More Lidl questions

[Russell Eberhardt]

On Russell Eberhardt Said:

Vast range of tools available in France online.  Many of their power tools, both mains and battery, are made by Grizzly Tools GMBH in Germany and are excellent quality.  They list four different models of welder and a plasma cutter.  My most recent acquisition is a battery operated lawn mower to replace a 30 year old petrol one.  Much easier for this old codger to use!

Shame Lidl won’t deliver to UK.  Perhaps a result of Brexit and requirement of non EU standards?

Russell

I have recently purchased within the last 6 months from Lidl-online.fr

A  20 volt battery rattle gun, 1/2 inch sq drive, mainly for removing mower blades from our tractor mower, and wheels from cars, complete with 4AH battery and charger. €39

 

A 15 mm 20 volt angle battery angle grinder cw with flexible cutting disc, bare with  battery and charger. #

Einhell.de €39

 

A  garden multi tool, a lovely sweet little 28 cc two smoke engine, + hedge cutter+ strimmer + pole pruner+ brushcutter + extension pole

Scheppach .de   €179.

And lastly a replacement compressor €149

Scheppach .de

I haven’t seen “made in PRC” on anything Lidl for the last 2 years or so.

We use a lot of the 20 Volt Lidl garden tools mainly for OH to do strimming and pruning.

They have tonight the 4 ah battery on offer at €19.99.

Compared with the prices of the mainstream tool suppliers it’s good enough kit to do what we want.

 

[Andy StopfordParticipant @andystopford50521]

Perhaps I’m naive, but I find it hard to believe that a large, respectable, EU-based retailer is really selling gear that will blow up your consumer unit, let alone bring down aircraft. Even if (and it’s a big if) their disclaimer protected them from liability, the reputational damage would surely outweigh the relatively small contribution to their profits from selling low-cost welders and plasma cutters.

The bit about Class A would seem to refer to EN 60974-10 which you can download (without paying enormous fees) here:

https://www.china-gauges.com/download/BS-EN-60974-10-2014-A1-2015.html

The relevant bit starts at page 16. I have no idea whether it really has much relevance to such small machines – they mention input currents for testing of 25A for instance. Perhaps someone who understands the technicalities might like to take a look.

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

…Directly-radiated signal strength from a point source attenuates with radius by an inverse-square law, though I’d still not want to bring down one of the helicopters often flying over my village, albeit probably at some hundreds of feet altitude. Is that a realistic hazard with a low-powered “DIY” welder? What is the range at which they may be a nuisance to anyone, let alone a danger?

Back when I was in short trousers rule of thumb for a communication system was that a watt could be detected a million miles away.   Depends on an efficient antenna, and one of the things that makes EMI tricky is that dodgy gear puts power into the wiring which happens to be just the right length to radiate efficiently.  Radio, TV, satellite, mobile phones, Wifi, pacemakers, emergency services, aircraft, Bluetooth and utility control systems are all vulnerable.

Although not wrong to assume the nuisance extends metres rather than kilometres, whether or not poor gear causes a problem is pure luck.   The perpetrator has no idea he’s a pest unless he has suitable test gear or someone tracks him down.   Here’s an example, in short:

The mystery of why an entire village lost its broadband every morning at 7am was solved when engineers discovered an old television was to blame.

An unnamed householder in Aberhosan, Powys, was unaware the old set would emit a signal which would interfere with the entire village’s broadband.

The owner, who does not want to be identified, was “mortified” to find out their old TV was causing the problem, according to Openreach.

Note the power output of a rogue TV set is tiny compared with a welder!

The noise put into the mains may be a more serious proposition. Are 13A plug-in mains filters readily available?

Yes noise in the mains is also problematic as well, potentially energetic enough to damage nearby equipment; hence Lidl’s stiff disclaimer. They are not responsible if the welder isn’t operated within guidance that’s hard to apply in an ordinary workshop.

