Warning Fire Hazard - Vortech MP40w

Put a smoke alarm in your stand.

No matter who wants to talk about "cheap Chinese crap", everything electrical has the ability to catastrophically fail.

Was this plugged into a GFCI receptacle?
 
Please explain to me anywhere in OP's post where he claims they should recall the 1st and 2nd gen units. I'm glad you're sure they apologized because OP didn't mention it and I think that was mostly his point.

He nor anyone else did, it was a rhetorical question. The true question was what are you expecting? If it's to vent, have at it. Sorry for your issue and glad you're safe.
 
Did you have a battery backup plugged into that jack that is burnt up?

OP, I am glad your family and you are ok. Also that it wasn't worse.

I have a lot of experience in electrical catastrophic failures.

Looks like there was something connected to this driver in the battery back up, 12VDC port.

OP, what was connected exactly?

This is a DC connection and something simple like moisture or a damaged plug could easily cause a problem.

OP, where you using the Echotech battery back up cable with fuse installed? Was it something DIY? There is a fuse on these cables to prevent exactly this type of failure. Once a DC short is created it will not stop unless the short is no longer there or power is removed. The fuse "should" have removed power before a melt down.

I think legally Echotech would have to use or not use certain language when it comes to things like this. I wouldn't take it personally. They did offer to repair it. I would take them up on that. Who knows, maybe they will discount a new driver for you if they can not repair it.
 
Glad everyone is safe.



Put a smoke alarm in your stand.

No matter who wants to talk about "cheap Chinese crap", everything electrical has the ability to catastrophically fail.

Was this plugged into a GFCI receptacle?

Smoke detectors in the stand or where ever your equipement is is a great thing to do.


With this fault a GFCI probably wouldn't have tripped. A CAFCI would have. I highly recommend CAFCI/GFCI combo at the breaker, at the outlet, or combination between them (i.e. CAFCI breaker/GFCI receptacle).

GFCI will help protect you
CAFCI will help protect your house
Surge Protector will help protect your equipment.
 
Glad everyone is safe.





Smoke detectors in the stand or where ever your equipement is is a great thing to do.


With this fault a GFCI probably wouldn't have tripped. A CAFCI would have. I highly recommend CAFCI/GFCI combo at the breaker, at the outlet, or combination between them (i.e. CAFCI breaker/GFCI receptacle).

GFCI will help protect you
CAFCI will help protect your house
Surge Protector will help protect your equipment.



If this was connected to a battery as I suspect it was none of those would have helped, unless a complete failure/fire had already started. Thus that is why the fuse on the standard cable is so critical, it's there to protect you and the equipment.


Aaron
 
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In my experience some smoke detectors can't handle humidity. My home was built with direct wired detectors and when my kids take showers without the exhaust fan on (grrr) they go off because of the humidity.

You probably have a photoelectric smoke detector which sees the water droplets in the steam the same as it sees smoke particles. Ensuring that you have positive exhaust flow is key to reducing the false activations. Check the bathroom door to see if it has enough undercut to provide proper air flow for the exhaust fan.
 
Thank you for the kind words.

Good idea to install smoke detector right in my stand. I will definitely look into the NEST wifi smoke detectors, will hopefully give my wife some assurance things will be more safe.

To answer your questions I had it plugged into my Apex energy bar and my energy bar was plugged into a GFCI Outlet about 10 feet away which never tripped.

I didn't have anything plugged into the backup battery port. I have a standby generator connected to the house for when the power goes out.

I did hear back from Ecotech through their support desk after I rated their first reply negative. They wrote back saying the damage was caused by water. Which is impossible because of where I had it mounted, I'll have to take a photo. I believe they jump the gun on this blaming water so their not responsible if everyone's houses started burning down from their older mp40w. At least its known now that they know about the problem and chose do nothing about it.
 
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Thank you for the kind words.

Good idea to install smoke detector right in my stand. I will definitely look into the NEST wifi smoke detectors, will hopefully give my wife some assurance things will be more safe.

To answer your questions I had it plugged into my Apex energy bar and my energy bar was plugged into a GFCI Outlet about 10 feet away which never tripped.

I didn't have anything plugged into the backup battery port. I have a standby generator connected to the house for when the power goes out.

I did hear back from Ecotech through their support desk after I rated their first reply negative. They wrote back saying the damage was caused by water. Which is impossible because of where I had it mounted, I'll have to take a photo. I believe they jump the gun on this blaming water so their not responsible if everyone's houses started burning down from their older mp40w. At least its known now that they know about the problem and chose do nothing about it.



Obviously there is no way they would know what would have caused it with actually having the device. I'm sure water is responsible for 99.99% of failures.

Interesting, you had nothing plugged into that port. That looks to me where the fault occurred. It's possible that salt creep got into it, salt can draw water from the air when humidity rises. Who knows.....


Aaron
 
The nest protect was designed to work in bathrooms and handle steam with a high range of humidity, has a feature called "steam check". So I picked one up yesterday and installed in my stand.

STnkEA0h.jpg
 
Man, that's pretty scary. I'm really glad you caught it in time. We have to be really careful with all the equipment involved with reefing.
 
Sorry to hear that.
Glad that everything is fine with you and your family members. Thanks God!

When you did a last update for the mp40w? Probably that was a reason for controller's burning.
 
I think legally Echotech would have to use or not use certain language when it comes to things like this. I wouldn't take it personally. They did offer to repair it. I would take them up on that. Who knows, maybe they will discount a new driver for you if they can not repair it.

Exactly my thoughts as well. That sounded as if they ran this one by the legal department before responding, heh. I mean, fortunately we know nothing seriously bad happened, so they should at least be somewhat relieved right?

Though I'm surprised they didn't ask for it in return to see what went wrong.

And on top of that, now seemingly blame-shifting the customer for "getting it wet" is kind of ridiculous without them having actually examined it or even expressed any interest to investigate....

I have heard ecotech is usually good about replacing their faulty products, as they were willing to do in this case, but how often are they replacing faulty products and sweeping things under the rug is my question...I remember there was power supply issues with the radions and stuff before too, it's hardly new for there to have been actual legitimate faults with their stuff, so trying to shift the blame without even analyzing the situation is definitely a bit annoying to say the least.
 
why are you guys even arguing about this. Do you work for ecotech? Do you own their stock?

Have some compassion, this guy could have lost everything including his family.

If some people had any compassion they would send their sympathy and that's it, not argue...

+1
 
I may have missed the arguing part. But the OP did post this on a discussion board, and I think it is worth discussing. Might even bring out other that had the same issue. I think investigating it is warranted with out placing fault.


Aaron
 
Sorry to hear that.
Glad that everything is fine with you and your family members. Thanks God!

When you did a last update for the mp40w? Probably that was a reason for controller's burning.

Thank you.

I don't recall updating the mp40w.

I heard back from Ecotech after I told them it couldn't of been caused by water. I still feel like they can care less about the situation which is frustrating. They must get a lot of support calls with their products catching fire to not have any concerns. They did write back this time saying they will cover parts if I decide to mail it in for repairs.

See photos below of where the driver(s) were mounted. The one to the left is the one that caught fire. I still have the one to the right mounted there but unplugged it the night of the fire. I don't trust to plug it back in either since its identical to the one that caught fire.

mp40w2.jpg


mp40w3.jpg
 
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