AliExpress "explosion proof" Chinese factory test box 

It's great when a glass fuse briefly becomes a little arc lamp.

Ha, it's a dim bulb tester like we use for old radios and TVs. Except somehow even less electrically compliant. Excellent.

"Explosion" in a Big Clive title is an immediate watch.

I looked up the ratings for glass fuses and was surprised that a lot of brand-name manufacturers rate their glass fuses to break 10kA on 125vac, but just 35A on 250vac. It seems absurd, but it explains why glass fuses are the norm in the US.

Back in the 1950's US (and still today in some old buildings) you could screw a light bulb into the fuse box. This was a great trick to hunt down short circuits without wasting fuses.

This is neat, its what we do when working on vintage TV and radio, which can be prone to short circuit failures typically via paper capacitors.

Double pole switch? Thats the premium stuff you got

oh, it's a dim bulb tester... can be used as one for old TVs.

"Explosion proof". Reminds me of an old Goonshow joke. "We just received our first consignment of non-exploding boots". BANG!!! "Blast. A dud"

Tungsten bulbs are very useful as surrogate fuses , well worth having one inline when powering up an unknown device.

The irony is, this inline lamp box is probably a lot safer than some of the dubious "test setups" I've seen over the years of people running a bulb in series with old tube based TVs & radios (current-limiting to not make old waxed paper capacitors turn into little flame generators), though even this one still has its' safety issues, but, it's expected from the country of origin it seems.... :P

Connecting a high watt bulb (like a headlight bulb) in the place of a fuse is an old automotive electricians trick for locating short circuit witout wasting fuses. Just disconnect things one by one from the circuit until the bulb goes dim and the rest of the circuit starts working and you have found the short. Very handy in circuits where there are a lot of consumers like the marker/side lights on a truck or a trailer.

I built something similar myself, just 2 lampholders in series so i can put a led lamp i have repaired or modified in series with a 60w filament lamp in case it all goes wrong.

I think whomever named this product got the concept wrong, it is not explosion proof, it might be short-circuit proof, as I see a lot of other comments called it a dim-bulb tester... like Mr. Carlson's Lab when he is repairing old radios and such and doesn't know if it will short out. I hear Explosion proof and I think of "intrinsically safe" I once wired an control panel that needed everything in it rated as such, that was my first time ever dealing with this concept and I learned a lot. We used relays with contacts that are rated for use in explosion environments... You can bet these aren't cheap. Quote: "The standard ensures that an "intrinsically safe device" is incapable of triggering combustion or igniting any gasses or fuels. To put it simply, you can use it around gasses or fuels without risking static electricity or heat discharge from the device igniting the surrounding volatile gasses, powders and liquids."

Oh it’s a lamp limiter. I assume you have watched the various valve radio repair channels including the ones I spaffed off several times. Still not many tools that can do what a lamp limiter does, an amazing bit of bench hardware for people like me that repair mains equipment

Hi Clive, another informative video. It is always to interesting to see what is inside of piece of Chinese test equipment! With that non-polarised plug there is a 50% chance of the exposed base of the bulb being live! Nice!

hey BC, me again. i did a thing today which has eluded me for months. despite doing things far more complicated, a year ago i saw your ancient instructions from the BC site from the tiny bandwidth days for the joule thief and it never worked. i always put it down to being ham fisted, and being crap at winding inductors. but today i thought i'd get to the bottom of it. as soon as i thought about it it was immediately apparent i had in the past taken no pains over the winding polarity. 1 minute with voltage supply, a meter, and a sharpie and it was all good. i am still smiling from lighting a white led with a mere .7v.. it was lovely. seeing how much more readily it turned off rather than on. and the way the duty cycle + changed increased with increased voltage. brilliant. i have had a whole day of fun.

A factory-made dim bulb tester. If only the connectors were rated for mains voltage (being speaker terminals, they are not) and a socket outlet was available... I've got a pretty advanced test setup in my lab. On top of three switchable dim bulbs of different power, it has a separation transformer and a variac, both with true bypass relays... and a voltmeter and an ammeter in line with the circuit. Arguably more advanced and better made than Paul Carlson's! That's Keritech level of over-engineering :)

Back in the 90's working at a consumer electronics repair shop, we had a similar setup for testing equipment so if you were say, working on an high powered amp and just replaced the very pricy amp transistors, but weren't 100% sure why the blew in the first place, it could save you from having replace them again! On a side note from the same era; in the Bose Acoustimass subwoofers that were very popular at the time, the used several small bulbs inline with the speaker to not only protect it, but also to sort of "round off" any clipping, making it sound similar to it being powered by a tube amp. It was fun to crank them up a see the lights flashing with the beat!

