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
In terms of user experience (performance), more importantly, it is related to the safety of family members. 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.
Discuss what type of switches and sockets you should buy.
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 from traditional panels with wide borders in the past, and is also different from the popular frameless panels. It has a unique, asymmetrical design for the upper and lower border;
The curves are beautiful and in keeping with the German design, which is rigorous and refined.
The fluorescent strips do not occupy the same side of the panel as the logo. It is the first layout I’ve seen. This is a little design innovation and the panel integrity has improved. 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. I have to say that the 4 customized colors are really good-looking.
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. It has high demands on the spring piece, including excellent conductivity. inferior
You will notice that a good socket becomes looser over time. The shrapnel will lose its strength and the socket will loosen.
It will probably still be too tight even after a few years.
Commonly used materials for current-carrying parts include brass, red copper, tin-phosphorus bronze, and copper plating. Currently, the better ones are tin-phosphorus bronze.
There may be better materials, I am just talking about the common ones on the market.
The rose gold-colored metal sheet in the picture below is the current-carrying part. The metal sheet as a whole is not carried in parts. The whole sheet is made in the “rivetless one-piece manufacturing” process, as marked by the manufacturer. It has a better strength and toughness.
The weight of the copper components also shows the quality of the product. The materials are more likely to be piled up in good sockets.
Knowledge point: Which material is best for shrapnel?
Alloys containing copper: Copper-zinc (brass), Tin-phosphorus alloy
Copper materials were not all created equal. The purity of copper is important. The purer the copper, the better the conductivity. Red copper is superior to brass. However, copper has its inherent flaws. It is soft. Second, its toughness is low. Its resilience is not particularly good. It is also easy to oxidize or rust.
Tin-phosphorus bronze has better properties than pure copper. The most obvious ones are that the oxidation resistance is significantly improved, and the hardness and toughness are significantly improved. Shrapnel made from tin-phosphorus can be inserted and removed more than 50,000 time. .
You need to pay attention to detailed parameters when purchasing. 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. Look at the backseat color intuitively. White is the most common. The black one depends on the situation. It appears very smooth. PC may smell odorless. Surface looks rough, or made. If it’s matte, it’s probably ABS. If it smells like plastic, then it is probably nylon 66.
Conclusion: PC>ABS>Nylon 66
The PCs can also be divided into three, six, or nine levels. The high-end series will use imported PC, which is the so-called German Bayer material.
There are few PC materials with import certificates.
Except for Germany’s Bayer, PC is the best. Taiwanese PCs and domestic PCs are the next best.
If they can all use pure PCs, they are already conscientious products and conscientious manufacturers, let alone imported PCs. Is this possible? There are almost no manufacturers.
Fixtures are generally divid-ed into steel and PC, both of which have their own advantages and disadvantages.
1Steel
Steel brackets are strong and durable, but they have high wall requirements. And the wiring requirements are very high, and the phenomenon of loose pressure line cannot occur. The production costs are also lower than those of PC.
2PC
The PC lining board is tough, requires little installation on the wall and does not suffer from off-line conductivity. Good PC is more expensive and has better electrical performance than steel.
The fixing frame and the “Vision Pro” panels are made from German Bayer Polycarbonate.
It can be said that a lot of money has been spen-t, and the touch and performance are excellent.
Pressing Method
The screws are larger for crimping the wires. The advantage is that thicker wires can be connect-ed without thread picking.
The ability to connect multiple strands at once is ideal for equipment. It is easy for wires to be damaged by the screw tips, and the wires can slip easily and not be tightened. Affects the secondary wiring.
Nowadays, many manufacturers have improved screws. The wire is pressed by flat-head or rounded-head screws, and a pressure-plate. 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. The wire cannot be too thick or it will not fit. 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.
