, outside of a bare handful of states. Even within those states, Federal laws are heavily restrictive and expensive to follow unnecessary codes. It's why all the parts manufacturer's that used to be in the US and sold through Radioshack, died fairly shortly after changes made since Radioshack's death and added layers of beaurocracy and regulations they couldn't afford to comply with. Nevermind added layers of costs just to procure materials. The US used to be the hub of parts manufacturing. It's only become even more draconian since Apple, et. al have gone after the independent repair industry that Louis has been fighting, killing off what bare minimum companies were left. Though by the time of Louis' making that push several years back for right to repair, most of that manufacturing for quality, was in asia. Virtually nill in the US. Even the ones who moved to China have had to close shop. So if this does go through, and someone does sue Amazon (and New Egg as well, as they should have been blocked from being purchased by a Chinese company), as should happen, it just opens up the can of worms for the next step of the equation. How to get the US Federal and State governments to roll back regulations that are choking the hell out of small industry. That's like pulling teeth from a lion high on cocaine and starving for the past month. Nevermind city governments.
The sad part is, I used to knowingly use it for that, and use it to get things of quality from manufacturers I knew were reputable, both with pretty reasonable markups for convenience. Now they're the knock off crap at name brand prices. So when I want cheap Chinese crap, I'll just order it from china.
Extra steps and extra cost. Same thing on amazon costs often 5 or 10 times what it costs on ali express. I figure, if I'm getting cheap tat, I might as well pay cheap tat prices, so I just go to ali express instead.
@@jrobmccoy I can see the TV adds. If our fuses blow your not using them right. in small 2 pt font. * these are for wiring bus bars on electric cars......
@@erg0centric You need a reasonable sample though. One fuse might just be a defective one. Get the same result with 100 of them and you've got a problem.
I am a mechanical engineer, and it's a similar story with mechanical components. I used to work in a large aircraft assembly factory where frequently heavy equipment was lifted, overhead, by large cranes. The (union) shop would only agree to work on a lift if a particular, north american, manufactured brand of lifting hardware was used. One day one of our senior engineers wanted to determine what the off-brand, 1/4th the price chinese shackles would do. Whereas the North American, approved, brand name equipment failed at 5x the rated load (as specified in the product data sheet) in a ductile way (slowly yielding giving visible signs of failure) - the chinese equipment failed catastrophically at about 95% - 100% of the rated load. Note that in most case you NEED to have a ~10% margin since you'll rarely know for sure what the exact weight of a 10,000 lbf piece of machinery weighs.
@@ms_cartographer They just wanted to do a test to see the quality, nothing wrong with that, for curiosity sake perhaps. Getting first hand knowledge is much better than word of mouth.
I got a fraudulent LG fridge filter from Amazon. The package had misspellings all over it including lg's website being misspelled. Putting it next to the real filter I got from Best Buy and it was obviously larger holes in the screen of the filter from the fraudulent filter. I did a review on Amazon to warn people and Amazon emailed me that they took down my review because it didn't comply with community guidelines... What a joke of a company.
Every review I've left on Amazon to warn people of fake items I've received has been immediately removed the same way. I can't believe Amazon isn't constantly bombarded by class action lawsuits. I hope I live long enough to see them crumble under the weight of lawsuits....but it will likely never hapoen and the people responsible will never be held accountable. The worst part is they prey on the elderly. No matter how patiently I exolain these things to my elderly family ir neighbors, they still explain they were more careful and checked the reviews first before buying something obviously fake again.
@@munsters2 Ebay - same shit, bans for "community guidelines" never telling what you did wrong. It isn't allowed to ban for life in EU so how to deal with these crooks?
Same thing happened to me twice were I called a product faulty in a review and it was pulled for violating guidelines. I read their guidelines and nowhere did I whatsoever.
Thanks for the shout out and link to my video, Louis. Glad you are getting this word out. There are SO MANY outright dangerous products being sold on Amazon, with no oversight.
@@slowanddeliberate6893 Amazon basics is where Amazon finds a high sell through, high margin product, then contact the manufacturer and have them make it for them. Then they sell it on their own marketplace (meritocracy be damned). Then they throttle the original product until the company stops selling it.
I would go to my local store. Last time i was in such store (Conrad) i wanted a device to measure capacity of capacitors. I asked one of the shop employees and he showed my different multimeters and he did just read on them while explaining to me what he read. He literally said that these devices can Ohm and Ampere. As most people who have seen such things i did already know that they "can" Ohm and Ampere. I thought to myself, thats not the kind of service i want to pay some extra. So i never visit this store again and i was gone.
Any real supplier, local or online, can give you a CoC (certificate of conformity) that proves it's the real thing made out of legitimately-sourced materials. Amazon is not one of them.
From my experience having been trapped in retail for ~9 years, the problem with this idea in practicality for local stores is that the backwards thought process of "My magtrometer or other device isn't working and the only part thats dead is a fuse, that means the only thing it needs is a fuse, I should be able to buy a fuse and have the thing work again because this is the entire picture, oh yay I buy fuse and the thing turns on again yay 5 star review imma tell all my homies this worked for me" exists within their customer base just as it exists in however many of the Amazon reviews are actually real. What's even worse about this for local stores is they also encounter the not-quite-extinct yet subspecies of this thought process which goes roughly "Back in my day I walked 69 miles uphill both ways in the snow to get to school without needing any of these video games or magtrometers, so I'm going to bring my non-working electrical device into the local store and be as belligerent as humanly possible to the staff I'm speaking to and open the packaging right there once they show me where the fuses are and stuff one into my device and turn it on and if it blows right away then I will tell them lol what a chucklefuck youre trying to sell me something that doesnt work, back in my day when everyone walked 420 miles uphill both ways in the snow to get to school they were all honest and hard-working not like you people, oh cool this other pack of fuses makes the thing turn on and stay on when I plug it in yay kiddo you got yourself a sale you shouldve just started with this one next time and not trying to pull one over"
You should make a bigger deal out of the fact that your 1-star review simply wasn't published by Amazon. That is probably some kind of legally-defined fraud. It's certainly a practice that gets you dinged by the BBB and other consumer advisory groups. To see such a large corporation doing what fly-by-night dropshipping stores do is shocking. It's much more serious than the seller simply flooding their product listing with fake reviews.
Maybe they'd have left his review up if it was 5 stars saying, "These fuses are great! The 2amp can handle 10amps before it blows, now that's value for money."
I suspect the review was refused because he included a hyperlink, I too ran into that issue when I was linking to an external review about a shitty product. I did receive an email explaining it, maybe they stopped giving reasons or it's in his spam folder. It doesn't make sense that they would want to hide bad reviews, it's the only quality control they have on the site.
Dude. THANK YOU for making both of these videos, and a double thank you for the in depth demonstration. I've been saying for MONTHS, probably even over a YEAR at this point to everyone I know that Amazon has turned into a shitty marketplace to buy dangerous products that stop working a month in (or, in the case of this video, right out of the box), and nobody I know has ever shared this sentiment until now. Quite comforting to know I am, in fact, not going insane!
Thanks for putting your money where your mouth is. I'd call Louis Cassandra but people are actually starting to listen and realize the line between Amazon and their Chinese imitators blurs more and more each day.
I swear someone somewhere is at least a little malicious with how everything is made. How does an LED on nightlight burn out after 3 months. With how quickly things fail, I don't believe it's a quality defect anymore.
I had some random Chinese shit mistakenly sent to my address a couple years ago by Amazon. It took some doing to have them stop it actually. One of the devices was a desktop dehumidifier with a peltier cooler. I decided to”hey, let’s give it a try”. It survived in the basement for maybe a month. I haven’t even bothered to do a tear down to see what went wrong. Tossed the piece of crap right out. We really don’t need such “products” on our market. They serve little useful purpose and just end up in the landfills soon after sale. Ugh.
For anyone curious what a good fuse should behave like, the data sheet for Bussmann ATC blade fuses says a 2 amp fuse at 7 amps (or 350% of fuse rating in general) should last max 0,5 s and at 12 amps (600% of fuse rating) max 0,1 s. It doesn't specify max operating time at 400% (8 amps) but looking at the curves it should be around 0,2 s, not however long those crap fuses took to blow
the impression I got watching this, along with the cheap chinese commentary, is that the 2 amp fuse is a miscast 5 amp or 7.5 amp fuse. Its likely cheaper for them to make 2 million of one rating than for them to try and make 1m. of one rating and then 1m. of a lower rating since its less dies or whatever. Also thank you for sharing the data, i honestly might not have went about looking it up and just taken the video at face value sprinkled with my own judgement LOL
Even better would be to look at what ISO standards require of conforming fuses. Many fuse manufacturers may offer tighter guarantees regarding response time, but the applicable ISO standard would specify that at 2x current, a fuse MUST NOT blow in less than 150ms, but MUST blow within 5 seconds. A fuse that takes only 1 second to blow at 2x current might be "better" than one that takes 1.9 seconds, but both will be adequate in circuit which is properly designed for use with a fuse of that form factor, since proper design of such a circuit would require that it be able to survive 2x current for more than two seconds without fire or other such hazard.
As a German, I always was laughing about all the safety Stickers you got in the states. For instance, "Don't put cats into the microwave" or "Caution hot", and why? Because companies got sued, where are these days, can't someone sue Amazon for at least selling this crap and risks people's live or their property for example their car which could go off in flames and nobody will investigate it that the reason was the Amazon fuse. Happy new year fellas greetings from Germany
My guess would be it's because Amazon isn't selling the fuses. If you look at the seller for these products, they are always sold directly from some Chinese address with a gibberish seller name, something like "igdfhgtghgdsrghhfsdghjnff". Amazon has basically become another eBay at this point. And somehow I doubt trying to sue some made up company in China would get you very far. They would need to make a law that makes sites like eBay, Craig's List, Amazon, etc liable for the products sold on their site by third party sellers. Which I imagine would be the death of those sites other than Amazon. Amazon could survive as they do still have their own store to fall back on. Products sold by Amazon directly are still decent quality, the problem is finding them in the sea of third party sellers.
@@wild1234 😂🤣😂 did your head fall onto the keyboard igdfhgtghgdsr... but serious that's true I totally agree, someone must be responsible sooner or later, I guess more later rather than sooner, sadly. A side note, I thought on Craig's List only private people are selling?
@@Novastar.SaberCombat t TRUE isn't it an American Slogan "to big to fail" I guess this happens with Amazon to much power, to much connection to the ministry for sure.
in the US, the vendor isn't usually liable for the quality or safety of the products they sell, and instead the manufacturer is the one held liable. This is how Amazon can sell products that are unsafe or don't work and not suffer. With many vendors this system actually works since you know if you're buying something at Walmart, it's probably lower quality than something you buy at a higher end retailer where the product might be a bigger brand name and costs a bit more. but the problem with Amazon is they've become so ubiquitous that too many people just go directly to them for whatever they're thinking of buying without even considering another option, and so Amazon isn't suffering from it's poor products, and really they're so large at this point, they don't even have a customer retention department if people say they want their services and accounts deleted (I learned this by working with them directly on an issue then telling them to delete my account over their "fuck you" attitude toward me)
My first question when you were taking polls was “well, is this a slow-blow fuse and you’re impatient?” And you totally covered that possibility about 8 minutes in. Lovely and thorough!
My immediate thought was the curve as well, but I wish louis luck for those official mac schematics with his free USB stick. I did have to check, most circuit breakers here are C curve, which is no trip at 100% load, but trip to 1-2 minutes with 200% load. 5x current is instant trip.
There are standards for automotive fuses, it's not an arbitrary manufacturer decision. ISO 8820-3, SAE J2077, and a few others. Required time-current curves w/ acceptable tolerances are readily available for all of these, and could (and should) have been used for this test.
SAE J1284 is the standard for ATC style fuses. I forget the exact standard for fuse ratings, but a fuse should be able to hold the rated amps for 1 hour with out failing, and 110/115% of its rated power for less than 1 minute to compensate for current spikes at initial power on. I did a similar bench test with cheap Chinese fuses and fuses from an automotive OEM supplier. The cheap fuses results were as expected, not correct. OEM fuses were spot on with the SAE standard. I performed this bench test to validate voltage drop across a fuse to calculate current on a circuit. In the the automotive diagnostic world, measuring voltage drop across a fuse a is common way to test for parastic draws, there are published graphs to correlate voltage drop to amps. In short dont trust any replaced fuse unless you know the brand or where it was sourced.
Brand doesn't even mean anything, the random Chinese "brands" you see on Amazon are just some words they write on a bunch of products that all probably come from the same factory in shenzen, they sometimes even do a bait and switch scenario where they farm good reviews with one "brand" to build reputation then start selling the cheap crap, by the time people figure it out they just axe that "brand", stick a new label on the same products then repeat the process
@@grantrennie Bussman and Little Fuse are OEM suppliers. A 5 year old could hold a Chinese fuse and a Bussman fuse and tell you the Bussman fuse is better.
I ended up throwing out my crimp connectors from Amazon after watching the last episode. I tested to compare against the same type connectors from AutoZone, and confirmed the Amazon butt connectors did indeed just pull apart. Fortunately I don't think I've used them in anything (I always give connections a tug to check), but I had bought a bunch to keep in bulk and definitely got ripped off. This is an important series of demonstrations, especially for those of us who work with electronic components and repairs regularly.
It is important for those in the back of the classroom, but idiots need to be real they aren't buying 570 of any item and getting anything near quality. If the company you're buying from doesn't have a website... Well that's really on you
Would still make sense to look at a datasheet for a quality fuse of the same type just to get a sense of what such a fuse should be able to handle. A random search on Google and I found one from Littelfuse and their 2A fuse will last ~3s at 3A, 0.3s at 4A, .15s at 5A, which seems reasonable. And obviously a 2A fuse should not be able to withstand 8A for any perceptible duration..
yeah, i also looked at a couple blade fuse's data sheets and the most 'generous' ones were still had the current-time curve to blow in 1 second at double the rated current.
The other thing I noticed with these cheap Chinese knock off fuses is that they get very hot before they blow, even at their rated current. That leads me to believe they are using standard wire and not fuse wire...
I bought a huge fuse for my battery and solar system from Amazon. It was a reputable brand I could buy elsewhere, and it was a "store" on Amazon. The fuse got hot and melted the holder at only 80% of the rated amps. It was glowing when I smelled it and opened the circuit. I bought a replacement Bussmann fuse from an industrial supplier and everything is fine now. So it's not always that they blow it too high a current, sometimes they may cause a fire before that.
One of the first things I learned running my business, after melting lots of "heavy duty" extension leads is not to buy electrical components of Amazon. It bought a high rated cable, plugs and sockets from a big name store and wired my own extension leads and never had another down time due to fake Chinese crap on Scamazon
yep, typical "iron core" cheap fuse, they are just lamps, they heat until everything is melted or on fire, unfortunately aliexpress, ebay and amazon are full of them
I've noticed this trend of cheap garbage overwhelming the search results as well. Further, with the lack of oversight I worry that the "Real Brands" I buy off Amazon will be counterfeit as well. I've been trending back to brick and mortar stores, myself. They aren't immune to counterfeit garbage either, but at least it's far less likely overall. So far.
Same, there’s some sketch stuff and results on Amazon. Gotta be on guard shopping over there. It’s like eBay before they cracked down to defend their reputation that had tanked in the past.
I don't know if you saw my previous comment, but sometimes the reviews on products are not "fake" but reviews from another product. Companies or organizations will sometimes use a successful product page and simply change all of the information and images to a new product, while keeping the old reviews for that other product up, bumping them up in search results and giving their product a guise of authenticity. Go to the reviews of any highly rated (and especially cheap) product and actually read the reviews. Sometimes, the reviews talk about something entirely different than what you are trying to purchase, which is a huge red flag.
