Faulty 4 - Gang Extension module

Last Friday morning was a shocking experience for me. As I was having my quick breakfast by just munching at my cubicle, I heard an explosion (small one). I ignored the sound as I thought it was not serious because the munching sounds caused my ears to be less sensitive.

All my colleagues stood up and look at me. I felt strange and I asked, "what are you guys lookin at?" By the time one of them came over, I could smell burnt pvc material very near to my office notebook. My colleague who walked over told me that she saw a spark followed by the small explosion sound. She also added that the explosion has caused power tripped to all their cubicle sockets. I replied "Ehh? Really" and they looked at me angrily.



I sniffed all around the notebook area and finally I found the first socket of the 4-gang extension module got burnt. I didn't bother much as I had to attend training downstairs.

The same explosion occured right after lunch time when I was experimenting the same 4-gang extension with another socket. This time, my colleague Justin warned me not to play with it anymore.

Being a stubborn person, I asked Lydia, whose father is an electrician about the problem. She asked me to dismantle the module and I did. I saw burnt marks on both sockets and we found out that each of the socket is connected to an LED and a resistor.



We have concluded that the resistor might be faulty and could not take the load and burst. So being an office McGuyver, I cut loose all connecting LEDs together with its' resistor and assemble back the extension module.

I did few testings and it works fine! So, the lesson learnt is -> never purchase the 4-gang extension with light indicator! That would add more electronic components to the module and one the component fails, it would cause explosion. Beware. :)