We Love this Picture!

(Photo courtesy of Army Sustainment magazine)

We love this photo! Why? Because it captures everything we’ve been saying for years about Chinese voltage transformers and why ACUPWR transformers are light years better. To say it succinctly, their products blow up and ours do not. And we guarantee that they won’t.

The May-July 2012 issue of Army Sustainment includes an article titled “The Three Most Common Electrical Safety Issues in Deployed Environments.” It explains how, in the author’s words, “electrical safety problems have bedeviled deployed U.S. military forces for many years.” It turns out that the primary culprit for these bedeviling safety problems is cheaply manufactured Chinese products (among them power strips and voltage converters).

The article makes a case for using UL-approved products by explaining how even the US military got “sucked” into using cheap, Chinese-made voltage converters. And because most overseas US military bases are in countries using 220-240-volt electricity, voltage transformers get some good recognition. The author writes,  “Step-up/down voltage transformers provide a solution, but the primary source for these appliances is—you guessed it—China. After electricians employed by a US contractor in Afghanistan inspected new, locally purchased step-up/down transformers, they were determined to be unsafe. They included a counterfeit CE logo carefully stenciled on the side. The manufacturer’s website revealed a link [to a counterfeit CE certificate].

“When an electrician checked the transformer schematic posted on the website, he determined that the ground was insufficient and the product presented a serious fire and shock hazard.” With regard to the transformer in the picture, the same make and model continues to be available on the alibaba.com website. And we'll note that ACUPWR transformers are built with UL-approved circuitry and they're CE approved. 

In the end, a picture speaks a thousand words, but this type of situation would never occur if the army was using an ACUPWR voltage transformer. Our thermal protection sensor and a host of other safety features prevent our products from catching on fire. If only the US military knew, but ACUPWR is working on changing that.