1.Appearance
As highly frequently used items in the home, switches and sockets, on the one hand, affect the taste (appearance) of the decoration, and on the other hand, determine
It is more important to consider the safety of your family than just user experience. You must therefore be careful when selecting switches and sockets. Today, I will dismantle the new J&S LIGHTING “Vision Pro” series that I just bought and take a look at the internal doors.
Talk about what kind of switches and sockets are worth buying.
Just like falling in love, whether it looks pleasing to the eye is the most important factor in choosing a switch and socket. &S LIGHTING’s “Vision Pro” series is different than traditional panels in the past with wide borders, as well as from popular frameless panel. It adopts a unique asymmetric design of upper and lower borders;
The curvature is beautiful, in line with the rigorous and refined German design;
The fluorescent strips are not on the same panel as the logo. It is the first layout I’ve seen. It is a small design ingenuity and the panel integrity is better. The fluorescent strips can be seen in the image below. of.
While ensuring good looks, it also takes into account practicality, so you don’t have to fumble around in the dark night.
It offers 4 custom-made Morandi colours that can be used to match different decoration styles. The 4 custom colors look really nice.
02.carrier fluid
The shrapnel is the area where the plug contacts the cable every time the device is plugged in and unplugged. As the most important structure of the internal conductor part, elastic
It is obvious that the quality of the tablet has a direct impact on the user’s experience and the lifespan.
The spring piece is a very important part of a good socket. In addition to excellent conductivity, it also has extremely high requirements for the elasticity of the spring piece. inferior
You will notice that a good socket becomes looser over time. The shrapnel will lose its strength and the socket will loosen.
I’m afraid it will still be tight after several years of use.
Brass, red copper and tin-phosphorus are commonly used for parts that carry current. Tin-phosphorus is the best material for current carrying parts.
There may be better materials, I am just talking about the common ones on the market.
Below is an animation showing the disassembly of a “Vision Pro” 5-hole socket.
The current carrying part is the rose-gold-colored metal sheet shown below. The entire metal sheet is not carrie-d in separate parts.
In addition, the weight of the copper parts also reflects the conscience of the product from the side. Good sockets are more willing to pile up materials.
Knowledge point: What is the best material for shrapnel?
Alloys containing copper: Copper-zinc (brass), Tin-phosphorus alloy
Before the advent of composite materials, pure copper was indeed the best conductive material, and the performance of copper materials also varied. The purity of copper is important. The more pure the copper the better its conductivity. Brass is better, and red copper is better than brass. However, copper has its inherent flaws. It is soft. Its toughness is also low. Its resistance isn’t very good. It is also easy to oxidize or rust.
Tin-phosphorus bronze has better properties than pure copper. Most obvious are the improvements in oxidation resistance, hardness and toughness. Generally, shrapnel made of tin-phosphorus bronze can easily reach more than 50,000 times of repeated insertion and removal. .
When purchasing, you should pay attention to the details. Most of the tin phosphorus alloys are promoted as selling points.
The life expectancy of household appliances can be affected by plugging them into an unsafe switch socket. In the worst case, they may cause fires. Attention is needed to this hidden danger.
03.Material, fixed frame
The most common materials used for switch and sockets are ABS for standard seats, nylon 66 for the poorer ones and PC for frames, buttons, and fixing frames. It is very easy to distinguish. Just look at the color of the back seat intuitively. White is the most common. Black or white, it depends on the situation. It appears very smooth. PC may smell odorless. The surface looks rough or simply made. If it’s matte, it’s probably ABS. If it smells a bit like plastic, it’s probably nylon 66.
Conclusion: PC>ABS>Nylon 66
The PCs can also be divided into three, six, or nine levels. The imported PC material, also known as German Bayer, will be used in the high-end series.
Many manufacturers will say that my switch is from Germany’s Bayer, but there are not many PC materials that actually have import certificates.
Except for Germany’s Bayer, PC is the best. Taiwanese PCs and domestic PCs are the next best.
They are already conscious products, and even more so, if they use only pure PCs. Is this possible? There are very few manufacturers.
Fixtures are generally divid-ed into steel and PC, both of which have their own advantages and disadvantages.
1Steel
Steel bracket products have good installation strength, but have high requirements for the wall. The wiring requirements are high and there is no loose pressure line. And the production cost is also lower than PC.
2PC
PC lining board has good toughness, low installation requirements on the wall, and is not prone to off-line conductive phenomena. Good PC is more expensive and has better electrical performance than steel.
The “Vision Pro” panel is ma-de of German Bayer polycarbonate + the fixing frame is made of German Bayer PC material.
The touch and performance of this product are outstanding.
04.Pressing method
There are more screws for crimping wires. The advantage is that thicker wires can be connect-ed without thread picking.
Many strands can be connect-ed at one time, which is suitable for work equipment. It is easy for wires to be damaged by the screw tips, and the wires can slip easily and not be tightened. Affects secondary wiring.
Many manufacturers today have developed improved screws. They use flat-head or round-head screws and a pressure plate to press the wire. The advantage is that two strands of wire are connect-ed at the same time. The pressure plate is use-d to top the wire, which increases the stress area and is not easy to damage the wire. The wire diameter is a disadvantage. It can’t be too thick, otherwise it won’t fit in. This type of wire is fine for home decor, but is much more difficult to use for industrial equipment that often has multiple thick wires.
Needless to say, quick wiring is fast. Just listen to the name and you will know that it is fast. When the wires are inserted without turning the screws, they will get stuck. It is not possible to re-use the wires. They must be correctly plugged in the first time.