I'v noticed that many times yes, it is a serious trustworthiness issue. They use the same trick when a product gets completely redesigned; the good reviews for the older version turn up under the listing for the new version.
I knew they sometimes would switch to lower quality versions of the same product, but I didn't realize they could actually switch to an entirely different product. That's an amazingly big loophole that Amazon should have fixed forever ago.
Amazon either doesn't care, or doesn't have a system in place to monitor when a product page is altered in this way for whatever reason. So now as a rule of thumb when i buy stuff on amazon i look at the reviews to ensure they are talking about that product, and ignore 5 star reviews that just say a few words of praise as i don't trust those if they are too many@@maidsandmuses
Yes it is, and i only realized this practice was a thing this year. Im not entirely positive how they do it, but they likely sell a legitimate product for a while and get lots of positive reviews then simply change the entire product page later. Apparently Amazon is either unwilling or unable to stop this from happening by forcing them to create a fresh listing instead of re-using an old one. @@renakunisaki
That's a plothole that spells doom for Amazon. Amazon shouldn't be giving its retailers the power to manipulate Amazon's own listings in this way. I can already often find reputable products cheaper elsewhere than Amazon. Even coming from the same retailer... Edit: this is why I just let my prime membership lapse.
As a EE, as you predicted, I wanted to see the trip curves. While I do not have the datasheet for your Amazon fuses, I was curious to see what the curves are like for most automotive fuses. Generally I see that at 4 amps a 2 amp fuse should open in about 5 seconds. Less than a second at 8 amps.
Exactly most time-current characteristics for automotive blade fuses show that at 200% of fuse rated current (In) it should blow in less than 5 seconds. Also worth mentioning is that typically at 110% of In fuse should last as long as predicted MTBF and at 160% of In it can last up to 50s (kzper 5A fuse at 8A for only few seconds before bump to 10A was quite in specs). As a EE I would like also to point that Louis explaining automotive fuses got it over simplified. Automotive fuses are not like micro fuses protecting circuit boards. They are in first place to protect wires that run around your car so that they do not turn into lighter and to a lesser extent to protect receivers and users. Fuse creates weak spot in a wire so it overheats and blows before the wire gets so hot it burns its insulation. Important part is that it does not mean fuse will blow instantly! Enough power must be dissipated at melting element to blow it. Power sources should have its own overload protection (they can cut-off or drop voltage) except if they are `special offer` knock-offs or straight scam. That of course does not change the fact that at 350% of In, quality fuses blow in less than 0,5s. Example specs: www.pecj.co.jp/en/fuse/outline/p3.html m.littelfuse.com/~/media/automotive/datasheets/fuses/passenger-car-and-commercial-vehicle/blade-fuses/littelfuse_atof_datasheet.pdf
@@szymoncwojdzinski5624 What, no temperature qualification? Not pedantic enough to qualify for an EE. Though you did lead with MTBF. And there is no more BS measurement than that. So maybe....
@@LackofFaithify Yep, point out one shortcut term to call the rest BS and too pedantic. But guess what - engineering is about being "pedantic". 101 for the fuses is: 1) Fuses do not blow at their rated current they do at slightly higher value called minimum breaking current. 2. It takes time to blow a fuse - the more time the less above the minimum breaking current it is on.
@@DailyCorvid My point is that this stuff doesn't happen in real life. Louis is not going to get assassinated by Amazon for making videos about them If you think he's at risk of it then you've probably watched too many movies and its affecting your perception of reality
Voltage is not a factor in the current handling of a fuse. A 32V 2A fuse should blow at the same current as a 250V 2A fuse. The voltage rating only becomes a factor once the fuse has blown and the potential for arcing occurs.
Should probably have done the test at 12V since that is the voltage that most of these fuses will be used at. As you say, it shouldn't make any difference to the result.
@@justinsmith2363 The test would be the same. Weather its 12v or 32 volts, the fuse does not know the difference. Theres know way it can "tell" what the source voltage is, it will look identical, because for a given current, the fuse will drop the same amount of voltage
Yep. Last summer I fried two HVAC transformers as a result of faulty 3A fuses i bought from Amazon. I bought a new pack of 3A fuses from Home Depot and no problems. Thanks for shedding light on these issues with products sold on Amazon.
This is Project Farm level content, Louis. That's high praise. I'm an idiot when it comes to electronics but I know enough to be appalled by these results. It's on a par with being sold a truck advertising payload capacity of 5 tons that can only handle 1 ton. It's the type of irresponsible behavior that results in manslaughter or murder charges.
Pro Tip: If you ever have the main fuse in your audio amp blow, replacing the fuse may actually cause more damage than it already had. When the outputs short out and the main fuse blows, replacing the fuse can cause the output resistors to open causing a cascade of failures without the fuse blowing. Back when I did audio repair, we'd use a light bulb in place of the fuse to test for shorts before putting a fuse in it just to avoid that scenario.
Your comment is 100% true in most cases. But to an exception like in my scenario where I had a slow blow 2amp fuse blow in my Logitech Z5500 5.1 surround PC sound system, where the fuse blew after 2 years of operation. I then replaced the fuse with exactly same slow blow 2amp fuse and the system has been running for the last 10 years with no faults or fuse's blowing again. Now IMO I would put this down to an over voltage/ over current problem from input power, like a spike from lightning taking mains power out then reconnecting and creating a surge in the process.
I have a couple of clip on 220ohm 10W resistors to clip across the rail fuses on the big amps I occasionally fix. Sadly you can’t do that with newer amps. No DC Rail fuses. Switch mode supplies make it harder. Multi rail switch mode supplies or class D amps with surface mount, no schematics and a DSP chip that’s either no longer made or _never existed_ Best amps have lots of gravity in them, caps the size of a can of beer and rail fuses made from coat hanger wire.
Today I found cryogenic gloves on Amazon which can apparently handle temperatures as low as -360 °C (which is below absolute zero which is −273.15 °C). Very impressive
Linus: *spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on state of the art equipment and still hasn't done much actual product testing and making the internet a safer place.* Louis: *has whatever wires and devices he could find around his shop and is doing a better job product testing and reviewing to raise awareness.*
@@Constaxtheir incessant "AMD VERSUS INTEL" and "OMG NO INTEL DIDN'T NOT UH!!!" Videos really show how much of a sellout they are to both Intel and AMD. (Sponsored by Intel).
A lot has changed since I started watching you some years ago...but one thing has remained the same! You, Louis, always give it to us straight. It is, as a person of even middling self respect, extremely frustrating how badly we have been taken advantage of. I'm sure that at times it feels like you're banging your head against the wall and that no one is listening. Fortunately, a lot of us are. Unfortunately, ignorant people tend not to pay attention to logical chatter so...we're probably doomed to continue this cycle until we can simply stop giving these companies our money
Was once working on my old mans classic car and spotted a nail in the place of a fuse. I asked him what that was about and he said the fuse blew so he put the nail in temporarily to get him home. I asked when that happened and he said "about 10 years ago". I'd trust that nail to blow more reliably than I'd trust these amazon fuses you tested :p
Regulators absolutely need to step in here. Otherwise there's going to be a lawsuit or class action when somebody uses something like this and it ends in an incident that kills people
1. Amazon probably can't be blamed for the products they sell failing, that's the manafacturer's fault 2. The manafacturer is based in China and is probably effectively out of reach of the US court So a law suit will probably fail before it even starts.
Yeah, there will be. Brand will be out of amazon, they will be unable to prosecute producent for damages because they are in china and they wont be able to prosecute amazon because they arent liable for what is sold on their website. But worry not, the producent will rebrand and will continue selling on amazon under different name. This game was already played and until law changes you can't do anything about it.
I think that's why Amazon likes Chinese sellers. If something does happen Amazon can simply blame the seller and take down the product. Meanwhile it's impossible for the government to punish Chinese sellers who will then go on to list the same product under a different brand name. It's a game of whack-a-mole enabled by Amazon that allows them to sell dangerous products with impunity. Amazon does have a legal obligation to take down unsafe products after they've been publicly made aware that they are unsafe but unfortunately due to the above it's easy for them to get around that.
I had the same experience with a pack of UK fuses I bought from Amazon. I had a 3amp fuse blow in a Samsung TV, so I bought a set to see if it would blow again. Guess what, the 16 amp breaker went instead and the replacement 3 amp fuse was still good. Never buying this type of product from Amazon again.
Amazon has been speed running my departure for the last couple years. Just started watching this video but I totally know what the outcome will be. I canceled Prime after being told I have to pay for ads on Prime Video even though most everything (movies, etc) on Prime Video is now pay to watch anyway.
5 stars - the fuses keep blowing in my car, but these ones work great. NOTE: this was my dad's final Amazon review, before he died in an unexplained car fire. I know he would have wanted me to post his final review, my dad loved Amazon. Keep buying and don't ask questions!
I purchased a Vick's thermometer from Amazon (from the 'Vick's Store' seller), but what I received looked off from the thermometer I already had and the images from the product page. I started looking into it based on the model number and other features on the thermometer and eventually got into contact with Vick's customer support when I couldn't find a matching patent for that model number. The model number on the thermometer didn't match anything they made according to the customer support person I spoke to, and it didn't have the 'vapor' pattern on the power button as it should have. I left a review on Amazon reflecting all of this information, including that everything I'd suspected about it was confirmed by Vick's itself, but the review was rejected. This a product that people put into their mouths and their children's mouths, this isn't just a shirt that falls apart (not not that isn't annoying, too), but this is a genuine potential safety issue. That tells you all you need to know about how much Amazon cares about the safety of its products and well-being of its customers.
One thing I would have liked to see was a comparison to something like a Bussmann fuse that you might pick up at your local autozone store, just so we can see what the "expected" behavior is.
@@volvo09 Fair enough. When I first posted this I didn't consider that the data sheet is readily available for brand name fuses. Interestingly, the "less than a second" isn't even guaranteed on brand name Bussmann fuses. The spec sheet says, @200%, the minimum blow time is 0.15 seconds - but the maximum is 5 seconds. www.eaton.com/content/dam/eaton/products/electrical-circuit-protection/fuses/bussmann-series-supplemental-fuses/automotive-blade-type/bus-ele-ds-2048-atm-series.pdf
Hey louis, loved your video. I am a licensed electrical engineer. I pulled the spec sheet for the bussman/eaton atc fuses(which are publicly available) and 10amp operate time for a 2 amp fuse is .1 seconds. While there may be some deviation between manufacturers ATC is an industry standard and they should be simiar.
"industry standards"? Chinese products aren't held back from innovating by American standards. Their fuses don't fail at a measly 2 amps. They've engineered a way to get 8 amps out of them. It's impressive technology of you don't think about it too much.
.......you're being sarcastic right? I'm no electric engineer but even I can tell when a component is labelled exact Amp values and comes with a note telling you to use the exact one they do not mean for you to down size them yourself (of which I'm skeptical if you're even supposed to do that with a fuse wire). Well if you aren't a "kit" also means "a packaged collection of related material" (from merriam-webster) as is the obvious case here.
I once posted a review saying I though the halogen bulbs I bought were fakes because of the low quality packaging only time my review has ever been removed from amazon.
@@rossmanngroup Also, by saying "don't take my word for it" and to encourage them to independently verify it for themselves means that any skeptic from any state or any country that Amazon ships to can replicate this experiment. Bring. Back. Radio. Shack!
Can I make a recommendation? Just put one power supply in constant current mode and connect it directly to the fuse. You don't need voltage, or to dissipate power in the resistors for the fuse to blow, and they don't limit power, only current. Just turn up the current until the fuse pops.
Louis was trying to emulate an actual circuit, as we would find in the wild; rather than create a light bulb from the fuse. The resister is the load, not the fuse..... the fuse must sever when the LOAD exceeds the fuse rating. Creating a direct short might muddle the results....... meaning these fuses likely would allow a greater draw that if shorted out directly. Maybe, for the purpose of a test, a short is the same as a completed circuit, I am a locksmith, not an elekchicken! Can we call Bussman or Littlefuse, and have then chime in here? It would really be interesting to get their input.
Did you not listen to his comments on peanut gallery? If he did as you suggested, somebody would complain it's not a real world test. Engineers! Sheesh. Louis did a fine job. I'm a mere machinist & trade schooled '94+ high school '92 electric curriculum. I'm always fanatic about my crimps when I use them. I did have a similar issue with an Amazon window defroster. Junk. It wiped out a 20A Dodge Ram socket. I used that heater about 3 times as I recall.
@@MattsRangerForgive me for not wanting to argue with someone who couldn't spell resistor earlier. You, I'll make an effort for though. All tests are by definition not real world, they are tests. Fuses blow based on current, fuse voltage ratings are there for other factors like arc protection and insulation. What Louis is demonstrating is not a "real world test" but he is instead demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of how electronics work. This is not particularly complicated stuff, I only identified myself as an engineer because I didn't feel like arguing, and because it gives me some credibility that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to electronics, just like I assume you know what you're talking about when it comes to machining. So, let me break it down. Fuses blow when they heat up. They're made up of a conductive metal with a specific melting point and a fixed resistance. Yes, they look almost like a dead short, but there is some resistance there, probably in the miliohms. Heat is produced when power is dissipated, we can calculate that with an equation, power equals current squared times resistance (P=I^2*R) where resistance is the resistance of the fuse, not of the overall circuit. You can also calculate that based on voltage, but since the resistance is constant, voltage and current will always be proportional in the fuse according to ohm's law V=IR. So, current in the fuse causes heating, heating blows the fuse. The overall voltage of the circuit is inconsequential, only the resistance and current in the fuse matter. So... in a "real world test", we don't need resistors to act as a load, just test the fuse according to it's design specifications and we can see whether it performs as advertised. Now, if you were testing the fuse's voltage rating and arc resistance, then you would need the resistive load. But since we're only testing the fuse's rated current, we don't need a load.
Yep. I discovered this when I was restoring an older model car when the park lights went out. Long story short, the Amazon fuse did NOT blow, the result being almost burning out the wiring for the lights (found out to be a bad ground and fixed it). Ended up buying a pack of fuses from the local electronics store, never had a problem to this DAY.
I would have ordered all the wires and fittings for the repair. Then file claims on all of it with various complaints while retaining what I needed from the order. For instance, the wire. Buy a 100 foot roll, claim it was already opened, even though I opened it and used the wire I needed. On the crimp fittings. (Buy good ones!) A 100 pack or so. Then claim the packaging was opened. Again, this was you, not the whoever your blaming. Amazon needs to pay for this crap. If not them then their retailers. All using their own system. This is how I would hold them accountable, while also pushing hard on customer service and possibly contacting a lawyer.
Im going to stop using amazon and encourage my family to do the same because it is clear to me now that shopping from amazon has a good chance of endangering my life. Thank you for your hard work Louis.
Oh yea amazing work on being so ignorant to how fuses work. For an electrical engineer to be this ignorant? Has to be purposeful. How can he not know fuses have something called a time-current curve. Hell look at the time-current curve for littelfuse, american made good fuses. Their 30A rated mini fuse takes around 90A anything lower than 80 could take up to 15 minutes to blow the fuse. It's literally how fuses are designed to work. He's just mad amazon deactivated his account for being a shitty person so he has went on a smear campaign against them. Only he just thought he was smarter than he is as it turns out he doesn't know how a fuse works.
@@underscore6071 Yup. Their datasheet for their automotive 2amp fuse says it will blow in 0.6 seconds at 4amps. An 8amp load should blow the fuse in about 0.08 seconds. Their 30amp automotive fuse takes 20 seconds to blow at 60amps.
