Criminals

Inside a fake un-trippable circuit breaker.
bigclivedotcom
A couple of months ago I was looking for the National Electrical Code. This is what most every state and local code is based on, and when I tracked it down I found it was under the purview of the Fire Marshall. This surprised me because I always considered the biggest risk from electrical circuits was electricity, I mean that stuff can kill you. But no. It's fairly easy to protect yourself from electricity, just don't touch anything electrical.

But fire, that's another issue. Electrical wiring is embedded throughout all of our buildings and overloaded circuits can get hot, hot enough to start a fire which is why we have circuit breakers and fuses. Since these circuits are buried within the structure of the building it may not be apparent until the fire is well underway.

So when I came across the title of this video I was triggered, to borrow a phrase from our universe of nitwit-icisms. Big Clive takes a somewhat sarcastic approach to the design of this breaker, and that's fine for people who understand these things. For everyone else, let me just be perfectly clear:

Un-trippable circuit breakers are a life threatening hazard

Anyone who designs, makes, sells or installs these devices is a criminal of the lowest kind. This kind of behavior deserves the death penalty.

I did a quick search to see if law enforcement was dealing with this and I found this page on the U. S. Immingration and Customs Enforcement website. Yes, the very same ICE that has been the target of protests in Portland.

Toldy, the guy that ICE busted, was eventually sentenced to a year in prison. ICE confiscated a bunch of counterfeit breakers and we can only hope that he was crushed financially.

The news articles only say that the breakers are counterfeit, they don't say whether they were actually working breakers or whether they were completely bogus like the breakers in the video. I suspect that a fairly large proportion of people have no interest in, or understanding of, circuit breakers. The fact that they are counterfeit is a simple method of proving the crime. Counterfeiting is a well understood phenomena. Counterfeiters print fake money and that's obviously a crime. Factories in Asia turn out all kinds of counterfeit fashion items. That's more cheating than a serious crime, well, at least in my book, but then I'm not a fashionista. But that's the point the law turns on, so that's what they used.

Occasionally an issue will come up around the house and I will declare that 'we have standards'. They may be arbitrary or capricious, but they are our standards and we are going to stick to them, or at least try. Electrical standards are something that are easy to evade and in many instances no one will notice and no harm will result, but it's not worth the risk. It's like putting on a seat belt every time you get in the car. Yes, it's a bit of a nuisance, but you never know when lightning might strike, so follow the rules. A zillion people have died proving those rules.