Re: Ideal Connector Recall
After consultation with the other Moderators, I am going to re-open this post to add one more comment. Then I will close it again. The following is the email message to which Tom referred. It comes from the QA Director of Ideal Industries.
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Good morning, Mr. Holt. The young lady with whom I spoke at your office this morning indicated you are traveling today. I hope your trip was successful and the flights uneventful.
One of our loyal end-user customers in the state of Washington forward to us yesterday a link to a message board at
www.mikeholt.com, the title/topic of which is "Ideal Connector Recall". There are some statements included within the discussion that are simply not accurate. We wanted to contact you today to relate precisely what we have done and are doing relative to our In-Sure line of push-in wire connectors, correct some misstatements made about our push-in connectors, and address what appears to be a misunderstanding about one of the design features of our Twister connectors, We hope that after you review our comments, the facts of the matter can be shared with your readers and message board participants.
First of all, we have not and are not conducting a recall of our model 10-series In-Sure push-in wire connectors. Product recalls are conducted when a real or potential safety problem is found, and the product is recalled to prevent property damage or injury. Over the past several months, we have had some reports where our model 10-series In-Sure connectors did not perform to our customers' or our own expectations. These performance problems revolved solely around connectors used to install switches or outlets, that resulted in an open circuit within a short time after the circuit was energized and a load applied. In no case has there been any report of property damage, injury, or damage of any kind to anything other than the connector itself. Further, there have been no reports of product problems occurring after that short time following circuit energizing and load application. Therefore, to prevent any future customer dissatisfaction, we asked our electrical distributor partners to return to us any unsold product they have on their shelves and replace it with our 80-series In-Sure push-in connector models with which we have several years of trouble-free experience when installed by electrical contractors. We are in the process of enhancing the design of our 10-series In-Sure connectors to make them easier to install, more "forgiving" of variations in application technique, and more tolerant of variations in wire strip lengths. When these design improvements are complete and thoroughly tested, we will re-introduce these connectors to electrical contractors.
Second, no IDEAL twist-on or push-in connector sold in the U.S.A. is manufactured in China. IDEAL is indeed a world-wide company, and we do offer our products for sale in many countries around the world including China. This may be where the misinformation originated.
Finally, we are very proud of the design features of our model #341 Twister twist-on wire connector -- which happens to be the most popular twist-on connector in the world today. Our design allows us to offer a relatively small product, that fits into some tight constraints of older electrical device boxes, yet connects relative large wire bundles. One of those features that makes this possible is its ability to expand far beyond its original dimensions while maintaining safe and secure electrical insulating properties. This ability to expand is visually captured by the white markings that become visible when the connector is properly applied to large combinations. These marks, characterized by some as "stretch marks", are simply the further dispersion of the tan pigment in the plastic as the connector expands, and in no way compromise or even affect the electrical/mechanical integrity of the connection.
Thank you very much for your time and consideration of the facts relative to the comments posted on the aforementioned message board. Again, we hope that they can be shared with your many readers to assure them that IDEAL values our customers' safety and knowledge when it comes to connection solutions. Please feel free to call me direct when it may be convenient for you.
Best regards,
Jim MacMurdo
Director, Corporate Quality Assurance
IDEAL INDUSTRIES, INC.
I'm an Ideal guy myself, but Gardner Bender and 3M make darned good connectors too.