0:23 This is a Euro plug, type C. This is used in many countries. If you have a small screwdriver and can overcome the shutter, it will even fit into English sockets.

I’d like to see ElectroBOOM test the “explosion proof” claim 😂

Your comment about glass fuses is a revelation to me. Almost every piece of consumer electronics I've ever opened has a glass fuse directly on the mains input. It's rare to find a ceramic fuse.

You just demonstrated a "Dim Bulb"Tester" as used by folks restoring old vacuum tube radios to detect if there is a direct short across the line and limit the current to the radio.

So it is a dim bulb tester. I made one for myself last month. Useful for testing second hand hifi devices of unknown condition.

Plug your hifi speakers into those speaker terminals. They will create a sound like never before!

Reminded me of the ballast lamp system we used in telegraph circuits, although the resistance in the bulbs rose as they lit, avoiding the need for a fuse.

yes. I built a quite similar looking contraption when young: switches to individually turn sockets on and off for computer components. I felt like commanding a space-ship! Until one of the switches got so dirty it shorted out and pulverized the glass-fuse I had used with a huge bang.

as someone who works with explosion proof electrical installs in the fuel industry... i can DEFF say... we might want to get a 2nd opinion on Temu descriptions before assuming accuracy in their claims xD

With the addition of a polarised plug and some labels this is a neat little dim bulb tester essential in any repair lab. Saves fiddling with sockets and wiring to make one yourself.

Back in the early 2000s as a broke teenager i used to use the same principle on my hacked up electric scooter. It didnt have any sort of speed controller, just a large relay that gave the motor full voltage from the battery. Kept burning out motors so used a couple of high beam headlamp bulbs in series with the motor as a poor mans soft start. Then had a second relay to bypass the lamps once you got upto speed. Worked an absolute treat

Another set of clip-ins for the load socket could be used for series current limiting caps. Or use an led bulb to serve as a current limiter for smaller test loads.

Yep ! ( Thanks , previous comments ) .. the " dim bulb " tester is the MOST USEFUL bit of electrical kit .. not only will it stop you blowing fuses .. but .. you can test [ unmarked ! ] transformers with safety ( for YOU ! .. and .. the transformer ( ? ) .. just use a ( low wattage tungsten bulb ) for tiny ( 1 inch transformers ).... tried - n - tested ............... DAVE™🛑

Speaking of light bulbs, we made a board to test e-bike batteries. This has 4 car headlamp sockets on a wooden board and a terminal strip. It can be wired for 24V, 36V or 48V batteries. Each bulb is about 50W so the total is about 200W. A good battery should last about 1 hour. When it is on full power it looks like an EZ Bake oven.

There also the risk that metal vapour from a blown element in a glass fuse can plate the glass leaving a high impedence path from live/phase that might give the impression that power has been disconnected, but which will still give you a nasty "tingle" should you touch it.

I have used the same system for years for repairing amplifiers, a 150watt lamp in series with the supply. It will glow briefly until the power supply caps charge up, but will stay on if the bridge rec or the output transistors are short circuit.

I learned this trick from a friend who does live music events and I often help him repair amplifiers. I made myself one of these with a single mains outlet, The little speaker terminals look quite handy! I might add them to mine

Once again I learnrd something very useful,I never re aliased glass fuses were not really for mains voltage. Thankyou

Never in my wildest dreams would I imagine that I would have seen something like this on this channel without a schematic!

Ha! It's a dim-bulb tester! I had built one of these a good 25 years ago for working with my antique radios and TVs before I had a Variac. The higher the wattage of the bulb used in the test socket, the more current will be allowed to pass through the device under test. Resistors could also be used, but the bulb also gives a visual indication.

I’m using a similar home brew box to test tube radio’s… you never know how far the supply capacitor is gone. Works fine. Mine by the way is a lot safer then the Ali express type you show here.

Since I can buy all the parts from AliExpress right now, I have to conclude this is someone's DIY project. With a couple of hundred bucks, a savvy builder can have custom tooling for ABS injection and make their own custom enclosures. They have the entire Shenzhen electronics market to sell to. If you are Chinese in this field in Shenzhen, you're making a killing.

Yep, brings me back to electron beam TV service, when we used a 100W bulb with 'gator clips to jump fuse holders to check if we missed a shorted component...

I use a 100w series lamp for when I test TVs works a treat thanks Clive nice gadget 😊

Interesting bit of kit! That 20mm fuse can easily be replaced by an HRC one, and there's enough space there to put in a longer fuse holder, offering better protection. Alternatively go for one of those push button re-settable breakers if you trust the ratings 🙂

Thanks sir, very informative indeed.