Though plug-in mains filters are available they don’t work well.  Effective filters are difficult to engineer and easily bypassed unless designed and installed ‘just so’.   A shielded box and carefully chosen components are needed.  These being rather pricey are often omitted to keep prices down…

Man-made electrical noise is about 18dB above the natural noise floor where I live.  Decibels are logarithmic, so that’s times 63 worse than it should be in real money!   Happened to be running a battery powered receiver when god provided a power cut and I was able to see the difference!    The racket reappeared when the power came back on.  Comes from the myriad of electrical devices we buy on the cheap, a proportion of which are dreadful or faulty.

Broadcasters deliberately beef up their transmitters to overcome high levels of local noise, but people who live in areas of poor reception suffer.   Mobile phone coverage is done with much less power, and interference is one reason the service is somewhat unreliable.  A dodgy welder persistently used in the wrong place is a hissing and an abomination.

Dave

[Maurice TaylorParticipant @mauricetaylor82093]

Hi Dave,

I presume you’ve had every device in your home ,tested for emitting interference.

Maurice

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Out of interest I asked Lidl customer service about this yesterday. Today I got a response saying that they comply with all GB nd EU regulations allowing them to sell in the domestic market. When I went to respond with a snip from the welder description saying otherwise I found that the web page had disappeared…..
But I have a copy

I sent them a copy of that and await a response. I won’t hold my breath though.

Robert.

[Maurice Taylor]

On Maurice Taylor Said:

Hi Dave,

I presume you’ve had every device in your home ,tested for emitting interference.

Maurice

Any item sold in the UK since 1994 will have been tested or otherwise assessed as meeting the relevant EMC standards. At least they should have been….

[Robert Atkinson 2Participant @robertatkinson2]

Dave SOD give a good recent example of EMC that had a high profile. Those drop-outs in your streaming movie, or other network issues may well be caused by excessive emissions from electronics.

Another,not so well known interference problem recently was a light bulb interfering with aircraft communications at Glasgow airport
https://www.ofcom.org.uk/spectrum/interference/interference-issue/
When I first heard of this I thought “switch mode supply on an LED light” but I was wrong. These ase basic old fashioned filament lamps. If asked if they needed EMC testing I’d have said “no they are simple devices”. Wrong again 🙁
So what was going on? Well the bulbs had a “antique” coating that was conductive. It appears that this turned the bulb into a Barkhausen-Kurz oscillator operating at VHF.

On emissions from a welder causing a aircraft crash the most susceptable system on the aircraft is likely the Instrument Landing System (ILS) this guides the pilot (or directly controls the autopilot) down to the runway using VHF and UHF radio signals Amplitude Modulated (AM) with 90 and 150 Hz tones.
This system is basically analog and is directly decended from systems designed in the 1940’s
Note that 150Hz is the third harmonic of the UK 50 Hz mains frequency. Not a good choice here but fine in the USA where the system was developed and mains is 60 Hz.
So if the inverter in the welder is running at around 270 kHz then the 399th harmonic will be on the 108.1 MHz ILS frequency. If the inverter input is modulated by the 3rd harmonic of the mains (quite likely with cheap circuitry) you now have a signal that will cause the aircraft to diverge from the correct flight path. There is nothing in the ILS sytem that can detect this interference.
There is a theory that the 1973 crash of Invicta International Airlines Flight 435, a Vickers Vanguard G-AXOP, near Basle was in part caused by RF data links on power lines being modulated by the 3rd harmonic of the mains. Nothing was ever proven though.

Robert

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

One of the museum’s volunteers found 12V batteries complete with charger going for £10, Chippenham area, and today I bought a digital caliper for £7.50 and a laser distance measurer for£12.99. The calipers are not perfect, but better than ones bought a few years ago.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

If the ones you bought today are not perfect what on earth were the ones like that you bought before!!!. Buy cheap buy twice at least!!!

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Found this article on “Barkhausen Lamps” which must have been in Wireless World I think.  Written by “Cathode Ray” who was M G Scroggie.

http://www.woodjohn.uk/Barkhausen%20lamps.pdf

 

[Maurice Taylor]

On Maurice Taylor Said:

Hi Dave,

I presume you’ve had every device in your home ,tested for emitting interference.

