Burned up! Smarthome PowerLinc

[Karen Love]

I woke up this morning to a very bad burning smell (electrical burning smell). It was very frightening running around the house looking for the source. I could not find the source and being I could not see smoke or see fire I left for work. when I returned I noticed my X10 RF remote would not work. My 1132 PowerLinc failed in July of 06' so I thought it may have went bad again...IT SURE DID! It's case is completely melted and deformed. It also reeks of the burnt electronics smell.
I am so afraid of one of these devices causing a fire in my house.

What is everyone's opinion on this?

I am always careful to never overload any switches as I know the switch will burn before tripping a breaker. But the 1132 has NO LOAD connected to it. So why the heck would it just decide to BURN UP?

We never leave the house with appliances on...stove, dryer, high wattage fixtures etc. So is the Smarthome switches the biggest fire hazard in the house?

I just might have to pull all this crap from my house. It's not worth the risk of fire.

Any thoughts?

Thanks a bunch,
Karen

 

[Rupp]

Karen,
Have you had any thunderstorms in your area. I had this exact same thing happen with a PowerLinc but I "believe" it was a lightning strike.

 

[Karen Love]

Have you had any thunderstorms in your area. I had this exact same thing happen with a PowerLinc but I "believe" it was a lightning strike.

No Rupp, no weather whatsoever. I also have a powerline monitor that displays max power. The highest peak I've had in years was 127 volts back in 2005.
Are you concerned about the thing starting a fire? Hot enough to melt plastic. Why doesent this thing go OPEN before it starts to melt down?

Thanks a bunch,
Karen

 

[BLH]

Was it the 1132B; 1132CU or 1132U? My guess is it was not the 1132U as it steals all its power from the USB port.
I will snoop around one of mine. I would think that a fuse would be in the circuit; but who knows. Can you tell where it melted; the worst? That could give a clue where the failure was.

 

[Digger]

Karen,

In my opinion this is a significant hazard for several reasons. First as you stated the fire hazard, second the risk of electrocution should someone unplug the unit and be able to touch live parts since the enclosure melted away in areas, and third the risk of a burn if its still hot enough when unplugged. Actually a fourth would be if the primary to secondary insulation were to break down and 120 V pass through to the serial output and you touch what is designed to be a low voltage circuit and its a mains voltage.


If I remember correctly this product is tested by ETL a division of Intertek (might have been UL but I dont think that was the X-10 brand and not the SH). I would report this to them and the Consumer Product Safety Council (CPSC) as well as the manufacturer. I would wait for an answer from everyone you contact before sending the unit to anyone of them. Possibly the CPSC will work with the test lab and share the information.

You are fortunate that the damage was minimal. I spent years testing products at UL and I have occasionally seen products that were significant hazards. I would think that this may have been a fluke with a bad unit but someone should get involved to verify that it is not a design flaw. It could be that a component or material was changed over time due to availability or cost and while the original design was qualified as meeting a safety standard the alternate construction was overlooked for further evaluation. It happens to many good companies.

I am not bashing the manufacturer of the product. It could be a component that they purchased was changed by the supplier without their knowledge etc. I just hope you follow up on this so if there is a problem it can be minimized.

Now you know why I have over 10 smoke detectors in my house. The sooner you know the better your chances of minimizing a disaster.

 

[Digger]

I forgot to answer one question..........

Can the product be designed to "go open"? Yes and in fact it may have and thats why you did not have a major fire (havent seen the unit so not sure if it opened or not).

Depending on what you are protecting against they could use fuses, PTC's, or a thermal cutoff device amongst several other things. The thrid party test lab (UL, ETL etc) would perform several tests under abnormal conditions to verify they operate in time to prevent a hazard.

I would not rip out every device in your house unless it makes you sleep better at night. A problem in one unit or one model does not necessarily mean a probelm in the whole product line.

100% of production of any product by any manufacturer is never perfect.

 

[electron]

That is really scary, it would make me think twice about home automation. The first thing I would do is contact SmartHome, and see if they can help you figure out what happened (so don't throw it away out!).

 

[Digger]

That is really scary, it would make me think twice about home automation

This can happen with any type of product from Christmas lights or a nightlight that costs $1.99 to a large screen TV that costs many thousands of dollars. There are no absolutes with safety.

This could be the only unit out of several hundred thousand shipped with the problem or it could be one of many. An investigation by properly trained and experienced engineers might be able to pin down the cause and verify that. Sometimes you cant make a determination with certianty but most times you can.

