Sonoff Switch Current Overload Test

Look like a quality item ( not Chinese ! ).

I enjoyed that .

Thank you very much John. I'm actually very impressed that it even managed to handle that much - I was sure it would pop around 12-15A. I'm curious as to why you shorted out the relay? Was it to prevent it blowing first so you could get a truer measure on the tracks and their capabilities?

Cheers for doing that pretty cool

This is a nice test and was a good review too prior.....
Great T-shirt by the way!

Cheers

What did I watch?

Lasted a lot longer than I thought it would...Thanks for the demonstration..

It's a Bird…
It's a Plane…
It's JW!

What voltage was used here ?

How very anti climactic. Which, as you said, is a good thing. Funny thing is, it looks like it was the temperature monitor that melted away. Rather than the Sonoff device.. I am sure it's not, it just given me a chuckle thinking it was.

Really impressive that its failure was comparatively safe and at a significant overload. Interesting series John.

Not like 1930's electrical equipment, I had an electric motor from that period and it was rated at not more than one degree temperature rise in an hour with a hundred per cent overload. It complied to a BS standard of the time according to the plate, nothing is made like that any more.

Awwww JW I am so disappointed! I sat down with a bag of popcorn to watch the cheap piece of Far East plastic bust in to flames, the fire and rescue service rescue you from the smouldering remains of you test bed and... Well, nothing! It got a bit warm and melted 😞 I'm not blaming you of course, you did your best at 100% overload, no one can blame you for this dismal failure... I guess they just don't make them like they used to! - Thank goodness! I may have to add some of these great little switches to my home automation set up. Joking aside, Thanks for another great video, keep em coming please.

Very interesting. Before you scrap it, can we see a flame test on the casing?

Great video JW. I am wondering the black residue isn't due to the electrical tape that you held the thermister bead to the board with? Is that what melted and exacerbated the heat issues? Thoughts?

Not a bad video JW,but can you tell me why you did it in your superman pyjamas?

Glad to see it stands up to the rated current well. I've got quite a few of the plugin versions of these(running my own firmware) around the house so glad to hear they shouldn't be setting on fire anytime soon!

How does this compare with the closely related "Sodoff" switch?

thanks i feel a lot safer using one of these with a 1400w computer that's running 24/7

Thanks John. I think these switches are great but had saftey concerns before purchasing, this video was really helpful.
I ended up just buying the 16amp rated versions anyway as they were only a few dollars more but i'll rest easy knowing the rated amperage is legit.

Looks like the electrical tape you added may have contributed to the damage?? How about doing another test but leave out the probe and electrical tape and see what sort of damage happens without added interference! I'd be very interested to know how that goes... Thanks!!

Hi John, thanks for the video. I see you had shorted the relay terminals. I was wondering if there is a test to see the capacity of the relay and at what temperature it might become a fire hazard? Also, have you had any experience with inductive loads like transformers on the Sonoff switches?

the relay would have likely failed first. the entire test is pointless if you didn't find the weakest link and how much it can truly handle safely

Came here specifically because of concerns around possible safety issues of these devices. I'm happy to hear that at the very least, they have a fairly safe failure method. I look forward to using a few of these around the house on small loads (fans, lights, that sort of thing). :-) Thanks from Canada!

Nice to see the unit smoke out before catching fire. Thanks!

Thanks John, great video. I presume you were running at 240v. Is it safe to say it could run close to 20 amp on 120v in North America?

Thanks very much - that's a fairly comprehensive test measuring all the parameters one might want to and still apply to the real world. I really appreciate it as well as the tight format you presented it in. I've been worried about these little things - I've had 5 for months, but only configured one only so I could do some sort of testing, but your testing was likely far better done than mine. So far I thought - damn this things gets hot, so I bought some LM35 temp sensors, rigged one up into some velcro to hold it against it and tested it to make sure it was semi accurate, and then promptly forgot about doing anything more.

So thanks!

If you bridge the relay, it means you did not let the ESP8266 run and close the relay. It would have been a better test if you have run the ESP8266 like normal operation. I think the ESP8266 will open the relay when the temperature reaches 100C inside, but I am not sure. Most of the current uP will shutdown internally when temperature gets high as 100C, It would be nice to put PTC resettable fuse inside and have it open to control the digital input of ESP8266 and open the relay which should be NO.

But thanks for doing this and destroying your Sonoff for us. This technology will be a forerunner in the future to come.

You kind of forced it to overheat in a short period of time. A good experiment is to see if you can run a 10A device with 16A for variable times over the course of days. It looks like it can handle up to 16A for a few minutes. Maybe an inline fuse would help.

Hi John, this is a very interesting test! Would you be interested in re-creating it with the new Sonoff design (using insulated wires instead of PCB traces for the high voltage current). I'm very interested in how much of a difference that design feature would make!

i think the better way to test it is by using single phase motor..

The new R2 version of the SONOFF basic has a fuse.

I think im gonna add a Fuse for it

Did you use a low voltage and high current power supply (modified transformer)?

I really thought you were going to test that actual relay under load. I'll have to do my own test.

After seeing you're tests ,felt more confident in buying them.

Thankyou for you're time and explanation of the product.

So at least it fails pretty gracefully?

My household load is under 3kw can I use one sonoff pow r2 to measure mains load? I also use solar inverter to run my household load

Thanks for the video =)

thx for example

Excellent test I always wanted to know this about SONOFF because I have lot of them (various kinds) around the house.

I know this is a 5-year-old video so the chance of you actually reading this is slim lol. Thank you for taking the time to make this, you've given me the confidence in the switch. I have a project coming up that I need two of them each handling roughly 7 amp. Written capacities are nice but I'm from the show me state. Have a good day