Dangerous goods - my rights?

Cleeecooo

Cleeecooo

Cleeecooo

Soldato
Joined
8 Oct 2010
Posts
22,382
Location
Purley - Croydon
Hi all,

I have two Phobya 60cm UV LED strips. A few days ago, I opened them both and one of them immediately started sparking once it was connected to the PSU and turned on. this was in a loft with lots and lots of insulation and scared the **** out of me!

Yesterday I connected the second one and it heated up an smoked a litle bit. I disconnected it and thought it was a short so went about fixing it (more insulation around wires). A few minutes ago I connected it again and within seconds it smoked, heated up and the whole thing is now a mangled, burnt, useless piece of crap. There was a lo of smoke and the heat was so intense, the wire melted where it connects to the molex on PSU.

My motherboard has some minor damage (power button missing a little bit of paint), but no doubt, Asus could, if they wanted to, reject the RMA on those grounds.

The goods are not only not fit for purpose, but extremely dangerous as if I was in the loft again the whole house could easily have been set on fire :(

What are my rights, and can I claim any compensation for my motherboard?
 
kylew said:
What has actually happened to your motherboard outside of the paint chipping, which obviously wouldn't alter its functionality.
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So far it seems fine. There was a lot of smoke rising from it. There is also a small burn mark in the plastic where it melted. My main problem is my warranty is pretty much void now :(
 
Cleeecooo said:
So far it seems fine. There was a lot of smoke rising from it. There is also a small burn mark in the plastic where it melted. My main problem is my warranty is pretty much void now :(
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Your Asus motherboard was smoking?

I'm a bit confused where your Asus motherboard comes in, did the light strip make contact with it while it was melting?

The LED strips are completely unfit for purpose, so you'd be well within your rights to have that sorted out and seeing as it was both of them too it wouldn't point to it being a one off dodgy set.

I suppose it's something to consider that it could have been the PSU that damaged them, but if everything else is working fine on the PSU it's unlikely.

Contact the shop you bought them from as well as Phobya too, I'd imagine they'd be interested in hearing their LED strips are behaving like that.
 
kylew said:
Your Asus motherboard was smoking?

I'm a bit confused where your Asus motherboard comes in, did the light strip make contact with it while it was melting?

The LED strips are completely unfit for purpose, so you'd be well within your rights to have that sorted out and seeing as it was both of them too it wouldn't point to it being a one off dodgy set.

I suppose it's something to consider that it could have been the PSU that damaged them, but if everything else is working fine on the PSU it's unlikely.

Contact the shop you bought them from as well as Phobya too, I'd imagine they'd be interested in hearing their LED strips are behaving like that.
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The LED strip fell on to the mobo and started smoking on it.

I tried contacting phobya, but their site isn't letting me submit my message. I'll email them tomorrow.

To help you understand, here is a pic of my setup now:



The LED strip was perched near the gfx card. you can see the power button clearly in the second pic, near the top left corner
 
I don't believe your warranty will be affected by this at all really, seems like it's entirely cosmetic and I think you'd know about it by now if your motherboard wasn't working properly.
 
kylew said:
I don't believe your warranty will be affected by this at all really, seems like it's entirely cosmetic and I think you'd know about it by now if your motherboard wasn't working properly.
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I probably am being a bit too worried about it, but I've heard some Asus warranty horror stories. And they could, if they wanted to reject it, considering there is some damage. I think that the speaker bit may be brked as that's right where it melted :(
 
I suppose you've got grounds to complain to Phobiya about it at least because either way it shouldn't have happened and it's damaged your board, even if "only" cosmetically.

You could do with giving trading standards a call tomorrow as well, and the retailer who you bought them from so they can check the stock to see if any more do the same.
 
That's actually a really good point. Not much they could argue with there. :p

It'd probably be better to make your own LED strips, I tried myself and they turned out pretty well when I made a 6 LED test one.
 
PhillyDee said:
How do you mean, you opened them up?
The controller boxes have a lot of high voltage, and can quite easily arc.
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I don't know the LED strips he has specifically, but I don't think LED strips need or have those controller boxes that cathode lights have, they can work straight off the voltages the molexes supply with a suitable resistor.
 
kylew said:
That's actually a really good point. Not much they could argue with there. :p

It'd probably be better to make your own LED strips, I tried myself and they turned out pretty well when I made a 6 LED test one.
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main issue is too much wiring involved. Whilst I don't mind that, I don't want the clutter that follows it!

i really want to get that phobya 500cm strip - but it's £120 :(
 
KaHn said:
You were worried about your loft insulation going up?

AFAIK loft insulation has to be fire retardant.

KaHn
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I know, but fire retardand doesn't always mean it won't catch when exposed to a lot of heat ;)


kylew said:
I don't know the LED strips he has specifically, but I don't think LED strips need or have those controller boxes that cathode lights have, they can work straight off the voltages the molexes supply with a suitable resistor.
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correct ;)
 
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