eBay is still selling dangerous Christmas lights

Nice to see the 'vise of knowledge' make an appearance!

Eric Nelson

Could these be converted to run from DC? Either USB or maybe 12 volts?

David Glover-Aoki

I have a lovely 4 strand blue LED of the same brand! I love it, but I only run it on slow fade mode in order not to overheat the four 3.3kΩ resistors in each strand (16 in total), because they get quite hot! (Obviously I neither have children nor dogs living in my home!)

No it took a Big Clive with his mighty hands to take the second cover off !

Dr Andy Hill

I gave up buying Christmas lights on eBay and now have a good set I bought from John Lewis. Not quite what I wanted but safety comes first.

Jeremy Travis

Am I the only person who thought Clives "resistor symbol" on the rough circuit diagram indicated that the lights came with Wifi at first? :-) :-)

Jon Knight

Wait....how many amps was the fake fuse? lol

that guy

They come from the proliferation of rogue sellers that eBay seems to turn a blind eye to. I've never had luck trying to report listings for serious safety problems.

Big Clive

Having seen the video, I'm definitely going for stupidity. And also sleaze and the typical "just make it cheap so that it sells no matter what" attitude. "Proper engineering is for pedantic nerds and has nothing to do in business" is likely a motto in at least one marketing school somewhere.

Raphaël

Does eBay sell them or people sell them via eBay? Remember: Electric wires don't kill people, people kill people (by touching wires).

Stefan Szomraky

I used to see ex-military versions of those in a Glasow tool store. I wasn't quite sure what they were for.

Big Clive

Flipping 'eck, this is a wee bit dodgy in the same way a rat is a wee bit covered in fur! I'm now scampering around the house checking all the sets my wife recently bought!

Rik Kershaw-Moore

You missed a trick by not blowing the fuse on a power supply to see what it's real current rating was.

Tokkan FX

The country where these lights are made does probably has a overpopulation problem… 🤓

Mike Weijmans

I wont buy any mains led strings from ebay or aliexpress. usb or battery only.

Kate Cole

You have to remember BC lives in an ice box…. 🥶 😆

Lostngone

I'm kind of surprised by that resistor that's baking at 150C over ambient. Shouldn't it be turning brown and giving off that lovely too-hot-electronics smell after not very many minutes? Did you have it on long enough for it to start to discolour?

Charles

Growing up we had “mains”(120 Volt not 240) Christmas lights with no grounds with bulbs you could burn your hands with. They were fused I guess and built with better materials but still. Honestly this was the time of year I learned about electrical things. Like series and parallel(why when one light goes out they all do) AND don’t leave the Christmas tree lights on when you go to bed because you could burn the house down.

Lostngone

Nothing to do with Christmas lights, but have you seen the amazing multi-functional crimping tool Curious Marc's friend is using in their latest video? I thought of you immediately!

Stephen King

Re: "The square pin plug seems to be an attempt to give the impression of UK safety compliance."... admittedly I haven't seen the video yet; however that comment reminds me we often attribute intent where there is none. Unfortunately Hanlon's razor applies to a lot of these things -- "never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity" (the Jargon File, H). There's no shortage of the latter.

Raphaël

Thanks Big Clive. I'm betting Ebay has some sort of disclaimer. Sucks that they sell these to unsuspecting families who want a little light but perhaps can't afford good ones?

Dave Frederick

But I Like dangerous Christmas lights,. That's what I Thought your channel was all about :p

Jonathan Hughes

I'm always reminded of a pop-up Christmas shop that appeared here one year many years ago, full of all the usual Christmas tat. I was in there, and there was a lady from trading standards with a bin bag, throwing packs of Christmas lights in, going "they're dangerous! You cannot sell these", all the while the proprietor was following her around arguing that they weren't. I think I went back a few weeks later and they just had more in.

David Rickard