240V LED lights from China and Australia via Ebay

Bevo

Let your Light Shine before men
Joined
Dec 30, 2010
Messages
313
Location
Caboolture QLD
Just a little warning about some led Christmas lights that I purchased from an EBay seller in China that are only 240V controlled. They come with an adaptor plug to use for our power outlets. Out of this plug they use small extra low voltage cable to the 8 function controller which claims to have CE approval and an IP45 rating. Out of the controller the same cable is used to loop out to all the LEDs.
I did a little experiment with taking the controller off to see what voltage is being sent out to the led strings and found that the controller was not sealed in any way other than clipped together and all four circuits which leave the controller have 240V on them.
These type of lights are very dangerous to use as 240V with extra low voltage cable is not a good mix. It is possible that someone may get hurt or die from the use of this type of light set especially if they are used outdoors.

At the time of purchasing the set of lights I was new to the Christmas light scene and did not know much about the different types of led Christmas light sets and I thought that they would be able to run on DC without much trouble.
This set of led lights and any 240V led lights sold on EBay even ones sold in Australia which do not come with a transformer are not safe to use and are not easily changed to extra low voltage DC.
I have sent messages to the companies in Australia asking them how do their lights comply with Australia Standards and their comments were "Don't worry this item uses 220-240"'

Below is a link to one of the eBay items to watchout for:-
http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/NEW-336-LED-Christmas-Waterfall-Lights-3M-3M-5-COLORS-/270746580406?pt=AU_Party_Supplies&hash=item3f09c0f5b6 I hope this info helps some people not make the same mistake I did.
 
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