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Registered Member #10
Joined: Thu Feb 02 2006, 09:45AM
Location: Bunbury, Australia
Posts: 1424
I had visit from the Dept of Energy Safety who inspected my 'shed' on Nov 21, 2003. Apparently some kid saw my page and asked his Dad if it was safe. I was really concerned that my hobby was over or at least driven underground. In Australia you are only allowed to wire a mains plug and no more and not even that in some states, so most of my stuff is illegal. After some discussion with the (very reasonable) inspector, I was able to demonstrate to him that my equipment runs from 50 V AC to make it pass the Western Australian requirements. Higher voltages require a qualified electrician unless they are 'downstream' of the 50 V AC. This is provided by an arc welder stepping down the 240 V AC mains to 50 V AC (120 A peak). The 50 V AC is then stepped up (by another arc welder wired in reverse) to 240 V AC again. Actually 225 V with losses. Various projects then raise this voltage a lot further.
I was able to demonstrate my TC running on this arrangement and sort of complying with their Laws.
I also had to convince him I wasn't doing public shows (easy) and that I wasn't an idiot (harder).
I didn't mention the lasers, or various other illegal stuff
Registered Member #32
Joined: Sat Feb 04 2006, 08:58AM
Location: Australia
Posts: 549
Many of you might remember back when I worked at Jaycar (one of the few surviving quality electronics shops) a large amount of stock had to be chucked out. A new law had been introduced requiring that any mains device sold must have about 1cm of insulation on the live pins of the mains plugs (to stop kids getting shocked by sliding knives between the plug and the wall socket, I suppose).
Anyhow, we had stacks of decent stuff with old plugs that worked fine but were illegal to sell. There were about six of us working there, all very capable of replacing the plugs, but it was illegal for us to do so. Anything we wanted modified had to be done and checked by a licensed electrician and the only item for which that was cost effective was a millling machine - about $800, IIRC.
Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4061
Hmm. My interpretation of that law would have been "change the plugs then pay a licensed electrician to certify them".
OTOH they are underpaid anyway so a little under-the-counter deal would have not gone amiss.
Of course, the other alternative would have been to require anyone purchasing said equipment (at a greatly discounted rate) to show they were licenced.
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