My only criticism of Luis is that I wish he had gone to a local national chain and bought some for the same price and tested them as well, that way we could see how the "good ones" work.
@@underscore6071you're obsessed, you're literally needlessly calling him a shitty person even tho he's not done anything wrong. Are you the state of NY?
@@jer280 I mean look at what he's doing. He made such an ignorant video and is misleading people and for what? Is it because amazon banned his affiliates account because he thought he was all high and mighty and untouchable? That's his own fault for slandering amazon the way he did and thinking he was somehow untouchable. I'm obsessed for pointing out to people that he doesn't know how a fuse works in this video? People should know how fuses work since it will keep them safe and not ignorant. He won't even acknowledge it after it's been pointed out. Shows how much he gives a shit about educating compared to slandering.
Now I need to replace all of my fuses in my boat!! This video series needs to continue and other CZcamsrs should join in. Amazon has already took the business of so many caring mom and pop stores, and even large companies like Fry's. I'm sure the former mom and pops are slaving along the isles of Amazon picking and packing.
I can attest to that. I had a whole motorcycle wiring harness burn up under me while riding, because the previous owner had replaced the original fuse link with a much bigger one, to cope with an intermittent short circuit, unknown to me.
Wouldn't that be unsafe having the rubber cap open? I think these should have metal posts out the top so the spark can go up the rod when they are on. Like the old mad scientist labs......
@@erik_dk842were you on Moto Madness, where a bunch of people would empty their water bottles on the bike, and start throwing handfuls of dirt onto the bike to try and put it out?
Yep, I've tried to leave reviews on things in the past as well. They always flagged them with some bullshit to keep them from posting. Every single low review was never posted. I don't use Amazon anymore.
I am not an electrical engineer but still watched your video (as well as the last one) because of the larger point you are making very well about the dropoff in quality of what is sold on Amazon. I have observed myself over the last few years how when I do a product search in Amazon, the top results are always some strange Chinese sounding names that Ive never heard of, and miraculously there are 10,000 5 star reviews of these products. I'm now conditioned to be very skeptical about Amazon reviews, whereas in the past, I would trust them. I've also found that with a little extra effort, I can find the products I need from different vendors at lower prices. I now have to seriously consider dropping my Prime subscription. The only thing I really am using it for now is the unlimited cloud storage for my 20 plus years of digital photographs. Once I find an alternative cloud storage, I'll have no reason to continue my Prime subscription.
If you don't hate Microsoft, OneDrive is an option. You can get 100GB for like a dollar. They hide that option in favour of Office. And the cost for Office which comes with 1TB is the same as Prime.
The Chinese should probably start to regulate themselves as a lot of companies are pulling out of their country. My Korean wife won't, for the most part, buy Chinese products because she doesn't trust them. The country I trust the most for quality products is Germany. I brought a German vacuum, and have had it for 10+ years now, excellent product. I brought German made laminate flooring, best flooring I ever brought. As for stores I find Costco tends to sell quality products.
The Chinese sellers are very sneaky. Most of the positive reviews are a scam. The sellers have hundreds of people buy their products so they are allowed to leave reviews. When the people leave a positive review, the sellers give them their money back via PayPal and let them keep the item for free. Once they get enough positive reviews they stop giving the products away for free and then get on the first page of the search results. A friend of mine used to be in a network of thousands of Americans that would get hundreds of free items from Chinese Amazon sellers who got their money back via PayPal in exchange for a positive review for the sellers. The main goal for these sellers is to end up on page one of the Amazon search results and this is how they accomplish that. Amazon cannot police this and it goes under their radar.
I also forgot to mention that when enough people were onto them and the product failed and regular people bought them and started leaving negative reviews, the sellers would change their weird Chinese brand name from something like BallSacki to CockSacki. Then they would make a whole new product listing for the same product under a different brand name. Next they would do the same thing by giving out free products, with the same people they worked with before and giving them money back via PayPal and hundreds of people would leave fake positive reviews. Within a week they would be back on the first page of results. Most of the reviews are definitely fake and paid for.
I thank you very much for this series Louis. Several months ago, I lost the AC fuse from my car's fusebox and had to get a new one from the hardware store. I went to 3 different stores before I found any that were in stock, and was at the point where I considered just ordering a pack off amazon. The results of this test has made me VERY glad that I did not proceed with ordering on amazon.
An automotive 2A fuse passing 3A should blow in ~2 seconds average, at 4A it should be an absolute maximum of 5 seconds. Uh, crap. I actually used some of these. Thanks for making more work for me, Louis, now I have to go open up some car fuseboxes and replace them! I feel like an idiot.
You are not an idiot, tons of smart people believe we still live in a high trust society, and companies like this take advantage of that. I will never make fun of you for believing that multi-trillion dollar companies are held to the same standard as my electronics shop. but I will point it out every chance I get! Thanks for watching.
@@rossmanngroup The thing is, it's not like I am unaware of junk products! In the end it comes down to "I need one now" added to some mental calculation about how likely they would be to make this product a scam. I think at this point, we are all doing that calculation, right? It's pretty sad. Thanks for testing these.
@@rossmanngroupyou nailed it dude, we are basically a low trust society, we are maybe not quite china tier but getting there fast. And go figure, they make all our stuff for us because we are too fat stupid and lazy to make it ourselves
The solution is easy enough. If you haven’t heard of the company and the product is any way safety related, don’t buy it. Socks yes, fuses no. The Chinese will do and say anything, as often as not in scrambled English, to sell their merchandise.
I've bought automotive fuses on Amazon for my van build and I'm going to rip them out asap. I've also got an 150AMP ANL fuse protecting my utility batteries and the idea it might not blow scares me. Thank you for this video.
It's really telling when there's no way for a customer to distinguish between a good and bad product on Amazon. It is good that good fuses actually exist on there, like you've shown, but if they're effectively the same rating on there and cost 5% more than the crappy ones, people will flock to the crappy ones.
Yeah, he went over that as well. People will buy the cheaper product, even if it's going to cost them more or kill them. It's why my family member don't do second hand or "economy" brand crap for our cars, our lives aren't worth saving a few bucks. Heck I think Louis explained he won't sell on Amazon because people were buying a "cheaper" screen for their laptop, that was the wrong screen and wouldn't work in their device, smash it trying to get it to work, then refund it before he could even explain to Amazon why the customer is stupid. He even put a disclaimer on that specific screen saying IT WILL NOT WORK with what customers were trying to use it for. So he's the asshole because customer's are stupid, buying the wrong parts after being explicitly told what they can't use it for, but buy it anyways and destroy it trying to install it incorrectly because "it's cheaper". But what does the guy who does this for a living know, it's clearly his fault the customer bough the wrong product and destroyed it trying to use it for something he literally said it can't be used for.
be real careful buying more expensive products and expecting them to work better. That's not how the game works. vendors can and do raise prices to justify imaginary quality. If the price is what indicates quality for you, you will start to chase your own tail. if the product is not safety critical and/or you can verify that it works, just test it. If it doesn't, send it back and leave a bad review. That way producing bad products is less sustainable. But nowadays lots of people just buy the more expensive option, which is a double win for crappy venors. They can still sell shitty/dangerous products and make more money per sell
@@Xershade It's also very hard to find the description on amazon for a product, their layout is absolute zoomer distraction garbage, it has so many banners of other products and sponsers and shit I'm suprised a subway runners or minecraft parkour video isn't playing too. Go to any normal website and go to a product page and you get a name, a picture or more, a price, and maybe even the model number up on the top if it's industrial, and a brief product description, then you scroll down and get all the product specs, model numbers, tolerances, datasheets and everything you need. It's very hard to know what you're getting on amazon is exactly what you are looking for beyond reading the title and lookinf at the pictures, most don't have extra information posted and some listings were put up by a retard who copy pasted the same thing from the last listing he put just up and didn't notice.
It is not enough to just buy reputable brands as there are so many fakes, but also to buy from a reputable supplier. I have seen exactly the same product listed for around 10 times the price to catch out the 'expensive must be better' buyer.
I've tried for YEARS to warn people about fake reviews, deleted legit reviews, and the scamming ways of the 'Zon. But nope... I was always mocked, blocked, cajoled, trolled, and socially restricted. 💪😎✌️ That's how a dictatorship functions, baby!
4 stars: Had to dock a point due to the funky smell but it works great! I've been using this fuse for a week now and never had to replace it. Very robust. It's just a shame it emits a faint odor. Perfect for outdoor use
It's in my car, when driving there is a faint smell, but it cured the problem when driving with lights on... The smell goes when I have the windows open. 5* and praise to the seller for shipping to me so quickly. I had confirmation the order was at my front door and I didn't even hear the Amazon delivery person - what a hero.
A big problem with reviews on Amazon and sites like it is that people are encouraged to leave reviews as soon as the item arrives. Very rarely do I see long term reviews on the site. People just seem happy enough to give things 5 stars if something arrives on time and switches on.
I actually had a great surprise with a local online tyre retailer that after a few months sent an email asking for a review. They actually realised that you can't really have an opinion on a product after you just received it unlike 99.99% of online retailers that want a review pretty much as soon as you got the product.
Be careful when overheating those aluminium housed resistors, they can go off violently and fire the potting material out the ends like a shotgun. The old ones with a sand/cement fill died quietly, but the newer ones with black (epoxy?) potting build pressure and can go out with quite a bang.
The German electrician and CZcamsr _Great Scott!_ has an entire series where he finds hidden gems on various bottom-of-the-barrel eCommerce platforms. It's essentially roulette. The trick is that since he's an electrician with a ton of testing equipment, he can verify with his purchases that it'll never be of the _Russian_ variety.
The really dumb thing is that there are plenty of idiots who see fuses as some garbage that gets in the way of getting power delivered to their equipment. These are people who would legitimately give a favorable review on a fuse that "can handle" more current than the label actually says it can, while still passing superficial safety inspections/audits, because they actually think this is a good thing because it means they won't need to replace the fuse as often.
@@martenkahr3365 🤣 I can see some moron doing what you describe. If your fuse blows every time, maybe look at your circuit again, then there is something most likely wrong with it. Never would buy fuses on Amazon, always mouser or digikey. The breakout boards and prototype pcb's are fine tho, not much one can mess up on those and got several stacks of them xD.
@@martenkahr3365 this is the classic people that overrides fuses with big wire or other metal parts. Let them do it, it just means their equipment breaks more often and they have to call a tech for repairs.
What we need are laws making marketplaces like Amazon responsible for the items they sell. If Amazon is the company that charges your card, Amazon, not the third party supplier, should be considered the actual seller.
LOL this guy thinks more gov just solves problems. Who do you think writes the laws, buck-o? It's the big corps. It's called rent-seeking. This is a tale as old as time - corruption. The state will create a bunch of worthless, corrupt entities, e.g. FDA, and give you the false sense of security, all while big banks steal you blind, food companies put lead in your food, companies can poison the wells with impunity, and Chinese trash can roam free on e-marketplaces that will kill you. A truly free market would mean that companies can't hide behind the state and regulation. They can't shield themselves from competition. They can't sue others into oblivion over the false notion of "intellectual property" (i.e. gov monopolization of ideas enforced at gunpoint). More competition = better.
Ignore the card. If Amazon is modifying the comments and scores (by deleting some of them), then they are endorsing and selling those products. So if they sell, endorse and lie, then they should be taking responsibility for any dangers that product causes.
I'm not sure about that. That would make stores legally liable for all the products they stock. And absolve the manufacturers. I don't think small retailers could survive that. There should be some level of shared responsibility.
@@andybrice2711 Look it up ... at least under California law (and many or most other states also). Manufacturers are not absolved of liability by suing a retailer. They are usually the ones sued but technically everyone in the chain of distribution can be sued for defective products sold (maker, distributor and retailer) and held full or partially liable. Here Amazon would be the deep pocket and thus a good defendant. Plus easier to sue and serve a lawsuit on than the fuse manufacturer in China.
I tried to review a water filter for my refrigerator that claimed to be a genuine GE water filter but when i put it on it put out all kinds of black dust into water so i cut it open with bandsaw and an old filter that was real GE and they were completely different inside one was a nice smooth carbon dome very even and smooth with no way the water could bypass it and the other was a lump of charcoal with mesh glued to it to keep it in one piece and two plastic end caps glued on well one of the end caps had fallen off and water was coming out the open end with some charcoal dust from the break. amazon said my review was not allowed because the company I bought it from said they are real GE filters and apparently nobody is allowed to dispute that because they would never lie.
Louis, you need to get an electronic load. It's like the opposite of a power supply - you dial in how much current (or watts) you want it to consume and it controls its own resistance to match that. $500 gets you a unit that can consume 0-60A, more money gets you milliamp-level resolution. Honestly impressive the number of times it comes in handy, and it's shocking that most people don't know about them.
You are not some random internet youtuber, This is what you do and we see and trust you. You show the results and the outcomes. Thank you Louis. We appreciate everything you have done to expose this corrupt world of tech, right to repair and so much more. Ive never been to NY and seeing things now I never will, lol. Another great video. thank you.☺
Dude i was just ordering one of those fuse sets when i saw your video. Thanks for the excellent service you provide. Potential disaster averted. thank you so much for exposing such scams. You are a GOAT :)
100% agree. I'm increasingly caught out with fake components on amazon. My last order was a fake bunch of LM317 regulators. I order from RS in the UK now which is pretty expensive but you always get a datasheet and get exactly what you order.
I learned that the hard way, A bunch of expensive genuine components stuck to a board littered with just a few knockoff pieces that don't work is still worth nothing. In fact, a bunch of money was wasted trying to be cheap. Never again. At least you can buy linear regulators at the major suppliers again, unlike the dark years...
My guess would be that the factory producing those "defective" fuses has a single production line that makes 10A fuses and then they put different collors and branding as asked by the wholesalers, because the production cost for the different colored plastic is almost insignificant compared to having multiple production lines dedicated to each fuse rating.
I though about that too, maybe its not the factory, but someone in the long supply chain. But as a customer how are you supposed to know that ? you don't, you trust the frontend store, which is Amazon, so the only conclusion is to never trust Amazon and only buy things from them when you already what they are, or never, which is the point of the video.
The entire western society is going downhill because cheaters are eroding the trust in the system. People don't trust governments or corporations or anything, soon everything decays to chaos. Maybe that's inevitable, maybe we need a new social contract like what happened after the second world war ended, is that possible without another war, who knows.
They are apparently all hold 50 amp at 12V without popping. Reviews I have seen have tested many sizes of each brand, to find you are eXACTLY correct.... ame fuse has the color and number painted on the edge you want, all at 50A
Great video, Louis. I looked up the datasheet for a brand name fuse, and the 2A version should have opened in 0.1s at 6 amps if it was designed correctly. Yikes!
26:12 You would be surprised. Penny pinching management types will buy these fuse kits for their technicians because it's cheaper, and that means professionals are putting these fuses in people's stuff for pay. It isn't just a DIY problem. It affects every aspect of the repair chain.
I really lamented Radio Shack closing, because I just knew that rank amateurs like me were never going to be able to find electronics components reliably through paper or online catalogs.
OK. A 2A fuse should not blow at 2A current. But overloading a car fuse at 200% of its rated current should blow it in a second. At least that's what the data sheets for documented fuses say.
@@vinvinvichiiyeah watching to the end where he gets a quality fuse illustrates the point. The quality is way outside even the basic specs you would expectm
I've ordered a few items where Amazon has sent me a recall notice a few months later asking me to throw the product out. The worst one was a hair dryer brush I purchased as a gift for my mom and apparently there was a risk of electrocution if water got to some parts of it. The brush was marketed as a hair dryer brush combo that would dry your wet hair as you brushed it so I was very surprised when I got the recall notice. The product was thrown out and Amazon sent me a full refund for it.
