This is a quick question on electrical safety. Yesterday I was handed a brand new LED flood light (used during video filming) to mod so a battery pack can be clipped to it rather than having to connect a long cable from the battery into the XLR-4 male DC connection on the lamp. The lamp has a mains cable permanently attached as well so it can be run off anything from 100Vac to 240Vac.
When i opened the unit i found the standard rocker DPST power on/off switch to be wired so Mains uses one contact set, the other has the 12Vdc from the XLR-4 connector on it... (!!!!!!)
I have never seen this kind of practice (usually a DPST mains power switch breaks both Active and Neutral that feeds the power-supply stage and absolutely nothing else). I am fairly certain this LED flood light will be classed as unsafe, (therefore unsaleable) in my country but won't know for sure for a while. I'm questioning if anyone else thinks the way this device is wired is ok practice...
So... in the pic below you can see the black ring-marked wires, one coming from the screw terminal block (Active 240Vac) to the switch and then another that feeds off to the power supply (out of shot). The other un-banded wires on the DPST switch are the 12Vdc leg from the XLR-4 male connector and then it feeds off to the controller circuit.
In any setup if you are using the lamp on 12Vdc, no problem but its when you have AC Mains connected becuse there's less than 1/8" (3mm) gap across the spade terminals that COULD connect out to the touchable pins on the XLR-4 dc socket...
The lamp could (will) end up being used in some rough-as conditions, rain etc or some foreign body fall in there like a metal screw and someone is gonna cop a shock if they are using Mains... I dunno, just my thinking maybe this is totally OK in other countries....
So, yeah... love to hear your feelings on this and apologies if this kind of post is in the wrong place...i am a noobee here)...
The switch is similar to:
http://nz.rs-online.com/web/p/rocker-switches/5332986/