You need to have systems in place such as a fire alarm or the very least stand alone smoke detectors to protect yourself and property. I have both.

Another example I just read about was Maytag dishwashers catching fire due to a design flaw. Its only certian models made certian years (last ones made 6 years ago I think). It can happen to anything.

I would not stop buying a SH product because of this. Overall I would guess there track record for safety is pretty good or we would have heard a lot more instances than this.

 

[electron]

No, I am not blaming SH at all. I do hope she gets in touch with them, so they can find out what happened. It is in both their interest to figure this out.

 

[Gemini]

. My 1132 PowerLinc failed in July of 06' so I thought it may have went bad again...IT SURE DID! It's case is completely melted and deformed. It also reeks of the burnt electronics smell.

Karen,
What version of the 1132 is it???

 

[JeffVolp]

The PowerLinc uses a transformer power supply, which should be impedance protected if there is an internal failure. Impedance protection means there is a maximum amount of current that the unit will draw. However, this can cause significant heating, and deformation of a plastic enclosure is certainly possible. The plastic enclosure should be of such a material that heating does not cause a combustion risk, only deformation. So while it may look scary, it was probably just a normal internal failure, and impedance protection prevented any "fireworks".

Fusing is a problem for devices such as this. I found that early on with the XTB. I originally used fuses conservatively sized for the maximum AC power consumption to prevent overheating should there be an internal failure. Those fuses popped for several users. I thought it might have been due to line surges clamped by the MOV, but now I suspect it was due to repetitive high-current transmission signals. Resizing the fuse to handle the maximum transmission signal means that some internal failures will rely on impedance protection as in the SignalLinc. The XTB case is flame-retardant ABS plastic designed for such an application.

Even in conservatively designed electronics, there will be failures. It is the designer's duty to confine the resulting damage as much as possible.

Jeff

 

[Karen Love]

Thanks for your thoughts guys.

It is (was) a PowerLinc 1132B V1.2

It was used with a V572A All housecode RF transceiver. So the only thing plugged into it was the interface cable. Nothing was plugged in the passthru outlet.

With the older All Housecode transceiver setup the V572A used it's own power source. The new setup eliminates the separate power source and gets its power from the PowerLinc. I wonder if it would be better to get the older unit (if they offer it) that has it's own power pack.

I think they should use some type of thermal fuse inside the case of all modules. If the internal temperature gets hot enough to melt plastic, there's a problem! The unit should "open" if the temp gets within X degrees of melt down. The fuse need not be replaceable. If the unit got hot enough to blow the thermal fuse then the unit is bad anyway. I'd rather lose the $20 - $80 device versus a house!

I have a Keypadlinc by my sliding door. When the curtains are open they rest against the Keypadlinc. If that were to overheat and melt, what's the flash point of my curtains! I'm not going to wait and see. Curtains or the switch come out...Today.

I'll say this, yes all electronics are at risk of failure but can you remember the last time you saw your blender, mixer, coffee maker, stereo, alarm clock, answering machine, TV, VCR, computer, doorbell, etc etc MELT DOWN.

-Karen

 

[JeffVolp]

I think they should use some type of thermal fuse inside the case of all modules. If the internal temperature gets hot enough to melt plastic, there's a problem

Actually, all fuses are thermal devices that open circuit when their temperature gets too high. Standard current protection fuses are mini heaters that cause the fusible element to melt when too much current flows. Fuses like that can get pretty hot when running near their limits.

The thermal protection devices you refer to are much cheaper than the Pico current limiting fuses used in the XTB. The lowest temperature one I could find was rated at 86 degrees centigrade, which is still pretty darn hot. These devices are normally used in heating appliances like a toaster oven. I think there could still be plastic distortion before the internal temperature of a module like this becomes almost hot enough to boil water. However, they might provide another layer of protection.

(edited to fix typo)

Jeff

 

[BLH]

Karen; Not a total meltdown. ApplianceLinc V2 prerecall version.
Switch some highly inductive loads and the spike they created shorted the caps across the relay contacts. Everytime you turnrd off the relay. The load tried to go through the small shorted caps. I had one emit visable smoke through the pass through outlet on the front.
No not a pleasant thought.

 

[SmartLabsMike]

Hi Karen,

I sent you a private message with my contact information. Please call me, as our team would like to investigate.

For my clarification you had a 1132B with a V572A All housecode RF transceiver plugged into the bottom of the 1132B via the interface cable.