@@balsalmalberto8086 Another one I remember was a replacement laptop charger. It got recalled because it was a fire hazard lol. As for the brush, it was some off brand one that had 4.5 stars and almost 3,000 reviews with people praising it - which is the whole point of this video that consumers are being misled into buying unsafe products because of how Amazon works.
Specially because they have the flag "AMAZON CHOICE" which before watching your video I thought that the flag meant something... Like amazon picks one because it is the best one available at the moment or because amazon tested and agrees that it is good enough to deserve the "AMAZON CHOICE" flag... Thanks for the video! VERY IMPORTANT, I THINK ALL AMAZON EXECUTIVES SHOULD WATCH THIS!
Amazon's margins aren't that great. It's been one of the major criticisms that their shareholders have had since, well, since they've had shareholders. Even if they did test one example of everything they tested (which by itself would be a monumental task and would push up prices to the point that customers would simply go to other marketplaces *ahem* eBay *ahem* and roll the dice) the volume is such that suppliers could easily slip in lower quality product for restocks at any point.
Radio Shack was my go to place for electronic parts decades ago. Fry's Electronics was where I got parts from after that. Now that they're both gone, this is what we have to to deal with. I've never been a fan of allowing other businesses to sell on Amazon. Half of those sellers don't even box the items properly. I can accept the sellers whose products are fulfilled by Amazon meaning they are boxed in an Amazon warehouse, but not the ones who ship directly from those sellers thereby bypassing Amazon altogether. Walmart started doing the same practice on their website with its "marketplace". In fact it's often hard to distinguish the "shipped and sold by Walmart" items from the 3rd party sellers. As far as this being the downfall of Amazon, I'm afraid it will take a lot more than that to hurt them.
Seemed like someone made a video about fake fuses that were all the same rating but they were colored as if different. He laid them next to each other and the part that melts was exactly the same no matter the rating. Something to think about when you buy a used car from someone who is being as cheap as possible to fix it.
During the supply chain issues a couple years ago Amazon was the only place I could get different parts I needed for a big electronics project and unreliable connectors/ICs/power supplies combined with a manager who always asked for more features and doubled capacity as soon as the prototypes were functional instead of finding and fixing bugs ultimately doomed the project.
Recently, I bought some Hakko cutting pliers, and I did a review mentioning that they're of good quality despite the price. However, Amazon blocked my review, claiming that it violated "community guidelines... 😡"
Very alarming. Many people myself included have placed a lot of stock in Amazon reviews, especially where there are a large number. Its not just the issue of fuses and crimps. It brings into question everything on Amazon. This really complicates things for consumers. I can adapt as doing research and comparing different sources is something I'm good at, but the average consumer is screwed.
placing trust in reviews is trusting advice from total strangers it's best to never pay attention to reviews of anything - music, doctors, YT videos, vehicles, restaurants, movies... the best testament to value or quality is staying power and reviews is just strangers saying "trust me bro"
@@likebot. and a review for "technical" stuff on a NON technical platform most users ordered box of fuses and plugged the fuse with the right number and whatever worked again so 100% satisfactory and SHOULD get a 4+ rating BUT they dont know HOW to test and are EXPECTING to NOT NEED to test them in this case the rating are TRUE and MISLEADING at the same time
Years ago, reviews worked as a way to tell real products from trash. Then around 2015 or so I noticed that real quality products had lower average reviews than fake items. Around 2017 or so, Amazon started pushing the trash products in their recommendations. Today it is very difficult to find good products on Amazon unless you already know which companies provide good products.
These amazon videos have certainly made me more hesitant to buy things from amazon. Now I research everything potentially dangerous that I'd buy on amazon and usually opt to buy from actual retail stores now.
Years ago I tried searching Amazon for an HDD-to-USB adapter to back up an old hard drive. I had to dig to find one that didn't have reviews mentioning sparks or smoke or fire. Ultimately the one I bought did its job (as I cautiously watched). I can only imagine the situation there now.
It's the dogshit power supply that comes with them. I've been shown a few over the years. One had 350V on the 12V and 5V output with a 100Hz ripple, luckily the house power was automatically cut when this was plugged in.... Another output 20V out of both 5V and 12V blowing up the laptop and the drive in the process. And another connected the live to ground (or the neutral) but being UK, the plug isn't reversible so the 240V AC was connected via the USB shield to the laptop, the person made a circuit by resting their hand on the drive to feel if it was doing anything... All the power to the house went off (lucky RCD fitment) I always chuck cheap Chinese power supplies, they are always dangerous and shitty.
Those 100W resistors are also only rated at 10W when in free air. To get the 100W rating you need them firmly bolted to a rather large thick heatsink block.
I think you should do a comparison with a quality name brand fuse like Bussmann or Littelfuse. Compare the time it takes to trip. Given that these fuses are supposed to meet SAE specifications they should have similar if not identical time to trip at a given current and ambient temp.
It is probably easier to change the color than to change the wire. It is kinda hard to unintentionally produce a part so far out of spec. Is there by a chance a number of different colors that burn at the exact same threshold?
@@jakobstengard3672 My thoughts exactly. "Hey it is the same metal anyway, why bother?" Also no QA, or just blatant ignorance of a major fuck-up. Totally disgusting.
@@jakobstengard3672Eh, while the Chinese government is horrible and racist, and while I don't trust any of the large Chinese companies, you can't just blame all of the evil in the world on a nation. We don't know if the fuses were sold like this from China or if it was a batch of 10A fuses, and the person who knowingly sells defective goods to end consumers (due to deleted reviews) is likely living in the USA.
Normally you should expect all fuse of X rating to have the same color, aka 10amp=red (but may have different color shade) The 2amp that blew up at 8-10 was definitely iron-based. Any good fuse in the style you put in a car will use metals that have a lower or equal to melting point than/to Tin. Any small fuse will have a low melting point metal (less than ~500°c)
I am fascinated by the fact that fuses for less current take less material to do, so not they only fail as a product but manufacturer also using MORE material thus making less fuses than it could make. Awesome!
I was surprised at the crimps video because I've had different personal experiences, but I can confirm what you demonstrated here. I've had fuses provided with cheap chinese products fail me multiple times, for example I've had a fuse for a 3d printer melt the plastic casing and the holder as well before it eventually blew, but the best part is that there was nothing wrong with the printer, nothing that made it go past the normal current rating, replaced the holder and fuse with one found at a local auto parts store, same rating and never had an issue again. I've had others not blow when there was a short, leading to a current probably ten fold the rating of the fuse.
Thanks for all the educational stuff you keep making! I live in the EU, but learning new things and hearing you expose the shitty stuff companies do worldwide always teach my University-student brain things I never would've found out otherwise (before it was too late probably)!
I had a car almost catch fire from a Chinese fuse bought in a kit from harbor freight. Installed it for the "power socket" in my car. The "fuse" melted when a short happened again (a Chinese charger), but the resulted metallic liquid blob was still making contact... and providing battery power to the short circuit. I had to yank the glowing and smoking wire from under the dash with my bare hand. PS: I went back to the store to tell them, they already had a recall notice for those fuses. Awesome $5 that could burn down my car.
Right? Imagine a small alarm clock radio with a 10A fuse on it! Can you see those thin 0.5mm wires carrying 10A without melting and ignite any flammable stuff, like your mattress in the process?
230V actually, although it's 240-250V in practice. 245V here most of the time. When you buy mains fuses, check them for weight on one of those little scales that drug dealers use. The crap ones have no sand in them so will weigh a lot less.
12:41 when you _know_ something is hot and shouldn't be touched but muscle memory doesn't care.
Also I wouldn't mind videos like this more often. It's unfortunately very needed to literally demostrate the state of this bullshit.
Because with how easily reviews can be botted, people who write legit reviews about the bad state can be just called botted reviews too. If they don't get nuked before that...
If there's a garbage product line being sold on Amazon you think it would be fun to see reviewed in this fashion, email louis@rossmanngroup.com
@@rossmanngroupbasically anything with a lumen rating. Insanely high lumen flashlights are plentiful on Amazon, and no 500,000 lumen flashlight is going to slip into your pocket.
@@rossmanngroupwhat if it's an entire class of product? 18650 batteries are being advertised with 11,100 mAh ratings, about 3 times that of the highest confirmed ratings on the market. Complete with spelling errors.
18650 battery tests would be interesting
@@rossmanngroup I'd say that basic electronic components would be a great start, since you're already very familiar with what they _should_ be like vs what to expect from Amazon. Kinda like ProjectFarm does his comparisons, just instead of going from "absolute discount bargain bin" to "most _high end_ brand name" you'd pick the 5-10 "best" products by manufacturer from Amazon and show how many end up in flames, or causing flames.
And as the others suggested, 18650 cells would be indeed a great start to the series, as basically EVERY DIY'er ever is gonna end up needing some.
This might be a negligent homicide investigation if someone actually tracked all the faulty fuzes that have been installed and researched the outcomes. This level of misrepresentation probably has a body count.
yeah an investigation for the chinese manufacturer
@@marcogenovesi8570 The sellers are also at fault.
Even if US law doesn't reach the manufacturers, they can shoot down the businesses operating within the US.
Even if we assume that the manufacturer did put identifying markers on the fuses to make them traceable, they are Chinese and will thus suffer no consequences.
@@giglioflexPunish the distributor and they'll quickly find a new supplier.
They will just declare bankruptcy and open a new LLC.
Amazon "You're not allowed to sell refurbished ipads, that's illegal!"
Also Amazon:
If it saves just one life...
"They can't sue us, if they are dead"
@@michasokoowski6651 I wonder if that guy using microwave transformers used these fuses and electrocuted himself.
@@robertsmith2956 You mean creating carvings on wood using microwave transformers?
Its not about the fuse, you probably can't even do that with a fuse. It's extremally dangerous, you aer working with amps so high that rubber gloves will melt instantly and you will be electrocuted anyway.
No one should attempt that in any way, if you want wood carvings use normal methods to do them
@@michasokoowski6651 soldering irons work well for wood carving with a "burnt" look to it.
They're also perfectly safe as long as you maintain basic safety procedures and keep a bucket of water nearby, just in case
Platforms such as Amazon should be made legally responsible for the safety of goods sold through their sites. They would soon weed out the dodgy stuff then.
Yep, and prices would be even higher
It would be enough if they're required to remove fraudulent listings.
And a 2A fuse that blows at 5A is fraud. So is one that blows at 1A. It should blow at 2A and nowhere else.
They are. If the manufacturer can't be gotten ahold of, and since Amazon guarantees to some degree every 3rd party seller, they bear secondary responsibility for not vetting or engaging in any form of quality control for those who sell and resell on their platform. The question is, will someone bring up a lawsuit.
They would have to prove negligence and damages as a result of something purchased on Amazon, coming from Chinese sellers.
The other issue is it's become VERY expensive to build any form of manufacturing business in the US, outside of a bare handful of states. Even within those states, Federal laws are heavily restrictive and expensive to follow unnecessary codes. It's why all the parts manufacturer's that used to be in the US and sold through Radioshack, died fairly shortly after changes made since Radioshack's death and added layers of beaurocracy and regulations they couldn't afford to comply with. Nevermind added layers of costs just to procure materials. The US used to be the hub of parts manufacturing. It's only become even more draconian since Apple, et. al have gone after the independent repair industry that Louis has been fighting, killing off what bare minimum companies were left. Though by the time of Louis' making that push several years back for right to repair, most of that manufacturing for quality, was in asia. Virtually nill in the US.
Even the ones who moved to China have had to close shop. So if this does go through, and someone does sue Amazon (and New Egg as well, as they should have been blocked from being purchased by a Chinese company), as should happen, it just opens up the can of worms for the next step of the equation. How to get the US Federal and State governments to roll back regulations that are choking the hell out of small industry. That's like pulling teeth from a lion high on cocaine and starving for the past month. Nevermind city governments.
Bezos donates big to the Democratic Party-not happening
@@tschaderdstrom2145 Would they? Now you dont get what you buy...
Amazon is nothing more than Alibaba with extra steps at the moment
Yup. Money's still going to China, might as well get a better deal without middlemen or drop shippers
It's Temu with Jordans on
The sad part is, I used to knowingly use it for that, and use it to get things of quality from manufacturers I knew were reputable, both with pretty reasonable markups for convenience. Now they're the knock off crap at name brand prices. So when I want cheap Chinese crap, I'll just order it from china.
Extra steps and extra cost. Same thing on amazon costs often 5 or 10 times what it costs on ali express. I figure, if I'm getting cheap tat, I might as well pay cheap tat prices, so I just go to ali express instead.
I would argue that at least it’s more convenient , but still shit
Louis, that's just a high quality long life fuse. You don't have to change fuses all the time if they don't blow.
That's true. you don't have to change fuses if it already burnt your house down
“Lifetime Warranty” takes on a new meaning.
You only need one fuse, not a complete set.
@@jrobmccoy I can see the TV adds. If our fuses blow your not using them right. in small 2 pt font. * these are for wiring bus bars on electric cars......
@@erg0centric You need a reasonable sample though. One fuse might just be a defective one. Get the same result with 100 of them and you've got a problem.
I am a mechanical engineer, and it's a similar story with mechanical components. I used to work in a large aircraft assembly factory where frequently heavy equipment was lifted, overhead, by large cranes. The (union) shop would only agree to work on a lift if a particular, north american, manufactured brand of lifting hardware was used.
One day one of our senior engineers wanted to determine what the off-brand, 1/4th the price chinese shackles would do. Whereas the North American, approved, brand name equipment failed at 5x the rated load (as specified in the product data sheet) in a ductile way (slowly yielding giving visible signs of failure) - the chinese equipment failed catastrophically at about 95% - 100% of the rated load. Note that in most case you NEED to have a ~10% margin since you'll rarely know for sure what the exact weight of a 10,000 lbf piece of machinery weighs.
I call bullcrap
@@pootisengage6672 It must be hard going through life being so totally stupid and useless
How are they a senior engineer?
@@ms_cartographer They just wanted to do a test to see the quality, nothing wrong with that, for curiosity sake perhaps. Getting first hand knowledge is much better than word of mouth.
They'd work with only american but scoff at KONE?
I got a fraudulent LG fridge filter from Amazon. The package had misspellings all over it including lg's website being misspelled. Putting it next to the real filter I got from Best Buy and it was obviously larger holes in the screen of the filter from the fraudulent filter. I did a review on Amazon to warn people and Amazon emailed me that they took down my review because it didn't comply with community guidelines... What a joke of a company.
Every review I've left on Amazon to warn people of fake items I've received has been immediately removed the same way.
I can't believe Amazon isn't constantly bombarded by class action lawsuits.
I hope I live long enough to see them crumble under the weight of lawsuits....but it will likely never hapoen and the people responsible will never be held accountable.
The worst part is they prey on the elderly. No matter how patiently I exolain these things to my elderly family ir neighbors, they still explain they were more careful and checked the reviews first before buying something obviously fake again.
Yup! Amazon has done that to me MANY times as well! All because of how I phrased something in a "harsh" manner
"community guidelines" = don't say anything bad about our stuff
@@munsters2 Ebay - same shit, bans for "community guidelines" never telling what you did wrong. It isn't allowed to ban for life in EU so how to deal with these crooks?
Same thing happened to me twice were I called a product faulty in a review and it was pulled for violating guidelines. I read their guidelines and nowhere did I whatsoever.
Thanks for the shout out and link to my video, Louis. Glad you are getting this word out. There are SO MANY outright dangerous products being sold on Amazon, with no oversight.