Quick wiring is fast. You can tell that quick wiring is fast by its name. The wires will automatically get stuck when insert-ed without twisting the screws. The disadvantage is that the wires cannot be reuse-d. You must plug them in correctly the first time, otherwise they cannot be tak-en off and re-plugged.
The saddle-type terminal used by “Vision Pro” is more scientific, combining the advantages of screw crimping and pressure plate crimping.
05.protective door
The socket with a protective door has a “unilateral self-locking” function. Accidental electric shocks will not happen as long as you do not insert the same force into two or three holes at the same time. This type of protective door is effective in protecting children. This component is now found in all sockets. 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
For a switch, the most important thing is the contact. The contacts produce a sound when we press the switch. This is caused by the two metal balls or pieces. If the contacts are not safe enough, arcing may easily occur, causing the switch to short-circuit and cause danger. Silver-cadmium contacts are used in high-quality switches. They can suppress arcs and function as instantaneous overloads. Poor quality switches are made with copper sheets or contacts that have been silver-plated. These inferior switches cut corners and present a high level of safety risk.
The switch design for “Vision Pro” has the following features.
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 life can reach more than 40,000 times.
02.Enlarge and thicken silver contacts
The diameter is 3.4mm, and the center thickness of the silver-coated alloy layer is >0.35mm, which greatly improves the current carrying and current impact resistance capabilities.
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.
04.The electric bridge and the pivot shaft are made of red copper, and the surface of the electric bridge is plated with silver.
7.others
A qualified product series of a brand needs to have complete product models, so that it can meet the different needs of each family and ensure the uniformity of switches and sockets in the home. It is not easy to have two different types of sockets or switches.
This is another very important indicator. If the distance is too close, it is easy for the plugs to “fight”, thus affecting the usage rate of the socket. The “Vision Pro” five-hole socket adopts a large spacing design.
Two plugs can be connected simultaneously because the distance is a little larger than in other sockets.
You should pay attention when purchasing a switch to whether it is single control or dual control.
Single control switch. If you need only one switch to control the light at one location, you can use this switch.
Double control switch socket: You need this if you want to be able to control the light in both places.
In my house, for example, I installed a dual-control light switch at the entrance to the master bedroom as well as at the foot of the bed. This allows me to control the lights in the bedroom from both locations. Switch on the light through switch 1, when you enter the bedroom. Turn off the light through switch 2, when you go to sleep, to avoid having to get down to the floor. Similarly, I also designed dual-control switches on the stairs on the first and second floors. If this function was not considered during the hard installation, it can now be realized through subsequent home decoration smart sockets.
From the appearance, there is no difference on the front, mainly on the back; each button of the single control switch can be connected to two wires, while each button of the double control switch can be connected to three wires.
A point that is often forgotten is the thickness. This is especially true if the box at the bottom has multiple wires. Installation problems can occur if the back seat thickness is too high. 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.
8.Shopping tips
Certification to 01.3C is essential
has already mentioned the key points for buying sockets. Before deciding to buy, you can buy a five-hole socket of each alternative and take it apart to compare.
Here’s a very important reminder! A 3C certification mark is required! ! ! Electrical devices such as switches and sockets can be dangerous to your personal safety. How can I be sure that your goods are not made in a small shop if you do not have 3C certification? Who can guarantee the safety during use?
My previous disassembly was only an analysis of 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. Most major manufacturers won’t do it.
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.
So which brands are considered reliable brands? This is not a complete list.
Watch out for fakes
Wherever there are people, there will be a market, and where there is profit, profiteers will be attracted. Switch and sockets are no exception. The switch and socket market is not an exception. J&S Lighting, a very popular product on the market, is a good example.
There are also a large number of high imitation goods, no matter from packaging to serial number, as non-practitioners, we cannot identify them at all. Spending money is fine, but the most important thing is to be concerned about 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. 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.
In this article, we will use the &S Lighting “Vision Pro” Series. It is reliable when it comes to appearance, brand and performance.
Rich model types and colors are eye-catching.