Garment steamers are also called hanging irons, and their growing popularity in the Chinese market has attracted the attention of Chinese regulatory authorities. Not long ago, the State Administration for Market Supervision of China issued a national supervision and spot check on the quality of fabric steam engine products. The results showed that among the 40 batches of samples, 3 batches were suspected of counterfeit products, and all were unqualified in accordance with the current national standards of China, and 4 batches in another 37 batches were found to be substandard products, involving Chinese electrical appliance manufacturers including Cixi Baili Electrical Co., Ltd., Shenzhen Huaxincheng Electrical Appliance Co., Ltd., Cixi Meiteng Electrical Appliance Co., Ltd., Zhongshan Longde Lixiang Electric Industries Co., Ltd.
The 40 batches of garment steamer samples were all from e-commerce platforms. Among the 16 items tested, 5 items were found with problems. Any of these 5 items may endanger the personal and property safety of consumers.
According to the inspector, as an ordinary practical household appliance, garment steamers should have sufficient stability when placed on the ground or on the table, and it is a basic requirement that they cannot tip over.
When doing stability and mechanical hazard tests, the inspector puts the sample on a special device and rotates it. During the test, a multifunctional garment steamer produced by Cixi Baili Electrical Co., Ltd. tipped over.
Zhou Shuisheng, an engineer from the Quality Inspection Center of the Fifth Institute of Electronics, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, said that they found that the design of the top of this product was very unreasonable and top-heavy. For example, the hanger on the top is relatively high first, and secondly, the hanger is also heavier, and there is an ironing board on the top, which is also relatively high.
The high rack and heavy top can easily lead to an imbalance of product stability. Not only that, this product also hangs the nozzle suspended at the highest point.
Zhou Shuisheng said that the position of the nozzle hanger is also placed on the top and suspended, which will cause the torque to be relatively large. Therefore, it will be more unfavorable during the overall stability test, which will easily lead to such failures.
Inspectors introduced that once consumers buy products whose stability and mechanical hazard items do not meet the requirements of national standards, they may not only cause physical injury, but also cause the risk of electric shock.
During further investigation, the reporter found that some garment steamers made in China may suddenly spray steam during use, causing harm to consumers. The inspector told the reporter that such accidents were basically caused by the unreasonable structural design of the garment steamers.
Inspectors believe that the diameter of the round hole of the steam nozzle is too small, even less than 60% of the Chinese national standard. Once a consumer purchases such a product, it is very likely that the steam will be blocked during use and an accident may occur.
With the deepening of the investigation, the reporter found that the unqualified heating items of the garment steamers would also bring potential safety hazards to users.
According to the Chinese national standard, the temperature rise limit of the power cord of the garment steamers is 50k. However, during the testing process, the actual temperature rise of this garment steamer produced by Shenzhen Huaxincheng Electrical Appliance Co., Ltd. exceeded the national standard of China by 20%.
According to inspectors, electrical appliances whose power cord temperature rise exceeds the standard limit will not only shorten the service life of the product, but also seriously affect the safety performance of the product. Because of the excessive temperature rise of the power cord, the heating item is unqualified, which may cause the risk of fire or electric shock during the use of the garment steamer.
With the deepening of the investigation, the reporter found that there is no single reason for the risk of fire or electric shock in the garment steamers. The unqualified input power and current items may also bring the same risk to the garment steamers.
According to the inspector, under normal circumstances, almost all electrical appliances are marked with the rated input power and current for consumers to refer to when purchasing products. According to the national standards of China, the input power and current of the garment steamers can have positive and negative deviations, but cannot exceed the limit. The positive deviation limit is 5% and the negative deviation is 10%.
According to Liu Qiang, an engineer at the Quality Inspection Center of the Fifth Institute of Electronics, Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China, the rated power of these garment steamers is 1000 watts, while the measured power is about 1182 watts. After calculation, it is found that its deviation has reached +18%, about 3 times more than the standard limit of +5%.
The garment steamer whose input power measured value exceeds 18% of the rated power during the testing process is a hand-held garment steamer produced by Cixi Meiteng Electrical Appliance Co., Ltd.
In this spot check, the hand-held garment steamers produced by Zhongshan Longde Lixiang Electric Industries Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of Guangdong Longde Group, failed to meet the requirements of China’s national standards in the inspection of electrical clearance, creepage distance and solid insulation; the three batches of suspected counterfeit products also all failed the test.
Source: CCTV Finance