Check out this gentleman's channel. You won't be disappointed. And, thank you for your informative email!!!
Amazon Basics is rubbish, too.
@@slowanddeliberate6893 Amazon basics is where Amazon finds a high sell through, high margin product, then contact the manufacturer and have them make it for them. Then they sell it on their own marketplace (meritocracy be damned). Then they throttle the original product until the company stops selling it.
Thank you all. These videos will definitely not get to everyone, but the will sure help someone and save many lives.
@@slowanddeliberate6893depends on who they relabeled.
And if they are still using the same place as the last time you ordered.
Bait and switch...
The local stores should advertise with this info showing their products are superior.
Actually pretty smart. Most people think the products they get on amazon are equal in quality than a local electronics or hardware store.
I would go to my local store. Last time i was in such store (Conrad) i wanted a device to measure capacity of capacitors. I asked one of the shop employees and he showed my different multimeters and he did just read on them while explaining to me what he read. He literally said that these devices can Ohm and Ampere. As most people who have seen such things i did already know that they "can" Ohm and Ampere. I thought to myself, thats not the kind of service i want to pay some extra. So i never visit this store again and i was gone.
Any real supplier, local or online, can give you a CoC (certificate of conformity) that proves it's the real thing made out of legitimately-sourced materials. Amazon is not one of them.
From my experience having been trapped in retail for ~9 years, the problem with this idea in practicality for local stores is that the backwards thought process of "My magtrometer or other device isn't working and the only part thats dead is a fuse, that means the only thing it needs is a fuse, I should be able to buy a fuse and have the thing work again because this is the entire picture, oh yay I buy fuse and the thing turns on again yay 5 star review imma tell all my homies this worked for me" exists within their customer base just as it exists in however many of the Amazon reviews are actually real. What's even worse about this for local stores is they also encounter the not-quite-extinct yet subspecies of this thought process which goes roughly "Back in my day I walked 69 miles uphill both ways in the snow to get to school without needing any of these video games or magtrometers, so I'm going to bring my non-working electrical device into the local store and be as belligerent as humanly possible to the staff I'm speaking to and open the packaging right there once they show me where the fuses are and stuff one into my device and turn it on and if it blows right away then I will tell them lol what a chucklefuck youre trying to sell me something that doesnt work, back in my day when everyone walked 420 miles uphill both ways in the snow to get to school they were all honest and hard-working not like you people, oh cool this other pack of fuses makes the thing turn on and stay on when I plug it in yay kiddo you got yourself a sale you shouldve just started with this one next time and not trying to pull one over"
Maybe, but no one trusts brick and mortar stores either.
You should make a bigger deal out of the fact that your 1-star review simply wasn't published by Amazon. That is probably some kind of legally-defined fraud. It's certainly a practice that gets you dinged by the BBB and other consumer advisory groups. To see such a large corporation doing what fly-by-night dropshipping stores do is shocking. It's much more serious than the seller simply flooding their product listing with fake reviews.
What is "shocking" is your apparent trust of Large Corporations.
Fake 'good' reviews + Hidden 'real' reviews
Maybe they'd have left his review up if it was 5 stars saying, "These fuses are great! The 2amp can handle 10amps before it blows, now that's value for money."
I suspect the review was refused because he included a hyperlink, I too ran into that issue when I was linking to an external review about a shitty product. I did receive an email explaining it, maybe they stopped giving reasons or it's in his spam folder. It doesn't make sense that they would want to hide bad reviews, it's the only quality control they have on the site.
If you notice, you can't see negative anything anywhere. You can't see the thumbs down on a video, why would reviews on Amazon go any different?
You claim you're not a magician Louis, but you're putting on quite the performance with the death defying non blowing fuse.
No death was risked here, just burnt fingers.
@@gamechannel1271Walking away while running 192W through his plugged together test setup was a real fire hazard, IMO.
Dude. THANK YOU for making both of these videos, and a double thank you for the in depth demonstration. I've been saying for MONTHS, probably even over a YEAR at this point to everyone I know that Amazon has turned into a shitty marketplace to buy dangerous products that stop working a month in (or, in the case of this video, right out of the box), and nobody I know has ever shared this sentiment until now. Quite comforting to know I am, in fact, not going insane!
Thanks for putting your money where your mouth is. I'd call Louis Cassandra but people are actually starting to listen and realize the line between Amazon and their Chinese imitators blurs more and more each day.
I swear someone somewhere is at least a little malicious with how everything is made. How does an LED on nightlight burn out after 3 months. With how quickly things fail, I don't believe it's a quality defect anymore.
I had some random Chinese shit mistakenly sent to my address a couple years ago by Amazon. It took some doing to have them stop it actually. One of the devices was a desktop dehumidifier with a peltier cooler. I decided to”hey, let’s give it a try”. It survived in the basement for maybe a month. I haven’t even bothered to do a tear down to see what went wrong. Tossed the piece of crap right out. We really don’t need such “products” on our market. They serve little useful purpose and just end up in the landfills soon after sale. Ugh.
For anyone curious what a good fuse should behave like, the data sheet for Bussmann ATC blade fuses says a 2 amp fuse at 7 amps (or 350% of fuse rating in general) should last max 0,5 s and at 12 amps (600% of fuse rating) max 0,1 s. It doesn't specify max operating time at 400% (8 amps) but looking at the curves it should be around 0,2 s, not however long those crap fuses took to blow
That was the Answer I was looking for. Too lazy to google that myself.
the impression I got watching this, along with the cheap chinese commentary, is that the 2 amp fuse is a miscast 5 amp or 7.5 amp fuse. Its likely cheaper for them to make 2 million of one rating than for them to try and make 1m. of one rating and then 1m. of a lower rating since its less dies or whatever.
Also thank you for sharing the data, i honestly might not have went about looking it up and just taken the video at face value sprinkled with my own judgement LOL
Wait, Bussmann or Rossmann fuse? lol
Even better would be to look at what ISO standards require of conforming fuses. Many fuse manufacturers may offer tighter guarantees regarding response time, but the applicable ISO standard would specify that at 2x current, a fuse MUST NOT blow in less than 150ms, but MUST blow within 5 seconds. A fuse that takes only 1 second to blow at 2x current might be "better" than one that takes 1.9 seconds, but both will be adequate in circuit which is properly designed for use with a fuse of that form factor, since proper design of such a circuit would require that it be able to survive 2x current for more than two seconds without fire or other such hazard.
Just replace commas with periods, and it all makes sense.
As a German, I always was laughing about all the safety Stickers you got in the states. For instance, "Don't put cats into the microwave" or "Caution hot", and why? Because companies got sued, where are these days, can't someone sue Amazon for at least selling this crap and risks people's live or their property for example their car which could go off in flames and nobody will investigate it that the reason was the Amazon fuse. Happy new year fellas greetings from Germany
My guess would be it's because Amazon isn't selling the fuses. If you look at the seller for these products, they are always sold directly from some Chinese address with a gibberish seller name, something like "igdfhgtghgdsrghhfsdghjnff". Amazon has basically become another eBay at this point. And somehow I doubt trying to sue some made up company in China would get you very far.
They would need to make a law that makes sites like eBay, Craig's List, Amazon, etc liable for the products sold on their site by third party sellers. Which I imagine would be the death of those sites other than Amazon. Amazon could survive as they do still have their own store to fall back on. Products sold by Amazon directly are still decent quality, the problem is finding them in the sea of third party sellers.
Wealth is health. Might is right. If you ain't rich, you ain't sheet. 😂
@@wild1234 😂🤣😂 did your head fall onto the keyboard igdfhgtghgdsr... but serious that's true I totally agree, someone must be responsible sooner or later, I guess more later rather than sooner, sadly. A side note, I thought on Craig's List only private people are selling?
@@Novastar.SaberCombat t
TRUE isn't it an American Slogan "to big to fail" I guess this happens with Amazon to much power, to much connection to the ministry for sure.
in the US, the vendor isn't usually liable for the quality or safety of the products they sell, and instead the manufacturer is the one held liable. This is how Amazon can sell products that are unsafe or don't work and not suffer. With many vendors this system actually works since you know if you're buying something at Walmart, it's probably lower quality than something you buy at a higher end retailer where the product might be a bigger brand name and costs a bit more.
but the problem with Amazon is they've become so ubiquitous that too many people just go directly to them for whatever they're thinking of buying without even considering another option, and so Amazon isn't suffering from it's poor products, and really they're so large at this point, they don't even have a customer retention department if people say they want their services and accounts deleted (I learned this by working with them directly on an issue then telling them to delete my account over their "fuck you" attitude toward me)
My first question when you were taking polls was “well, is this a slow-blow fuse and you’re impatient?”
And you totally covered that possibility about 8 minutes in. Lovely and thorough!
It's a good thing I had to pee.
I was waiting for a Naked Gun Pee sceen if you forgot to turn off the mic@@rossmanngroup
My immediate thought was the curve as well, but I wish louis luck for those official mac schematics with his free USB stick. I did have to check, most circuit breakers here are C curve, which is no trip at 100% load, but trip to 1-2 minutes with 200% load. 5x current is instant trip.
fuse curves are "we failed at making the fuse properly for the number it should blow so we attached a graph that says the real numbers"
There are standards for automotive fuses, it's not an arbitrary manufacturer decision. ISO 8820-3, SAE J2077, and a few others. Required time-current curves w/ acceptable tolerances are readily available for all of these, and could (and should) have been used for this test.
SAE J1284 is the standard for ATC style fuses. I forget the exact standard for fuse ratings, but a fuse should be able to hold the rated amps for 1 hour with out failing, and 110/115% of its rated power for less than 1 minute to compensate for current spikes at initial power on.
I did a similar bench test with cheap Chinese fuses and fuses from an automotive OEM supplier. The cheap fuses results were as expected, not correct. OEM fuses were spot on with the SAE standard. I performed this bench test to validate voltage drop across a fuse to calculate current on a circuit. In the the automotive diagnostic world, measuring voltage drop across a fuse a is common way to test for parastic draws, there are published graphs to correlate voltage drop to amps.
In short dont trust any replaced fuse unless you know the brand or where it was sourced.
In "short" don't trust fuse 😅
Brand doesn't even mean anything, the random Chinese "brands" you see on Amazon are just some words they write on a bunch of products that all probably come from the same factory in shenzen, they sometimes even do a bait and switch scenario where they farm good reviews with one "brand" to build reputation then start selling the cheap crap, by the time people figure it out they just axe that "brand", stick a new label on the same products then repeat the process
Bussman or littelfuse,Panasonic,tdk or RS should be good, I think volex is still in business as well?
@@grantrennie Bussman and Little Fuse are OEM suppliers. A 5 year old could hold a Chinese fuse and a Bussman fuse and tell you the Bussman fuse is better.
So the second fuse looks like more inline with the SAE standard?
I ended up throwing out my crimp connectors from Amazon after watching the last episode. I tested to compare against the same type connectors from AutoZone, and confirmed the Amazon butt connectors did indeed just pull apart. Fortunately I don't think I've used them in anything (I always give connections a tug to check), but I had bought a bunch to keep in bulk and definitely got ripped off. This is an important series of demonstrations, especially for those of us who work with electronic components and repairs regularly.
It is important for those in the back of the classroom, but idiots need to be real they aren't buying 570 of any item and getting anything near quality. If the company you're buying from doesn't have a website... Well that's really on you
Would still make sense to look at a datasheet for a quality fuse of the same type just to get a sense of what such a fuse should be able to handle.
A random search on Google and I found one from Littelfuse and their 2A fuse will last ~3s at 3A, 0.3s at 4A, .15s at 5A, which seems reasonable. And obviously a 2A fuse should not be able to withstand 8A for any perceptible duration..
Amazon does sell Littelfuse fuses, but good luck seeing them in the listing when you search for "fuse kits". Same with Buss
well, taking current-time characteristics would be probably sth very usefuls. No way those candys are conforming with SAE2077 or any other standard
yeah, i also looked at a couple blade fuse's data sheets and the most 'generous' ones were still had the current-time curve to blow in 1 second at double the rated current.
exactly, Should have checked a brand name fuse datasheet just for reference. as they are NOT designed to blow exactly AT the rated current.
The other thing I noticed with these cheap Chinese knock off fuses is that they get very hot before they blow, even at their rated current. That leads me to believe they are using standard wire and not fuse wire...
I bought a huge fuse for my battery and solar system from Amazon. It was a reputable brand I could buy elsewhere, and it was a "store" on Amazon. The fuse got hot and melted the holder at only 80% of the rated amps. It was glowing when I smelled it and opened the circuit. I bought a replacement Bussmann fuse from an industrial supplier and everything is fine now. So it's not always that they blow it too high a current, sometimes they may cause a fire before that.
I had a similar issue with some large blade style fuses from Amazon. Resistance was way higher than it should have been.
One of the first things I learned running my business, after melting lots of "heavy duty" extension leads is not to buy electrical components of Amazon. It bought a high rated cable, plugs and sockets from a big name store and wired my own extension leads and never had another down time due to fake Chinese crap on Scamazon
dont worry, we have each other, we are the resistance now. All of us @@sonictech1000
Got dang.
yep, typical "iron core" cheap fuse, they are just lamps, they heat until everything is melted or on fire, unfortunately aliexpress, ebay and amazon are full of them
I've noticed this trend of cheap garbage overwhelming the search results as well. Further, with the lack of oversight I worry that the "Real Brands" I buy off Amazon will be counterfeit as well. I've been trending back to brick and mortar stores, myself. They aren't immune to counterfeit garbage either, but at least it's far less likely overall. So far.
Same, there’s some sketch stuff and results on Amazon. Gotta be on guard shopping over there. It’s like eBay before they cracked down to defend their reputation that had tanked in the past.
Oh shit, I buy all my vitamins from Amazon.
I don't know if you saw my previous comment, but sometimes the reviews on products are not "fake" but reviews from another product. Companies or organizations will sometimes use a successful product page and simply change all of the information and images to a new product, while keeping the old reviews for that other product up, bumping them up in search results and giving their product a guise of authenticity.
Go to the reviews of any highly rated (and especially cheap) product and actually read the reviews. Sometimes, the reviews talk about something entirely different than what you are trying to purchase, which is a huge red flag.
I'v noticed that many times yes, it is a serious trustworthiness issue. They use the same trick when a product gets completely redesigned; the good reviews for the older version turn up under the listing for the new version.
I knew they sometimes would switch to lower quality versions of the same product, but I didn't realize they could actually switch to an entirely different product. That's an amazingly big loophole that Amazon should have fixed forever ago.
Amazon either doesn't care, or doesn't have a system in place to monitor when a product page is altered in this way for whatever reason.
So now as a rule of thumb when i buy stuff on amazon i look at the reviews to ensure they are talking about that product, and ignore 5 star reviews that just say a few words of praise as i don't trust those if they are too many@@maidsandmuses
Yes it is, and i only realized this practice was a thing this year. Im not entirely positive how they do it, but they likely sell a legitimate product for a while and get lots of positive reviews then simply change the entire product page later. Apparently Amazon is either unwilling or unable to stop this from happening by forcing them to create a fresh listing instead of re-using an old one. @@renakunisaki
That's a plothole that spells doom for Amazon.
Amazon shouldn't be giving its retailers the power to manipulate Amazon's own listings in this way.
I can already often find reputable products cheaper elsewhere than Amazon. Even coming from the same retailer...
Edit: this is why I just let my prime membership lapse.
I blew the fuse to my cars $3000 ECU last night, and I was looking on Amazon for new fuses right before seeing this video. Thank you sir
As a EE, as you predicted, I wanted to see the trip curves. While I do not have the datasheet for your Amazon fuses, I was curious to see what the curves are like for most automotive fuses. Generally I see that at 4 amps a 2 amp fuse should open in about 5 seconds. Less than a second at 8 amps.