Maurice

I have the equipment needed to do it myself, in the range 10kHz to 2GHz.  Well enough to detect issues, though not as well as a lab taking accurate measurements/

I live in a village with overhead power lines so interference carries further than normal and is difficult to trace.   Radio Frequency Interference is high enough to disable communications systems, including mobile phones.  A multitude of sources: notably switch mode power supplies, motors, electric fences, lighting, and various domestic appliances.   Despite most sources being low power, a few thousand of them nearby are a considerable nuisance. ADSL signals leaking from telephone wires are a problem, this being due to the wires not being sufficiently balanced.  A few sources are high-power; welders, arc-lamps, fizzing insulators on pylons, and motors. The authorities take no action unless a protected service is affected.

First step in eliminating interference is to test everything in one’s own home, so I have, more than once.

I previously owned a HiFi system that was very noisy, and found 4 or 5 wall-warts that were seriously mucky.    An oscilloscope wipes out a DAB radio on the same table.   By far the worst is my VFD driven lathe.  It is inadequately filtered, and despite various improvements such as screened cable, far from tamed, yet.   I need to fit a proper filter, not cheap.  But apart from the lathe I’ve aggressively scrapped, fixed and mitigated all the detectable RFI sources in my home.

Most of my domestic equipment is midrange, and I found most of it is fairly clean or better.   Open it up, and filters and bypass capacitors are evident.  Not so with ‘too cheap’ stuff – to save a few pence, components are not fitted, or are the wrong spec, or the design simply ignores the need for filtering and screening.  Judging by my limited sample, the situation has improved over the last 15 years, but there’s still a lot of tat about.

Buying too cheap is the main cause of RFI and of course ignorance is bliss; ‘out of sight out of mind’.   In this case though, I ask is it responsible to operate a cheap welder when the supplier warns it’s unsuitable?   Are we in favour of drunken noisy abusive neighbours who scrap cars in their front-garden, burn old tyres when next door’s washing is out, let their kids run wild, and own dangerous dogs that bark all night?  And that’s just the vicar!

🙂

Dave

 

 

 

[old martParticipant @oldmart]

By not perfect, I am guilty of comparing the Lidl digital calipers to my Tesa, Mitotoyo or even the Dasqua. Some edges are a bit sharp, the gibs were not adjusted and attending to these minor matters took a few minutes. A 50mm length bar shows as 49.99mm which is not bad for the price and the main difference between this one and some earlier ones is that the ways are much smoother. If I dropped this one, I would curse, but not be in tears if it had happened to the Tesa.

The VFD that I bought for the Tom Senior Light Vertical has RFD shielding chosen specifically because of where it is used. And I made sure that every cable connected to the VFD and motor was shielded, and the VFD is in a secure metal box with earth wires to the door as well as everywhere else.

[Nigel Graham 2Participant @nigelgraham2]

Following my own question (previous “page”) I visited a local trade + public electrical materials retailer.

I explained I wanted a filter that would stop interfernce going back upstream, and the very helpful salesman said though they had nothing like it he and I studied a likely company in Devon. This promised filters to stop “dirty” (its own word!) electricity from the mains, but did not list anything that would work the other way.

I contacted the company, which seemed reluctant to help but said it had nothing. No, and not much in the way of encouragement either.

My thought is the best arrangement is a filter in the mains cable entering the shed, rather than an extension-lead type. So would cover everything in the workshop.

Presumably such filters are available without the expense of having one made, or the difficulty of making one now that stockists of discrete components and circuit-diagrams to private buyers seem to have all evaporated. I want complete filters, or parts, I can trust; not by buying packs of fifty or any old unknown thing from China via dubious on-line “supermarkets”.

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Unless the filters you looked at contained some very unusual materials they will be reciprocal and work both ways.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

In a previous life we called them a “lis’n”. Had a lovely brass sheet 6ft x 2ft with some LISNs on it as our EMC ground plane. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Impedance_Stabilization_Network

 

[howardbParticipant @howardb]

It’s worth mentioning that Lidl’s Parkside brand, which is actually owned by Einhell Germany

is Europe’s best selling DIY power tool brand in 2024.

We have standardised on the Parkside 20 volt batteries for garden tools having been screwed over and fed up by the usual fly-by-nights in the past. Haven’t had one 2 AH or 4AH 20 volt battery failed yet, mainly used for battery strimmers for the extensive grass areas we have that the tractor mower cannot get to.