The saddle-type of terminal that “Vision Pro” uses is more scientific and combines the benefits of both screw crimping as well as pressure plate crimping.
05.protective door
A socket with a protective cover has “unilateral locking” functionality. As long as the same force is not use-d to insert two or three holes of the socket at the same time, accidental electric shock will not occur. This type of protective door is effective in protecting children. Basically, all good sockets now have this component. When we are choosing, we can also find an iron piece to try to see if there is a baffle in the socket, and whether the two holes must be insert-ed together to insert it. If both are the same, it means that the socket has a protective door. .-
Switch contact
The contact is what matters most for a switch. When we press the switch, we can hear a sound, which is produced by the contacts and is produced by two metal pieces or metal balls. Contacts that are too unsafe can cause arcing, which could lead to a switch short-circuiting and causing danger. High-quality switches generally use silver-cadmium contacts, which can function as instantaneous overcurrent and have a very strong ability to suppress arcs. Inferior switches use copper sheets or silver-plated iron contacts, which cut corners and pose high safety risks.
For “Vision Pro”, the switch design has the following highlights.
Patented structure 01.V shape groove
Through the V-shaped groove patented structure, arcs are suppressed, excess carbon deposits are eliminated, and product carbon deposits are effectively reduced. The product can last up to 40,000 times.
Silver contacts can be enlarged and thickened
The silver-coated layer has a thickness of >0.35mm in the middle, which improves current carrying capacity and impact resistance.
03.Ball-to-ball upper and lower silver contact contact mechanism
The silver alloy contact layer is thicker in the middle and gets thinner at the edges. The ball-to-ball contact ensures that the current impact is always in the thickest part of the center, effectively reducing the impact of manufacturing errors and pivot wear.
The electric bridge surface is silver-plated.
7.others
It is important that a qualified product line of a brand has complete models. This will allow it to meet the needs of every family while ensuring uniformity in switches and sockets. It is not easy to have two different types of sockets or switches.
This is another very important indicator. The distance between the plugs can be too close and cause them to “fight”, lowering the socket’s usage rate. The “Vision Pro” five-hole socket adopts a large spacing design.
The distance is slightly larger than other sockets, so two plugs can be connected at the same time.
You should pay attention when purchasing a switch to whether it is single control or dual control.
Single control switch: If you only need to use one switch to control a light in one place, then you can use a single control switch for this switch.
Double control switch: If you want to control the same light not only in this place, but also in another place, you need a double control switch socket.
Taking my home as an example, a dual-control switch is installed at the door of the master bedroom and at the head of the bed to jointly control the opening and closing of the bedroom lights. Turn on the lights through switch 1 when entering the bedroom, and turn off the lights through switch 2 when sleeping, so you don’t have to go to the ground. I designed dual-control switches for the stairs of the first and second floor. If this function was not considered during the hard installation, it can now be realized through subsequent home decoration smart sockets.
A point that is often forgotten is the thickness. This is especially true if the box at the bottom has multiple wires. If the back seat is too thick, installation problems may occur. As you can see from the comparison in the picture below, the base of the Vision Pro on the right is much slimmer, providing more installation possibilities.
Shopping tips
01.3C certification is a must
has already mentioned the key points for buying sockets. You can compare the five-hole sockets of different options before deciding.
Here’s a very important reminder! A 3C certification mark is required! ! ! Switches and sockets are electrical devices that involve personal safety. If you don’t even have 3C certification, how can I believe that you are not selling goods from a small workshop? Who can guarantee the safety during use?
The previous disassembly I did was just an analysis of the materials and structural design. As for durability and electrical safety, professional equipment is still needed to test, and 3C is the most basic guarantee.
02.Buy products from big brands and factories
The technical threshold for switches and sockets is not high, and small workshops can also make them. Moreover, small factories have lower mold opening costs, more flexible production, and less supervision. They can produce personalized products faster according to market demand, such as the picture below. Almost all major manufacturers will not do this.
The introduction of this kind ofswitch socket is usually about how beautiful it is, but the performance of the product is simply mentioned or not mentioned at all. The reason why I recommend buying brand products from major manufacturers is because as mentioned above, as for durability and electrical safety, only regular major manufacturers will strictly enforce these and invest a lot of financial and material resources to purchase related equipment.
The quality of mass-produced switches and sockets is high, because if a defective switch socket is used, it can cause malfunctions or even threaten property and personal safety. Apart from anything else, I don’t believe that small workshops will purchase equipment to conduct socket durability tests and salt spray tests.
Which brands can you trust? The following is an incomplete list:
Watch out for fakes
Profiteers are attracted to profiteers wherever there are people. The switch and socket market is no exception. It is one of the products most affected by counterfeit goods. Take J&S LIGHTING, which is very popular in the market, as an example.
As non-practitioners we are unable to identify a lot of these high imitation products, from their packaging or serial numbers. It’s okay to spend money in vain, the key is to worry about affecting safety!
The first suggestion I give here is: choose the official flagship store or authorized store to purchase, and check the anti-counterfeiting codes one by one (mixed sales of originals and imitations also happen from time to time). Do not be greedy and risk big losses.
9.Summarize
As electrical components, you must not be careless when purchasing switches and sockets. After all, safety comes first.
You must pay attention to appearance while also taking into account performance. As ordinary consumers, after all, we don’t have that much professional equipment to test one by one, so purchasing products from big brands through formal channels is the most worry-free option.
Take the &S LIGHTING “Vision Pro” series as an example in this article. It is reliable in terms of appearance, brand and performance.
Rich model types and colors are eye-catching.