Exactly most time-current characteristics for automotive blade fuses show that at 200% of fuse rated current (In) it should blow in less than 5 seconds. Also worth mentioning is that typically at 110% of In fuse should last as long as predicted MTBF and at 160% of In it can last up to 50s (kzper 5A fuse at 8A for only few seconds before bump to 10A was quite in specs).
As a EE I would like also to point that Louis explaining automotive fuses got it over simplified. Automotive fuses are not like micro fuses protecting circuit boards. They are in first place to protect wires that run around your car so that they do not turn into lighter and to a lesser extent to protect receivers and users. Fuse creates weak spot in a wire so it overheats and blows before the wire gets so hot it burns its insulation. Important part is that it does not mean fuse will blow instantly! Enough power must be dissipated at melting element to blow it. Power sources should have its own overload protection (they can cut-off or drop voltage) except if they are `special offer` knock-offs or straight scam. That of course does not change the fact that at 350% of In, quality fuses blow in less than 0,5s.
Example specs:
www.pecj.co.jp/en/fuse/outline/p3.html
m.littelfuse.com/~/media/automotive/datasheets/fuses/passenger-car-and-commercial-vehicle/blade-fuses/littelfuse_atof_datasheet.pdf
@@szymoncwojdzinski5624 What, no temperature qualification? Not pedantic enough to qualify for an EE. Though you did lead with MTBF. And there is no more BS measurement than that. So maybe....
@@LackofFaithify Yep, point out one shortcut term to call the rest BS and too pedantic. But guess what - engineering is about being "pedantic". 101 for the fuses is: 1) Fuses do not blow at their rated current they do at slightly higher value called minimum breaking current. 2. It takes time to blow a fuse - the more time the less above the minimum breaking current it is on.
@@szymoncwojdzinski5624 Oh is that what the pretty pictures with the straight lines and curved lines are about? I had always wondered.
Louis you’re doing such a good job exposing enormous companies that I’m starting to worry about your safety
yeah, I'm worried too. he has a target on his back, that's for sure...
he is not in russia and perfectly safe.
Without wanting to sound overly dramatic, it did cross my mind also..Plot twist, Louis lives in an secure underground bunker so he's probably okay 👍
If you honestly think like this you’ve watched way too many movies
@@DailyCorvid My point is that this stuff doesn't happen in real life. Louis is not going to get assassinated by Amazon for making videos about them
If you think he's at risk of it then you've probably watched too many movies and its affecting your perception of reality
Voltage is not a factor in the current handling of a fuse. A 32V 2A fuse should blow at the same current as a 250V 2A fuse. The voltage rating only becomes a factor once the fuse has blown and the potential for arcing occurs.
Should probably have done the test at 12V since that is the voltage that most of these fuses will be used at. As you say, it shouldn't make any difference to the result.
I've always wondered about that, but somehow not enough to check... Thanks.
@@justinsmith2363 But then his desk wouldn't have started to burn. Where's the fun in that?
@@justinsmith2363 The test would be the same. Weather its 12v or 32 volts, the fuse does not know the difference. Theres know way it can "tell" what the source voltage is, it will look identical, because for a given current, the fuse will drop the same amount of voltage
The wattage will make a difference in a real test though. Had he tested that 2amp fuse at 12V it would have blown at over 10 amps maybe like 15 amps.
Yep. Last summer I fried two HVAC transformers as a result of faulty 3A fuses i bought from Amazon. I bought a new pack of 3A fuses from Home Depot and no problems. Thanks for shedding light on these issues with products sold on Amazon.
This is Project Farm level content, Louis. That's high praise. I'm an idiot when it comes to electronics but I know enough to be appalled by these results. It's on a par with being sold a truck advertising payload capacity of 5 tons that can only handle 1 ton. It's the type of irresponsible behavior that results in manslaughter or murder charges.
Unless you're rich and powerful.
@@Raczoon or you think you got away with it because you live in country like China ;)
Pro Tip: If you ever have the main fuse in your audio amp blow, replacing the fuse may actually cause more damage than it already had. When the outputs short out and the main fuse blows, replacing the fuse can cause the output resistors to open causing a cascade of failures without the fuse blowing. Back when I did audio repair, we'd use a light bulb in place of the fuse to test for shorts before putting a fuse in it just to avoid that scenario.
Yes, I've always been under the assumption that if a fuse blows it means something else in the circuit is faulty.
@@HarakiriRock Yeah. It is like riding a car after you crashed because of breaks fail.
Yeah. The broken fuse is a symptom of a disease that needs to be cured ... Before the fuse is replaced.
Your comment is 100% true in most cases. But to an exception like in my scenario where I had a slow blow 2amp fuse blow in my Logitech Z5500 5.1 surround PC sound system, where the fuse blew after 2 years of operation. I then replaced the fuse with exactly same slow blow 2amp fuse and the system has been running for the last 10 years with no faults or fuse's blowing again. Now IMO I would put this down to an over voltage/ over current problem from input power, like a spike from lightning taking mains power out then reconnecting and creating a surge in the process.
I have a couple of clip on 220ohm 10W resistors to clip across the rail fuses on the big amps I occasionally fix. Sadly you can’t do that with newer amps. No DC Rail fuses. Switch mode supplies make it harder. Multi rail switch mode supplies or class D amps with surface mount, no schematics and a DSP chip that’s either no longer made or _never existed_
Best amps have lots of gravity in them, caps the size of a can of beer and rail fuses made from coat hanger wire.
Today I found cryogenic gloves on Amazon which can apparently handle temperatures as low as -360 °C (which is below absolute zero which is −273.15 °C). Very impressive
Those are some high quality fuses. Can even deliver 3 times their rated amps
Linus: *spends hundreds of thousands of dollars on state of the art equipment and still hasn't done much actual product testing and making the internet a safer place.*
Louis: *has whatever wires and devices he could find around his shop and is doing a better job product testing and reviewing to raise awareness.*
Well, Linus is a marketing tool disguised as an independent reviewer.
@@Constaxtheir incessant "AMD VERSUS INTEL" and "OMG NO INTEL DIDN'T NOT UH!!!" Videos really show how much of a sellout they are to both Intel and AMD. (Sponsored by Intel).
@@raiden72 Im sponsored by AMD
stopped watching lie-nus's bs!
That's because Louis, who already owns a business, presumably isn't making videos with the goal of earning a profit.
A lot has changed since I started watching you some years ago...but one thing has remained the same! You, Louis, always give it to us straight. It is, as a person of even middling self respect, extremely frustrating how badly we have been taken advantage of. I'm sure that at times it feels like you're banging your head against the wall and that no one is listening. Fortunately, a lot of us are. Unfortunately, ignorant people tend not to pay attention to logical chatter so...we're probably doomed to continue this cycle until we can simply stop giving these companies our money
Was once working on my old mans classic car and spotted a nail in the place of a fuse. I asked him what that was about and he said the fuse blew so he put the nail in temporarily to get him home. I asked when that happened and he said "about 10 years ago". I'd trust that nail to blow more reliably than I'd trust these amazon fuses you tested :p
no
yes
no
yes
@@reaperspartan6571 OMG - best thread ever... well, not really.
Regulators absolutely need to step in here. Otherwise there's going to be a lawsuit or class action when somebody uses something like this and it ends in an incident that kills people
Substandard parts has been an issue for a long time, "check it before you fit it" shouldn't be necessary but it really is.
They also have circuit breakers with nothing inside them the only way they trip is they melt.
1. Amazon probably can't be blamed for the products they sell failing, that's the manafacturer's fault
2. The manafacturer is based in China and is probably effectively out of reach of the US court
So a law suit will probably fail before it even starts.
Yeah, there will be. Brand will be out of amazon, they will be unable to prosecute producent for damages because they are in china and they wont be able to prosecute amazon because they arent liable for what is sold on their website.
But worry not, the producent will rebrand and will continue selling on amazon under different name.
This game was already played and until law changes you can't do anything about it.
I think that's why Amazon likes Chinese sellers. If something does happen Amazon can simply blame the seller and take down the product. Meanwhile it's impossible for the government to punish Chinese sellers who will then go on to list the same product under a different brand name. It's a game of whack-a-mole enabled by Amazon that allows them to sell dangerous products with impunity. Amazon does have a legal obligation to take down unsafe products after they've been publicly made aware that they are unsafe but unfortunately due to the above it's easy for them to get around that.
I had the same experience with a pack of UK fuses I bought from Amazon. I had a 3amp fuse blow in a Samsung TV, so I bought a set to see if it would blow again. Guess what, the 16 amp breaker went instead and the replacement 3 amp fuse was still good. Never buying this type of product from Amazon again.
Amazon has been speed running my departure for the last couple years. Just started watching this video but I totally know what the outcome will be. I canceled Prime after being told I have to pay for ads on Prime Video even though most everything (movies, etc) on Prime Video is now pay to watch anyway.
I'm in the exact same boat. Amazon used to be fantastic but it has devolved into AliExpress with next day free shipping
I remember when it was Lovefilm and £5 a month for as much as you could watch.
5 stars - the fuses keep blowing in my car, but these ones work great.
NOTE: this was my dad's final Amazon review, before he died in an unexplained car fire. I know he would have wanted me to post his final review, my dad loved Amazon.
Keep buying and don't ask questions!
I really hope that’s not true.
@@wild.legend-music, it's sarcasm, dude. Sarcasm, to make a point.
That's dark
You joke but that's how some people vote, e.g. Brexit.
@@SayAhh Right, so stay in the EU .lolololololololol
GB is a joke and so is the EU.
Go fight the RU you losers.
I purchased a Vick's thermometer from Amazon (from the 'Vick's Store' seller), but what I received looked off from the thermometer I already had and the images from the product page. I started looking into it based on the model number and other features on the thermometer and eventually got into contact with Vick's customer support when I couldn't find a matching patent for that model number.
The model number on the thermometer didn't match anything they made according to the customer support person I spoke to, and it didn't have the 'vapor' pattern on the power button as it should have. I left a review on Amazon reflecting all of this information, including that everything I'd suspected about it was confirmed by Vick's itself, but the review was rejected.
This a product that people put into their mouths and their children's mouths, this isn't just a shirt that falls apart (not not that isn't annoying, too), but this is a genuine potential safety issue.
That tells you all you need to know about how much Amazon cares about the safety of its products and well-being of its customers.
One thing I would have liked to see was a comparison to something like a Bussmann fuse that you might pick up at your local autozone store, just so we can see what the "expected" behavior is.
Expected behavior is a 2A fuse blowing within a second at 3A, and even faster at higher currents
@@volvo09 Fair enough. When I first posted this I didn't consider that the data sheet is readily available for brand name fuses.
Interestingly, the "less than a second" isn't even guaranteed on brand name Bussmann fuses. The spec sheet says, @200%, the minimum blow time is 0.15 seconds - but the maximum is 5 seconds.
www.eaton.com/content/dam/eaton/products/electrical-circuit-protection/fuses/bussmann-series-supplemental-fuses/automotive-blade-type/bus-ele-ds-2048-atm-series.pdf
expected behaviour is not hard to guess for a fuse, but yeah showing "real fuses" vs "china fuses" would help bring the point home
@@volvo09 Could take up to about a minute at 3A for this type of fuse. At 4A it should be under 5s.
Good idea
Hey louis, loved your video. I am a licensed electrical engineer. I pulled the spec sheet for the bussman/eaton atc fuses(which are publicly available) and 10amp operate time for a 2 amp fuse is .1 seconds. While there may be some deviation between manufacturers ATC is an industry standard and they should be simiar.
And the 8 amp operating time for a 2 amp fuse is likely less than forever.
@@SteelBlueVision If I recall off the top of my head, it should be about 0.2s, so yes, way less then forever.
"industry standards"? Chinese products aren't held back from innovating by American standards. Their fuses don't fail at a measly 2 amps. They've engineered a way to get 8 amps out of them. It's impressive technology of you don't think about it too much.
@@WarrenGarabrandt Nice! I hope we can learn from this example!
It's a fuse "kit" ie. some assembly required. They're deliberately a little oversize so you can sand them down to the final value yourself
I love these. Keep them coming. I am enjoying the laughs. Thank you!
BRO WHATTTT
The pin of shame!!!
.......you're being sarcastic right? I'm no electric engineer but even I can tell when a component is labelled exact Amp values and comes with a note telling you to use the exact one they do not mean for you to down size them yourself (of which I'm skeptical if you're even supposed to do that with a fuse wire).
Well if you aren't a "kit" also means "a packaged collection of related material" (from merriam-webster) as is the obvious case here.
@@cyberdragon1000 It's a bread kit, some assembly required. They're added some rat poison so you can test and remove rat poison pills yourself.
I once posted a review saying I though the halogen bulbs I bought were fakes because of the low quality packaging only time my review has ever been removed from amazon.
This was a very interesting video. As someone without a lot of electronics experience you did a great job of explaining your experiment.
Thank you!
@@rossmanngroup Also, by saying "don't take my word for it" and to encourage them to independently verify it for themselves means that any skeptic from any state or any country that Amazon ships to can replicate this experiment. Bring. Back. Radio. Shack!
@@SayAhh It still exists. For a while it was down to less than 20 locations in the US. The current parent company is looking at reviving the brand
@@nobodyimportant2470I've heard that too. I'm a Ham Radio guy and we are all rooting for a comeback.
@@nobodyimportant2470 I think what is left of Radio Shack is a vehicle for scamming crypto
Can I make a recommendation? Just put one power supply in constant current mode and connect it directly to the fuse. You don't need voltage, or to dissipate power in the resistors for the fuse to blow, and they don't limit power, only current.
Just turn up the current until the fuse pops.
Louis was trying to emulate an actual circuit, as we would find in the wild; rather than create a light bulb from the fuse. The resister is the load, not the fuse..... the fuse must sever when the LOAD exceeds the fuse rating. Creating a direct short might muddle the results....... meaning these fuses likely would allow a greater draw that if shorted out directly. Maybe, for the purpose of a test, a short is the same as a completed circuit, I am a locksmith, not an elekchicken! Can we call Bussman or Littlefuse, and have then chime in here? It would really be interesting to get their input.
@@citylockapolytechnikeyllcc7936 I'm an electrical engineer, you are wrong.
PLEASE correct my error, so we all can learn. @@SmoothIsFast791
Did you not listen to his comments on peanut gallery? If he did as you suggested, somebody would complain it's not a real world test. Engineers! Sheesh. Louis did a fine job. I'm a mere machinist & trade schooled '94+ high school '92 electric curriculum. I'm always fanatic about my crimps when I use them. I did have a similar issue with an Amazon window defroster. Junk. It wiped out a 20A Dodge Ram socket. I used that heater about 3 times as I recall.
@@MattsRangerForgive me for not wanting to argue with someone who couldn't spell resistor earlier. You, I'll make an effort for though. All tests are by definition not real world, they are tests. Fuses blow based on current, fuse voltage ratings are there for other factors like arc protection and insulation. What Louis is demonstrating is not a "real world test" but he is instead demonstrating a fundamental misunderstanding of how electronics work. This is not particularly complicated stuff, I only identified myself as an engineer because I didn't feel like arguing, and because it gives me some credibility that I know what I'm talking about when it comes to electronics, just like I assume you know what you're talking about when it comes to machining.