Also occasionally used for workshop tools as necessary.

More power to their elbow, if you see what I mean !!

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

Following my own question (previous “page”) I visited a local trade + public electrical materials retailer.

Not a good start – filters are a specialist subject, and an electrical retailer is unlikely to be able to help.

I explained I wanted a filter that would stop interfernce going back upstream, and the very helpful salesman said though they had nothing like it he and I studied a likely company in Devon. This promised filters to stop “dirty” (its own word!) electricity from the mains, but did not list anything that would work the other way.

As John Haines says filters (all of them as far as I know) work either way round, and of course the user can reverse input and output if he’s worried.   A correctly installed filter of appropriate specification stops electrical muck entering AND leaving.

I contacted the company, which seemed reluctant to help but said it had nothing. No, and not much in the way of encouragement either.

My guess is they were frightened off by a vague enquiry.   Specialist suppliers prefer customers who know what they need, and dislike dealing with learners who, after a long explanation, run away when told the price!

My thought is the best arrangement is a filter in the mains cable entering the shed, rather than an extension-lead type. So would cover everything in the workshop.

Please don’t!  Bad practice.   The best filter in the world can be rendered useless by positioning it in the middle of a long cable, and it might even make the problem worse.  Filters should be positioned as close to the equipment as possible, ideally inside, and enclosed in a metal box.   The metal box is often elaborately constructed to ensure it operates as an efficient Faraday Cage, with special attention to holes, and cable penetration points.   Cables are shielded.

EMC filters operate at Radio Frequencies, which behave very differently from DC and AC power.  RF couples inductively and capacitively to the outside world, and RF radiates.  Dirty power is not confined to to the cabling, rather the opposite.    To stop EMC, a filter matched to the unwanted frequencies is required AND,  because RF walks over an  incorrectly installed filter,  it has to be installed properly.   Very easy to get wrong.

Presumably such filters are available without the expense of having one made,

They are available, not cheap.  But they’re components not plug-and-play black-boxes, and have to be understood to make them effective.  Following a circuit and simple guidelines may not be enough.

 

or the difficulty of making one now that stockists of discrete components and circuit-diagrams to private buyers seem to have all evaporated.

Plenty of stockists!  Try RS, Farnell, Mouser et al.

 

I want complete filters, or parts, I can trust; not by buying packs of fifty or any old unknown thing from China via dubious on-line “supermarkets”.

Good idea, always better to buy rather than build.  Self build is do-able, but, for the reasons stated above, component quality is the least of the DIY builders problems! The hard part is identifying what frequencies and waveforms are causing the problem and then designing the filter in the first place.  The design process identifies which components have to be high-performance and why.   It’s not a matter of avoiding “dubious online supermarkets” – if only it were that simple!

Always possible to try a bodge, and it might reduce the problem, hurrah!   My TO DO list has me down to fit a Washing Machine filter inside my lathe.   Not expecting it to eliminate the RFI pumped out by a VFD, but should curtail it, I hope!  Won’t be surprised if its ineffective though, because washing machines and VFDs aren’t the same!

Beware buying filters and hoping for the best: it’s a good way of wasting money!   Lots of money if a top-end filter is bought and badly installed.   And unless the installer has access to test equipment, he won’t know if the filter is working properly or not.

A good ME&W article about EMC filters is yet to be written.  Sadly I’m not qualified. Though I have a basic understanding, designing effective filters is out of my league, as is explaining all the installation gotchas.

Dave

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Well I actually bought the Parkside gasless MIG welder a month ago and from my practice pieces it seems to work ok, as has been said the operators skill is important and there are plenty of videos around to assist your learning.

Never thought about interference from it, why would I as there are pages of bumf on the regulations it complies with? If I ever use it in anger I will report back.

Tony

[Nigel Graham 2]

On Nigel Graham 2 Said:

Following my own question (previous “page”) I visited a local trade + public electrical materials retailer.