This setup is sometimes done in technical schools with a ceramic cone screw-on resistor instead of a bulb...

I use a thermal imaging camera and flick the swich on/off quickly and see if anything heats up. Doesn't help with a dead short but can prevent a lot of catastrophic failures. Then I keep the switch on longer until I know for sure nothing is going bang and release magic smoke.

I made my own dim lightbulb tester for use with old amps and other electrical equipment that have problems.

I had a similar idea on my test panel at the bench when I was an electrical apprentice 40 years ago on the docks. It had a 250w lamp on the live side connected to a test rod which was a brazing rod on a long piece of wire. The vice was grounded and it never failed me. Even had lamps in series for the 3 phase stuff. Wouldn't work now with ELCB's of course.

good idea, bulb(filament only) current limiter, i and many others strongly recommend using one when resurrecting valve tvs and radios

The "tungsten filament bulb in series with the supply" method is also sometimes used when powering up old valve radios. The filament naturally has a positive temperature coefficient of resistance; which means the hotter it gets, the less current flows through it. This gives it some self-regulating effect against voltage variation. It also acts as a crude milliammeter; and with a correctly-functioning set, you can see a bright burst corresponding to the inrush of the valve heaters which then dims as they begin to warm up and the resistance increases, until the rectifier valve begins to conduct and the light bulb gets brighter again -- perhaps dimming slightly once the smoothing capacitors are charged. If there is a fault anywhere causing the set to try to draw too much current (such as the DC-blocking capacitor connected to the grid of the output valve having died of old age, causing the valve to turn on hard and pass excessive current through the speaker transformer), the bulb will light brightly, but the radio can never get more current than enough to light it fully, which serves to limit the energy available to do any damage (energy which, in the worst case, will be distributed to each piece of shrapnel as 0.5 * m * v ** 2). It's just a shame tungsten filament lamps are so hard to get nowadays, because idiots kept insisting to try and use them for general illumination .....

My dad always used a bulb in a holder screwed to his bench to test things. Inspired by your channel I recently knocked up test box, although mine is earthed and has an RCD plug, circuit breaker and a power meter module, output is to a UK socket rather than bulb holders. I did need some quick terminals for hooking up leads and despite searching and searching, I couldn't find anything other than those speaker terminals so used some too. So useful for checking wattage and PF of new lights

I live in a 220V country and cheap computer power supplies come with glass fuses. Can confirm they explode pretty spectacularly.

I never knew how these things worked. I learned something today. 👍

the tube radio people call this "restricted power". the Incandescent bulb with the cross switch for unrestricted power is common in repair shops since the 1930ies. but they used to have proper isolation transformers too, so live/neutral are not referenced any more. (as long as you do not mess up via the ground of the RF connector or the ground of the oscilloscope, iow: you need another transformer for the oscilloscope and a ground free RF transformer too in a decent workshop setup.)

It's very stylish indeed. They are really into the white theme. White case and white wires accented by the black sockets. I wonder if they make a pink one.

close the bypass switch with the jumper in. If you insist you may use a finger extension to avoid injuries.

This is also known as a "dim bulb tester" commonly used in testing tube/valve equipment.

we made a box with a series incandescent lamp for testing switch mode power supplies as they have a tendency to become short circuit. If the lamp glows bright there is a problem.

Used the dim bulb technique when repairing old valve radios, invaluable for determining shorts on switch on, if it glowed at full power no damage done to equipment under test.

A pre-fabricated dim bulb like this is only good for the general public if they show on top a drawing of the connection lines between elements. If not they could be confusing and dangerous to some.

Thing looks like an electric chair controller. Probably about as safe as an electric chair too

Didn’t know that about glass fuses! It makes me wonder what other simple things I don’t know… Interestingly some IEC sockets I have purchased before came with glass fuses pre-installed.

Play the big clive drinking game (TM). Drink a shot every time he says "I Shall"... Last man standing wins.

Random Chinese Product: "Explosion-proof!" Big Clive: "I'll be the judge of that." 🔥

WOW a new name for a a dim bulb Tester. I have one on my bench. it plugs into my variac. and the piece of equipment I'm working on plugs into my dim bulb tester.

Serries lamp box is very common in Asia, I have seen a this even being used to teast earth leakage, can't talk of the safety aspect however incandscent lamps were very good resistive loads for testing appliances.