So, let me break it down. Fuses blow when they heat up. They're made up of a conductive metal with a specific melting point and a fixed resistance. Yes, they look almost like a dead short, but there is some resistance there, probably in the miliohms. Heat is produced when power is dissipated, we can calculate that with an equation, power equals current squared times resistance (P=I^2*R) where resistance is the resistance of the fuse, not of the overall circuit. You can also calculate that based on voltage, but since the resistance is constant, voltage and current will always be proportional in the fuse according to ohm's law V=IR. So, current in the fuse causes heating, heating blows the fuse. The overall voltage of the circuit is inconsequential, only the resistance and current in the fuse matter.
So... in a "real world test", we don't need resistors to act as a load, just test the fuse according to it's design specifications and we can see whether it performs as advertised. Now, if you were testing the fuse's voltage rating and arc resistance, then you would need the resistive load. But since we're only testing the fuse's rated current, we don't need a load.
Yep. I discovered this when I was restoring an older model car when the park lights went out. Long story short, the Amazon fuse did NOT blow, the result being almost burning out the wiring for the lights (found out to be a bad ground and fixed it). Ended up buying a pack of fuses from the local electronics store, never had a problem to this DAY.
I would have ordered all the wires and fittings for the repair. Then file claims on all of it with various complaints while retaining what I needed from the order.
For instance, the wire. Buy a 100 foot roll, claim it was already opened, even though I opened it and used the wire I needed.
On the crimp fittings. (Buy good ones!) A 100 pack or so. Then claim the packaging was opened. Again, this was you, not the whoever your blaming.
Amazon needs to pay for this crap. If not them then their retailers. All using their own system. This is how I would hold them accountable, while also pushing hard on customer service and possibly contacting a lawyer.
Im going to stop using amazon and encourage my family to do the same because it is clear to me now that shopping from amazon has a good chance of endangering my life. Thank you for your hard work Louis.
You, Sir, are doing amazing work with this investigation and exposure. It's time we hold these online retailers to account.
Oh yea amazing work on being so ignorant to how fuses work. For an electrical engineer to be this ignorant? Has to be purposeful. How can he not know fuses have something called a time-current curve. Hell look at the time-current curve for littelfuse, american made good fuses. Their 30A rated mini fuse takes around 90A anything lower than 80 could take up to 15 minutes to blow the fuse. It's literally how fuses are designed to work.
He's just mad amazon deactivated his account for being a shitty person so he has went on a smear campaign against them. Only he just thought he was smarter than he is as it turns out he doesn't know how a fuse works.
@@underscore6071 Yup. Their datasheet for their automotive 2amp fuse says it will blow in 0.6 seconds at 4amps. An 8amp load should blow the fuse in about 0.08 seconds. Their 30amp automotive fuse takes 20 seconds to blow at 60amps.
My only criticism of Luis is that I wish he had gone to a local national chain and bought some for the same price and tested them as well, that way we could see how the "good ones" work.
@@underscore6071you're obsessed, you're literally needlessly calling him a shitty person even tho he's not done anything wrong. Are you the state of NY?
@@jer280 I mean look at what he's doing. He made such an ignorant video and is misleading people and for what? Is it because amazon banned his affiliates account because he thought he was all high and mighty and untouchable? That's his own fault for slandering amazon the way he did and thinking he was somehow untouchable.
I'm obsessed for pointing out to people that he doesn't know how a fuse works in this video? People should know how fuses work since it will keep them safe and not ignorant. He won't even acknowledge it after it's been pointed out. Shows how much he gives a shit about educating compared to slandering.
Now I need to replace all of my fuses in my boat!! This video series needs to continue and other CZcamsrs should join in. Amazon has already took the business of so many caring mom and pop stores, and even large companies like Fry's. I'm sure the former mom and pops are slaving along the isles of Amazon picking and packing.
Amazon did to online sellers what Walmart did to physical shops on Main Street U.S.A. decades ago.
I miss Fry's.
@@SayAhh damn, well put
Amazon has ALSO CREATED so MANY new "mom and pop stores" along with a fist full of shady scammer stores
Fuses are kind of a big deal. I would prefer that a fuse lights up rather than the wiring of my motorcycle.
I can attest to that. I had a whole motorcycle wiring harness burn up under me while riding, because the previous owner had replaced the original fuse link with a much bigger one, to cope with an intermittent short circuit, unknown to me.
Wouldn't that be unsafe having the rubber cap open?
I think these should have metal posts out the top so the spark can go up the rod when they are on. Like the old mad scientist labs......
Or my 400k house that I finally spent a couple of decades paying off. That would suck... a 5 cent fuse from china made me go homeless.
The point of a fuse is it is a deigned failure point in a circuit.
@@erik_dk842were you on Moto Madness, where a bunch of people would empty their water bottles on the bike, and start throwing handfuls of dirt onto the bike to try and put it out?
Yep, I've tried to leave reviews on things in the past as well. They always flagged them with some bullshit to keep them from posting. Every single low review was never posted.
I don't use Amazon anymore.
I am not an electrical engineer but still watched your video (as well as the last one) because of the larger point you are making very well about the dropoff in quality of what is sold on Amazon. I have observed myself over the last few years how when I do a product search in Amazon, the top results are always some strange Chinese sounding names that Ive never heard of, and miraculously there are 10,000 5 star reviews of these products. I'm now conditioned to be very skeptical about Amazon reviews, whereas in the past, I would trust them. I've also found that with a little extra effort, I can find the products I need from different vendors at lower prices. I now have to seriously consider dropping my Prime subscription. The only thing I really am using it for now is the unlimited cloud storage for my 20 plus years of digital photographs. Once I find an alternative cloud storage, I'll have no reason to continue my Prime subscription.
If you don't hate Microsoft, OneDrive is an option. You can get 100GB for like a dollar. They hide that option in favour of Office. And the cost for Office which comes with 1TB is the same as Prime.
Is a NAS an option?
The only reviews I trust are one star and two star - pissed off consumers will vent.
The Chinese should probably start to regulate themselves as a lot of companies are pulling out of their country. My Korean wife won't, for the most part, buy Chinese products because she doesn't trust them.
The country I trust the most for quality products is Germany. I brought a German vacuum, and have had it for 10+ years now, excellent product. I brought German made laminate flooring, best flooring I ever brought. As for stores I find Costco tends to sell quality products.
@@stevebabiak6997 But lot of them are user error, or not checking exactly what you are buying
I never would have thought the review system was so fraudulent. This absolutely will change what and if i buy anything from amazon.
We should have asked Santa to bring Radio Shack back for Christmas.
The Chinese sellers are very sneaky. Most of the positive reviews are a scam. The sellers have hundreds of people buy their products so they are allowed to leave reviews. When the people leave a positive review, the sellers give them their money back via PayPal and let them keep the item for free. Once they get enough positive reviews they stop giving the products away for free and then get on the first page of the search results.
A friend of mine used to be in a network of thousands of Americans that would get hundreds of free items from Chinese Amazon sellers who got their money back via PayPal in exchange for a positive review for the sellers. The main goal for these sellers is to end up on page one of the Amazon search results and this is how they accomplish that. Amazon cannot police this and it goes under their radar.
I also forgot to mention that when enough people were onto them and the product failed and regular people bought them and started leaving negative reviews, the sellers would change their weird Chinese brand name from something like BallSacki to CockSacki. Then they would make a whole new product listing for the same product under a different brand name. Next they would do the same thing by giving out free products, with the same people they worked with before and giving them money back via PayPal and hundreds of people would leave fake positive reviews. Within a week they would be back on the first page of results. Most of the reviews are definitely fake and paid for.
I thank you very much for this series Louis. Several months ago, I lost the AC fuse from my car's fusebox and had to get a new one from the hardware store. I went to 3 different stores before I found any that were in stock, and was at the point where I considered just ordering a pack off amazon. The results of this test has made me VERY glad that I did not proceed with ordering on amazon.
An automotive 2A fuse passing 3A should blow in ~2 seconds average, at 4A it should be an absolute maximum of 5 seconds. Uh, crap. I actually used some of these. Thanks for making more work for me, Louis, now I have to go open up some car fuseboxes and replace them! I feel like an idiot.
You are not an idiot, tons of smart people believe we still live in a high trust society, and companies like this take advantage of that. I will never make fun of you for believing that multi-trillion dollar companies are held to the same standard as my electronics shop. but I will point it out every chance I get!
Thanks for watching.
Don't thank Louis, thank Amazon. The company with a shit-eating grin for a logo.😏
@@rossmanngroup The thing is, it's not like I am unaware of junk products! In the end it comes down to "I need one now" added to some mental calculation about how likely they would be to make this product a scam. I think at this point, we are all doing that calculation, right? It's pretty sad. Thanks for testing these.
@@rossmanngroupyou nailed it dude, we are basically a low trust society, we are maybe not quite china tier but getting there fast. And go figure, they make all our stuff for us because we are too fat stupid and lazy to make it ourselves
The solution is easy enough. If you haven’t heard of the company and the product is any way safety related, don’t buy it. Socks yes, fuses no. The Chinese will do and say anything, as often as not in scrambled English, to sell their merchandise.
I've bought automotive fuses on Amazon for my van build and I'm going to rip them out asap. I've also got an 150AMP ANL fuse protecting my utility batteries and the idea it might not blow scares me. Thank you for this video.
This video will save a million of people from dangerous products
Don't worry, Louis. You aren't weak at pulling fuses out. The fuses just double as solder once they heat up to the point of melting and finally blow.
But they never have enough flux, if Louis; videos teach us anything!
Putting pennies out of business since 2000 --Ali...Amazon Marketplace
It's really telling when there's no way for a customer to distinguish between a good and bad product on Amazon. It is good that good fuses actually exist on there, like you've shown, but if they're effectively the same rating on there and cost 5% more than the crappy ones, people will flock to the crappy ones.
Yeah, he went over that as well. People will buy the cheaper product, even if it's going to cost them more or kill them. It's why my family member don't do second hand or "economy" brand crap for our cars, our lives aren't worth saving a few bucks.
Heck I think Louis explained he won't sell on Amazon because people were buying a "cheaper" screen for their laptop, that was the wrong screen and wouldn't work in their device, smash it trying to get it to work, then refund it before he could even explain to Amazon why the customer is stupid. He even put a disclaimer on that specific screen saying IT WILL NOT WORK with what customers were trying to use it for.
So he's the asshole because customer's are stupid, buying the wrong parts after being explicitly told what they can't use it for, but buy it anyways and destroy it trying to install it incorrectly because "it's cheaper". But what does the guy who does this for a living know, it's clearly his fault the customer bough the wrong product and destroyed it trying to use it for something he literally said it can't be used for.
be real careful buying more expensive products and expecting them to work better. That's not how the game works.
vendors can and do raise prices to justify imaginary quality. If the price is what indicates quality for you, you will start to chase your own tail.
if the product is not safety critical and/or you can verify that it works, just test it. If it doesn't, send it back and leave a bad review. That way producing bad products is less sustainable. But nowadays lots of people just buy the more expensive option, which is a double win for crappy venors. They can still sell shitty/dangerous products and make more money per sell
@@Xershade It's also very hard to find the description on amazon for a product, their layout is absolute zoomer distraction garbage, it has so many banners of other products and sponsers and shit I'm suprised a subway runners or minecraft parkour video isn't playing too. Go to any normal website and go to a product page and you get a name, a picture or more, a price, and maybe even the model number up on the top if it's industrial, and a brief product description, then you scroll down and get all the product specs, model numbers, tolerances, datasheets and everything you need. It's very hard to know what you're getting on amazon is exactly what you are looking for beyond reading the title and lookinf at the pictures, most don't have extra information posted and some listings were put up by a retard who copy pasted the same thing from the last listing he put just up and didn't notice.
Anyone who buys on price alone deserves what they get.
They know the price of everything and the value of nothing.
It is not enough to just buy reputable brands as there are so many fakes, but also to buy from a reputable supplier.
I have seen exactly the same product listed for around 10 times the price to catch out the 'expensive must be better' buyer.
I really liked the part where you washed your hands. Great work.
"Louis goes to take a piss" was by far my favorite part of the video.
Riveting.
Yeah, what took you so long.
I love that you're putting the voice out there about this mess. It's amazing how many people are not aware of how bad it is
I've tried for YEARS to warn people about fake reviews, deleted legit reviews, and the scamming ways of the 'Zon. But nope... I was always mocked, blocked, cajoled, trolled, and socially restricted. 💪😎✌️ That's how a dictatorship functions, baby!
4 stars: Had to dock a point due to the funky smell but it works great! I've been using this fuse for a week now and never had to replace it. Very robust. It's just a shame it emits a faint odor. Perfect for outdoor use
Robust fuse - it is not clear whether it is good or bad :)
It's in my car, when driving there is a faint smell, but it cured the problem when driving with lights on... The smell goes when I have the windows open. 5* and praise to the seller for shipping to me so quickly. I had confirmation the order was at my front door and I didn't even hear the Amazon delivery person - what a hero.
@@steveblanchard7293 6 star fuse becomes winter heater and helped heat the car every time my lights would go dim that is a BONUS feature BRAVO
In Soviet Russia we have this special fuse. If it goes down, you know you won't make it to the door.
A big problem with reviews on Amazon and sites like it is that people are encouraged to leave reviews as soon as the item arrives.
Very rarely do I see long term reviews on the site.
People just seem happy enough to give things 5 stars if something arrives on time and switches on.
Yes! The very worst problem is worthless real reviews.
I actually had a great surprise with a local online tyre retailer that after a few months sent an email asking for a review. They actually realised that you can't really have an opinion on a product after you just received it unlike 99.99% of online retailers that want a review pretty much as soon as you got the product.
I haven't used the product yet, but it seems solidly built!
Be careful when overheating those aluminium housed resistors, they can go off violently and fire the potting material out the ends like a shotgun.
The old ones with a sand/cement fill died quietly, but the newer ones with black (epoxy?) potting build pressure and can go out with quite a bang.
Don't worry. He bought some quality ones from the well known brand xoucsfdcxiocn off of Amazon.
The heatsink-case is the hint with those, they want to be screwed to a large heatsink.
They were 100w resisitors only taking 65ish w
@@shaynegadsden32V * 6A is 192W
@@shaynegadsden They only have rated power when screwed to a sufficient heatsink, otherwise much, much less, read the datasheet.
The German electrician and CZcamsr _Great Scott!_ has an entire series where he finds hidden gems on various bottom-of-the-barrel eCommerce platforms.
It's essentially roulette. The trick is that since he's an electrician with a ton of testing equipment, he can verify with his purchases that it'll never be of the _Russian_ variety.
The really dumb thing is that there are plenty of idiots who see fuses as some garbage that gets in the way of getting power delivered to their equipment. These are people who would legitimately give a favorable review on a fuse that "can handle" more current than the label actually says it can, while still passing superficial safety inspections/audits, because they actually think this is a good thing because it means they won't need to replace the fuse as often.
@@martenkahr3365 🤣 I can see some moron doing what you describe. If your fuse blows every time, maybe look at your circuit again, then there is something most likely wrong with it. Never would buy fuses on Amazon, always mouser or digikey. The breakout boards and prototype pcb's are fine tho, not much one can mess up on those and got several stacks of them xD.
@@martenkahr3365 this is the classic people that overrides fuses with big wire or other metal parts. Let them do it, it just means their equipment breaks more often and they have to call a tech for repairs.
Not only do you call out shit practices, you're willing to be honest and show a product that doesnt support that narrative. Truly top tier human.
What we need are laws making marketplaces like Amazon responsible for the items they sell. If Amazon is the company that charges your card, Amazon, not the third party supplier, should be considered the actual seller.
