To ensure the safe operation of your printer, be sure that you are complying with our Best Practices (e.g., not modifying your printer, not leaving your printer unattended, and keeping your printer away from moisture and extreme temperatures).

I admit that modifying your printer in anyway pretty much makes any safety and and functional warranties null and void, and about 75% of us have done this so we shouldn't complain and hold SD responsible for anything that happens because of it. 

The second statement I find ironic, since most of us will eventually print something that simply takes too long to print, and we inevitably leave the printer unattended.  Honestly, how many of you want to babysit a 8 hour print job?  And speaking of irony, a lot of the little models they post on their Solidoodles site take 6 or more hours.  I didn't see any of those come with any kind of warning.

Keep away from extreme temperatures?  as in higher than the hot end gets already?

the power packs made in China have the CE tag instead of the US only based UL

Which means absolutely nothing in this country. 

Technically there's nothing to prevent anyone from selling or buying non UL listed appliances, however, if you have a fire and the investigations traces it back to non-listed appliance, your insurance would probably deny coverage.

If a lawsuit ensues, a good lawyer should be able to drag the appliance manufacturer into a long dragged out lawsuit and make them pay.

So the few dollars Solidoodle saves on their cheap adapters would go to pay for the lawyers.  They've been lucky so far, but Murphy's law being what it is, I wonder how long they can go on like this.

If they want to be viewed as a true player in the filed, they need to clean up their act, and act like a real company.  Get they products tested and listed, or at least manufacture the product with UL recognized components.

For what it's worth, I don't know what SD pays for their adapters, but I work for a computer company and I come across this stuff all the time.  An adapter like the one that comes with the SD (or like the one that was bundled back in March of '13), costs somewhere between $8-12 with a minimum order quantity from 500-1000.  A good quality adapter from a company like FSP, or Delta, of similar capacity (12A), with full certs (UL, CSA, TUV, FCC, CE, CCC, etc.) costs about $35-45 depending on quantity.

Because my company sells a lot pf products into the medical field, we need to buy medical grade power supplies (UL 60601-1 listed).  The same type power supply costs $75-90 with medical grade certs.

So you can see why SD is going down the cheap route, but somewhere down the line, they need to grow up and clean up their act. 

@SoliJohn
Please feel free to comment on this issue.  I know you read these, but you've been pretty mum about this issue.

Here are the translation comments:

Steve,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. (Translation - It took so long because the Legal Beagles had to review it.) We understand safety is important to you - it is a top priority for us, as well. In fact we think of product safety in terms of a design philosophy that manifests itself on every level of our hardware and software products, from design, to component ratings, to temperature controls (Translation - We try to do our best with our designs). As such, it's potentially misleading to think of safety as simply a list of discrete features (Translation - We are not U.L. Listed). To ensure the safe operation of your printer, be sure that you are complying with our Best Practices (e.g., not modifying your printer, not leaving your printer unattended, and keeping your printer away from moisture and extreme temperatures) (Translation - Try not to do anything we didn't intend you to do). We encourage all of our customers to read the Best Practices and check back periodically for updates (Translation - You're on your own...So stay with your printer and kill the power if something bursts into flame - Good Luck).

Kindest regards,
Frank

Well particularly for the Solidoodle Press - which is not being marketed to the skilled tinkerer - and they have one sitting on a shelf next to a TV in the living room in one of the photo's.  It really should be UL listed - but despite that they should at least be open enough to say if they have any features at all that prevent overheating or fire - they won't answer the question - here is the reply I received today.  My original questions was basically what features are designed in to the solidoodle Press to prevent fires or overheating.

Your request (5197) has been solved. To reopen this request, reply to this email.

Frank    

Frank (Solidoodle Customer Service)

Sep 17 02:55 PM

Steve,

Sorry for the delay in getting back to you. We understand safety is important to you - it is a top priority for us, as well. In fact we think of product safety in terms of a design philosophy that manifests itself on every level of our hardware and software products, from design, to component ratings, to temperature controls. As such, it's potentially misleading to think of safety as simply a list of discrete features. To ensure the safe operation of your printer, be sure that you are complying with our Best Practices (e.g., not modifying your printer, not leaving your printer unattended, and keeping your printer away from moisture and extreme temperatures). We encourage all of our customers to read the Best Practices and check back periodically for updates.

Kindest regards,

Frank

If not, Soliddodle should get on the ball.  Selling electrical devices that haven't been UL certified is bad. All it takes is a catastrophic event and a lawsuit, and there's no more Solidoodle.

Yes I know they could submit the entire contraption to be UL certified, but that can get very expensive and might not be feasible on this type of device without extensive modifications.  However, short of that, at a minimum, the power supply should be UL certified.

I know buying a ultra cheap Chinese made power supply is tempting, but those are as cheap as they are because they're made with low cost, inferior components that would probably not pass any of UL's tests in the first place, so they're being sold with only the CE certificate which in the long run means nothing since the CE is "self declaration" that doesn't require any lab tests and results.  I've seen hundreds of cheap power supplies with all kinds of fake markings, misspelled markings and even the wrong markings for the device.  They just plaster a bunch of useless marks on the label without any real certs behind them.

For your interest IronMan, UL has a specific standard for coffee makers: UL 1082

Thanks Grob...I see the Overheating Protection section in the TOC...too bad I don't have a spare $716.00 to purchase the actual document...just as soon order a new printer for that price LOL.

Most toasters have passed UL standards. 3D Printers in this range have not. They are an open heater element directly connected to a fuel source (plastic) with a hobbyist microcontroller with code that varies week-to-week. From a product manufacturer perspective, the toaster is a hundred times safer than any 3D printer below $3000.

+1

And even a $19.00 Mr Coffee has a thermal fuse located under the warming plate...as well as a 2 hr timer for auto shut-off if you forget to...