Oh a dim bulb tester, a bit much for what it is, believe those should be used with as high a wattage bulb as you can get, and the tungsten ones are harder to get now in the UK or Europe, certainly not in the shops any more 😑 Why not see just how much a speaker terminal can really take? I should think they could do at least 500w relatively easily

Speaker terminals and 240v blows my damn mind dude 🤣😂

A dim boulbe tesater, a very useful device, I built one of these a while ago. (I use it when I repair old TV,s).

Some old armature testers also had a built in continuity tester. It was nothing more than two probes connected to the mains with a low wattage light bulb in series. Somewhat scary, especially if someone replaced the bulb with one of a high wattage.

I recently built a (very) poor-man's current limiter by splicing one extension cord into series with another then just plugging it into a desk lamp with incandescent bulb in it. I can easily add more lamps to help adjust the wattage.

It's worth mentioning that Sir Clive is worth mentioning

These things just get more interesting.

This could be for use in stores too. In the Philippines at least, the staff in a store will demonstrate that the product you are buying is in fact working, before you take it home. Be it a TV or a light bulb, they will plug it in and show you. I don't know if it's the same in other countries.

In the rc world this is called a "smoke stopper", as it will prevent stuff from smoking when there is some wiring error

Excellent, a good old dim bulb tester !

Oops there goes another one, Oops there goes another one. 😂😂😂

Based on some pictures found on aliexpress, the large socket at the end looks like a Westinghouse socket used in the US from the 1880s to the early 1910s.

In the valve amplifier repair community this would be called a "dim bulb tester." In general, if the _must be incandescent_ bulb goes dim, at least you don't have a dead short.

That's a short tester, it's a useful tool for troubleshooting a device that is AC powered and trips a breaker. I've built and used such tools. This is not a device that could be used in any capacity with an explosive location and meet any code requirements in the US. If you use this as a short tester and don't understand it and how to keep yourself safe it will kill you. If you use this as a safety device in an explosive location you could kill everyone in the building and maybe a few neighbors as well. Thanks for doing these videos and shinning some light on these dangerous products.

Feel like ive seen a similar thing but it was made by my instrumentation teacher when he was an apprentice decades ago to test equipment without blowing it up

It's called a dim bulb tester, and it's often used with a variac and isolation transformer

I've used a similar mechanism when hooking up a microwave oven transformer for use in Lichtenberg wood burning.

An advert for a Chinese hifi power filter box was translated as 'bovine pure', got lots of laughs on the forum.

So much dedication to safety! (Sarcasm, of course) Interesting.

When I was an apprentice I'd hook up 2 incandescent lamps and used them as test probes for polarity and checking 415v lol

We can be happy in the knowledge that you will fit a UK mains plug, at your earliest opportunity.

You'd be meaning "Intrinsically Safe" rather than "Explosion Proof" when dealing with "Hydro Carbon" or other "Inflammable Vapours or Airborne Combustibles".... 👍😎👍....... Excellent vid 👍😎👍

Came here for some explosions. 🔥🔥

Hmm. With a bit of modification (safer fuse holder, safer lamp holder) you could stick that on the end of an isolation transformer & Variac and have a nice little current limited test supply for old valve equipment hehe

Functional, yet horrifying! Perfect for Big Clive test bench demonstrations.

In the RC hobby, we call it a Short Saver. Essentially an automotive bulb in series with the LiPo battery tests your soldering and components the first time you power it up. LiPos definitely don’t like shorts 🔥

I believe I've seen old black and white film of a row of blubs in parallel being screwed in or out to act as a current limiting device

Hey man, my speakers are picking up a lot of mains hum on this new amplifier… 🤣

@2:23 - Furthermore, if you are lighting a load with you body through, say a cut neutral in a knob and tube setup, that current draw is going to bite a WHOLE lot more. When rewiring old houses, you could cut through a neutral that powered a whole host of items. If you touch both ends of those neutrals, the draw just adds that element of "shite!" to your day.

In RC models, these are called "smoke savers". They keep you from accidentally shorting a big lithium battery.

The high mortality rate thing in China and India reminded me of a video that I saw where an animal got trapped on some powerlines. So, this guy got a long, wooden stick. When he touched the stick to a powerline, he and everyone around him dropped to the ground out cold. There was no arcs or flash. I guess they all survived, but it was a really stupid thing to do.

I just saw these testers in my local electrical supply store.

To me "explosion proof" means electrical enclosures, i.e. cabinets, conduits, switches. sensors, and motors, are sealed in such a way that flammable gases or vapors can not get in to cause an explosion if an electrical spark happens inside. That tester looks more to be a "spark proof" test box.