LOL this guy thinks more gov just solves problems. Who do you think writes the laws, buck-o? It's the big corps. It's called rent-seeking. This is a tale as old as time - corruption. The state will create a bunch of worthless, corrupt entities, e.g. FDA, and give you the false sense of security, all while big banks steal you blind, food companies put lead in your food, companies can poison the wells with impunity, and Chinese trash can roam free on e-marketplaces that will kill you.
A truly free market would mean that companies can't hide behind the state and regulation. They can't shield themselves from competition. They can't sue others into oblivion over the false notion of "intellectual property" (i.e. gov monopolization of ideas enforced at gunpoint). More competition = better.
Ignore the card.
If Amazon is modifying the comments and scores (by deleting some of them), then they are endorsing and selling those products.
So if they sell, endorse and lie, then they should be taking responsibility for any dangers that product causes.
Consumer products liability applies to all levels of the distribution chain, including the final retail seller (Amazon).
I'm not sure about that. That would make stores legally liable for all the products they stock. And absolve the manufacturers. I don't think small retailers could survive that. There should be some level of shared responsibility.
@@andybrice2711 Look it up ... at least under California law (and many or most other states also). Manufacturers are not absolved of liability by suing a retailer. They are usually the ones sued but technically everyone in the chain of distribution can be sued for defective products sold (maker, distributor and retailer) and held full or partially liable.
Here Amazon would be the deep pocket and thus a good defendant. Plus easier to sue and serve a lawsuit on than the fuse manufacturer in China.
I tried to review a water filter for my refrigerator that claimed to be a genuine GE water filter but when i put it on it put out all kinds of black dust into water so i cut it open with bandsaw and an old filter that was real GE and they were completely different inside one was a nice smooth carbon dome very even and smooth with no way the water could bypass it and the other was a lump of charcoal with mesh glued to it to keep it in one piece and two plastic end caps glued on well one of the end caps had fallen off and water was coming out the open end with some charcoal dust from the break.
amazon said my review was not allowed because the company I bought it from said they are real GE filters and apparently nobody is allowed to dispute that because they would never lie.
So that 2A fuse is actually the same as the 5A but with different plastic. Guess it cuts down on manufacturing costs!
Louis, you need to get an electronic load. It's like the opposite of a power supply - you dial in how much current (or watts) you want it to consume and it controls its own resistance to match that. $500 gets you a unit that can consume 0-60A, more money gets you milliamp-level resolution. Honestly impressive the number of times it comes in handy, and it's shocking that most people don't know about them.
Rather than that, I'd like a collab with Electroboom testing a whole gamut of fuses and other "Amazon's Choice" tinkerer parts.
I imagine he used what he had available in his workshop. Not much use for an electronic load in his everyday work.
@@IanBPPK Electboom and fuses? That's a ha ha, not shocking.
How is that any different to this test or provide a better test result?
just easier @@Catrik
You are not some random internet youtuber, This is what you do and we see and trust you. You show the results and the outcomes. Thank you Louis. We appreciate everything you have done to expose this corrupt world of tech, right to repair and so much more. Ive never been to NY and seeing things now I never will, lol. Another great video. thank you.☺
Dude i was just ordering one of those fuse sets when i saw your video. Thanks for the excellent service you provide. Potential disaster averted. thank you so much for exposing such scams. You are a GOAT :)
I know so little about electronics I was impressed at first at how hardy the fuses are, until i finally realized what fuses are probably for.
yeah, the fuse should hold right up the point it should blow and not one step further
100% agree. I'm increasingly caught out with fake components on amazon. My last order was a fake bunch of LM317 regulators. I order from RS in the UK now which is pretty expensive but you always get a datasheet and get exactly what you order.
I'll gladly pay three times what Amazon asks just to get the real component on my first purchase.
I learned that the hard way, A bunch of expensive genuine components stuck to a board littered with just a few knockoff pieces that don't work is still worth nothing. In fact, a bunch of money was wasted trying to be cheap. Never again.
At least you can buy linear regulators at the major suppliers again, unlike the dark years...
Same thing with auto parts on Amazon. Lots of junk and even counterfeits of reputable brands.
My guess would be that the factory producing those "defective" fuses has a single production line that makes 10A fuses and then they put different collors and branding as asked by the wholesalers, because the production cost for the different colored plastic is almost insignificant compared to having multiple production lines dedicated to each fuse rating.
I though about that too, maybe its not the factory, but someone in the long supply chain. But as a customer how are you supposed to know that ? you don't, you trust the frontend store, which is Amazon, so the only conclusion is to never trust Amazon and only buy things from them when you already what they are, or never, which is the point of the video.
The entire western society is going downhill because cheaters are eroding the trust in the system. People don't trust governments or corporations or anything, soon everything decays to chaos. Maybe that's inevitable, maybe we need a new social contract like what happened after the second world war ended, is that possible without another war, who knows.
They are apparently all hold 50 amp at 12V without popping. Reviews I have seen have tested many sizes of each brand, to find you are eXACTLY correct.... ame fuse has the color and number painted on the edge you want, all at 50A
Great video, Louis. I looked up the datasheet for a brand name fuse, and the 2A version should have opened in 0.1s at 6 amps if it was designed correctly. Yikes!
26:12 You would be surprised. Penny pinching management types will buy these fuse kits for their technicians because it's cheaper, and that means professionals are putting these fuses in people's stuff for pay. It isn't just a DIY problem. It affects every aspect of the repair chain.
I really lamented Radio Shack closing, because I just knew that rank amateurs like me were never going to be able to find electronics components reliably through paper or online catalogs.
I miss being able to walk into a store and buy a resistor.
OK. A 2A fuse should not blow at 2A current. But overloading a car fuse at 200% of its rated current should blow it in a second. At least that's what the data sheets for documented fuses say.
I think it's probably less about it breaking and more how it breaks, or to be more specific, whether it breaking poses additional danger.
I just looked at a data sheet from Littlefuse. Their automotive fuses blow after 0.3 seconds if you expose them to double their rated current.
@@tobi_nand these were easily taking 4x their load
@@vinvinvichiiyeah watching to the end where he gets a quality fuse illustrates the point.
The quality is way outside even the basic specs you would expectm
Slow blow fuses are perfectly fine if you're putting them on that type of circuit.
Being steady at +100٪ or more power rating is a serious problem.
I've ordered a few items where Amazon has sent me a recall notice a few months later asking me to throw the product out. The worst one was a hair dryer brush I purchased as a gift for my mom and apparently there was a risk of electrocution if water got to some parts of it. The brush was marketed as a hair dryer brush combo that would dry your wet hair as you brushed it so I was very surprised when I got the recall notice. The product was thrown out and Amazon sent me a full refund for it.
I wonder how many hospital/morgue trips were behind THAT recall?
I got a salmonella recall from Amazon for a box of cereal bars i had eaten a month before 😂
My mom bought one for my niece, but not from amazon. Gotta tell her about this. What is the others that got a recall?
@@balsalmalberto8086 Another one I remember was a replacement laptop charger. It got recalled because it was a fire hazard lol. As for the brush, it was some off brand one that had 4.5 stars and almost 3,000 reviews with people praising it - which is the whole point of this video that consumers are being misled into buying unsafe products because of how Amazon works.
I fail to see the down side :) Jk
Specially because they have the flag "AMAZON CHOICE" which before watching your video I thought that the flag meant something... Like amazon picks one because it is the best one available at the moment or because amazon tested and agrees that it is good enough to deserve the "AMAZON CHOICE" flag... Thanks for the video! VERY IMPORTANT, I THINK ALL AMAZON EXECUTIVES SHOULD WATCH THIS!
Honestly they should have their own review team doing exactly what you just did. With their profit margin it would basically be free for them to do.
they already replaced them all with a.i. lol
Employing people reduces profit, so that's never gonna happen
Amazon's margins aren't that great. It's been one of the major criticisms that their shareholders have had since, well, since they've had shareholders. Even if they did test one example of everything they tested (which by itself would be a monumental task and would push up prices to the point that customers would simply go to other marketplaces *ahem* eBay *ahem* and roll the dice) the volume is such that suppliers could easily slip in lower quality product for restocks at any point.
Should? Why have a QC department if your entire company is a shell company that'll disappear once you get any liability suit.
but then they'd have to try and sell less profitable quality items :-(
But the review of the product on amazon if rated 4,5 stars. Doesn't that mean they can take up to 4,5 times the amps?
Radio Shack was my go to place for electronic parts decades ago. Fry's Electronics was where I got parts from after that. Now that they're both gone, this is what we have to to deal with.
I've never been a fan of allowing other businesses to sell on Amazon. Half of those sellers don't even box the items properly. I can accept the sellers whose products are fulfilled by Amazon meaning they are boxed in an Amazon warehouse, but not the ones who ship directly from those sellers thereby bypassing Amazon altogether.
Walmart started doing the same practice on their website with its "marketplace". In fact it's often hard to distinguish the "shipped and sold by Walmart" items from the 3rd party sellers.
As far as this being the downfall of Amazon, I'm afraid it will take a lot more than that to hurt them.
Seemed like someone made a video about fake fuses that were all the same rating but they were colored as if different. He laid them next to each other and the part that melts was exactly the same no matter the rating.
Something to think about when you buy a used car from someone who is being as cheap as possible to fix it.
During the supply chain issues a couple years ago Amazon was the only place I could get different parts I needed for a big electronics project and unreliable connectors/ICs/power supplies combined with a manager who always asked for more features and doubled capacity as soon as the prototypes were functional instead of finding and fixing bugs ultimately doomed the project.
Recently, I bought some Hakko cutting pliers, and I did a review mentioning that they're of good quality despite the price. However, Amazon blocked my review, claiming that it violated "community guidelines... 😡"
Very alarming. Many people myself included have placed a lot of stock in Amazon reviews, especially where there are a large number. Its not just the issue of fuses and crimps. It brings into question everything on Amazon. This really complicates things for consumers. I can adapt as doing research and comparing different sources is something I'm good at, but the average consumer is screwed.
placing trust in reviews is trusting advice from total strangers
it's best to never pay attention to reviews of anything - music, doctors, YT videos, vehicles, restaurants, movies...
the best testament to value or quality is staying power and reviews is just strangers saying "trust me bro"
@@likebot. and a review for "technical" stuff on a NON technical platform
most users ordered box of fuses and plugged the fuse with the right number and whatever worked again so 100% satisfactory and SHOULD get a 4+ rating BUT they dont know HOW to test and are EXPECTING to NOT NEED to test them
in this case the rating are TRUE and MISLEADING at the same time
@@jasonriddell Most people are unqualified to give a sufficient review.
I’m actually blown away that anyone out there hasn’t realized this by now. I thought this was mainstream knowledge.
Years ago, reviews worked as a way to tell real products from trash. Then around 2015 or so I noticed that real quality products had lower average reviews than fake items. Around 2017 or so, Amazon started pushing the trash products in their recommendations. Today it is very difficult to find good products on Amazon unless you already know which companies provide good products.
I did some digging into this on my own, a lot of them claim UL certification and you can't find any record of them at all.
These amazon videos have certainly made me more hesitant to buy things from amazon. Now I research everything potentially dangerous that I'd buy on amazon and usually opt to buy from actual retail stores now.
Years ago I tried searching Amazon for an HDD-to-USB adapter to back up an old hard drive. I had to dig to find one that didn't have reviews mentioning sparks or smoke or fire. Ultimately the one I bought did its job (as I cautiously watched). I can only imagine the situation there now.
Time to DIY, batch produce, and drop ship to blunt.
It's the dogshit power supply that comes with them. I've been shown a few over the years. One had 350V on the 12V and 5V output with a 100Hz ripple, luckily the house power was automatically cut when this was plugged in.... Another output 20V out of both 5V and 12V blowing up the laptop and the drive in the process. And another connected the live to ground (or the neutral) but being UK, the plug isn't reversible so the 240V AC was connected via the USB shield to the laptop, the person made a circuit by resting their hand on the drive to feel if it was doing anything... All the power to the house went off (lucky RCD fitment) I always chuck cheap Chinese power supplies, they are always dangerous and shitty.
This content is always fantastic. This episode has made me realise that a rossmann/electroboom collaboration would be pretty fun
Those 100W resistors are also only rated at 10W when in free air. To get the 100W rating you need them firmly bolted to a rather large thick heatsink block.
This is often overlooked, a fan cooled heatsink is often needed.
@@dino6627 Yup, got a whole lot of 25W ones, but without heatsink they are only rated for 7W.
That looked like a "how to light your desk on fire" tutorial
I think you should do a comparison with a quality name brand fuse like Bussmann or Littelfuse. Compare the time it takes to trip. Given that these fuses are supposed to meet SAE specifications they should have similar if not identical time to trip at a given current and ambient temp.
It is probably easier to change the color than to change the wire. It is kinda hard to unintentionally produce a part so far out of spec. Is there by a chance a number of different colors that burn at the exact same threshold?
Yeah they probably just took 10 A fuses with different colors and put them into a set.
And the guy who did this was probably chinese.
@@jakobstengard3672 My thoughts exactly. "Hey it is the same metal anyway, why bother?" Also no QA, or just blatant ignorance of a major fuck-up. Totally disgusting.
@@jakobstengard3672Eh, while the Chinese government is horrible and racist, and while I don't trust any of the large Chinese companies, you can't just blame all of the evil in the world on a nation. We don't know if the fuses were sold like this from China or if it was a batch of 10A fuses, and the person who knowingly sells defective goods to end consumers (due to deleted reviews) is likely living in the USA.
Normally you should expect all fuse of X rating to have the same color, aka 10amp=red (but may have different color shade)
The 2amp that blew up at 8-10 was definitely iron-based. Any good fuse in the style you put in a car will use metals that have a lower or equal to melting point than/to Tin. Any small fuse will have a low melting point metal (less than ~500°c)
Isn’t there a number on the end as well?
I am fascinated by the fact that fuses for less current take less material to do, so not they only fail as a product but manufacturer also using MORE material thus making less fuses than it could make. Awesome!
I was surprised at the crimps video because I've had different personal experiences, but I can confirm what you demonstrated here.
I've had fuses provided with cheap chinese products fail me multiple times, for example I've had a fuse for a 3d printer melt the plastic casing and the holder as well before it eventually blew, but the best part is that there was nothing wrong with the printer, nothing that made it go past the normal current rating, replaced the holder and fuse with one found at a local auto parts store, same rating and never had an issue again.
I've had others not blow when there was a short, leading to a current probably ten fold the rating of the fuse.
Thanks for all the educational stuff you keep making! I live in the EU, but learning new things and hearing you expose the shitty stuff companies do worldwide always teach my University-student brain things I never would've found out otherwise (before it was too late probably)!
I had a car almost catch fire from a Chinese fuse bought in a kit from harbor freight. Installed it for the "power socket" in my car.
The "fuse" melted when a short happened again (a Chinese charger), but the resulted metallic liquid blob was still making contact... and providing battery power to the short circuit. I had to yank the glowing and smoking wire from under the dash with my bare hand.
PS: I went back to the store to tell them, they already had a recall notice for those fuses. Awesome $5 that could burn down my car.
What's even more worrying is that there are many "brands" of mains fuses on Amazon, such as for UK 220v plugs.
Knockoff circuit breakers are also readily available on Amazon.
Right? Imagine a small alarm clock radio with a 10A fuse on it! Can you see those thin 0.5mm wires carrying 10A without melting and ignite any flammable stuff, like your mattress in the process?
230V actually, although it's 240-250V in practice. 245V here most of the time. When you buy mains fuses, check them for weight on one of those little scales that drug dealers use. The crap ones have no sand in them so will weigh a lot less.
@@TestGearJunkie. Yep, I know. Where I come from it used to be 220v, now 230v, at least nominally. I was lost in the past for a moment :)