I explained I wanted a filter that would stop interfernce going back upstream, and the very helpful salesman said though they had nothing like it he and I studied a likely company in Devon. This promised filters to stop “dirty” (its own word!) electricity from the mains, but did not list anything that would work the other way.

I contacted the company, which seemed reluctant to help but said it had nothing. No, and not much in the way of encouragement either.

My thought is the best arrangement is a filter in the mains cable entering the shed, rather than an extension-lead type. So would cover everything in the workshop.

Presumably such filters are available without the expense of having one made, or the difficulty of making one now that stockists of discrete components and circuit-diagrams to private buyers seem to have all evaporated. I want complete filters, or parts, I can trust; not by buying packs of fifty or any old unknown thing from China via dubious on-line “supermarkets”.

 

Look at filters for motor inverters / VFDs?

Those are readily available with current ratings from single digits to hundreds of amps.

eg. Some suitable for a DIY workshop feed:

https://www.motorcontrolwarehouse.co.uk/cnw541-30-a.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004066367653.html

 

ps. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with equipment from Chinese manufacturers; a lot of “branded” items sold around the world are made by the same companies and just have different labels.

What you have to be wary of are the places that re-sell anything they can get their hands on via ebay and amazon etc., with zero technical knowledge.

I get the impression that a lot of the cheap electronic components etc. they sell are the same as what what would have been in the mixed “untested” packs sourced from US manufacturers 40-50 years ago, but the resellers just pass it through the same as the clothes & makeup etc. they sell.

I’ve ordered hundreds of items from Aliexpress for hobby use and prototyping & the only problem I ever had was when the UK carrier lost an item! It tracked in to a local depot and never re-appeared.

Just absolutely avoid any kind of memory card / USB drive or lithium battery from Chinese resellers, as they are most often faked by scammers.

 

My last purchase was a quick change turret for my Unimat 3 – a kit with taper wedge type turret, six toolholders and a knurling tool, all parts really nice, everything well finished and the holder fit to the turret is excellent.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006824733596.html

Also one of these 10mm tooling sets to go with it; that was via Amazon from a Chinese seller.

Listing them as “Wood turning accessories” shows how little tech knowledge the sellers have – but again, the actual item looks fine, for a small fraction of what a big-name branded equivalent would be.

[Edit – the site would not accept the Amazon link; this is almost the same set; I paid £26 for mine, Amazon UK stock]

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33015393501.html

 

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

If there is an EMC filter in a washing machine it’s probably because there is also a VFD. Modern machines often use induction motors and VFDs to get variable speed, reversing etc.

[Tony Pratt 1]

On Tony Pratt 1 Said:

Well I actually bought the Parkside gasless MIG welder a month ago and from my practice pieces it seems to work ok, as has been said the operators skill is important and there are plenty of videos around to assist your learning.

Never thought about interference from it, why would I as there are pages of bumf on the regulations it complies with? If I ever use it in anger I will report back.

Tony

The manual does say ‘not for commercial use’ and that the welder is a class A device that can be used in all areas except living areas and areas which are directly connected to a low voltage supply that (also) supplies residential buildings. It also does mention in detail about radiated interference. Also it is intended for use in an ‘industrial environment’. so confusing at best?

[OldironParticipant @oldiron]

This subject was discussed at great length some time ago.  As said then I have a cheap gasless mig  (albeit bought on the web) it works very well within its limits. It runs on a 13amp plug with no problem. It does not overheat the socket. I have many welders of every iteration.  I have been welding since I was a kid on the farm and am now 77 years old. Used all kinds of equipment. When working I was Lloyds and ASME9 coded welder. Also taught in a tech college for many years.  Any welder is only as good as the operator. I wonder how many of the negative comment users have ever used the item in question.  If you only want to stick bits together and are not building a battle ship go for it. Just buy decent wire and PPE. Take it slow and easy it will make your garden ornaments or weld the tinplate on your car with little or few problems.

[Tony Pratt 1Participant @tonypratt1]

Oldiron,

Good ‘to the point’ response.

Thanks

Tony

[Bazyle]

On Bazyle Said:

In a previous life we called them a “lis’n”. Had a lovely brass sheet 6ft x 2ft with some LISNs on it as our EMC ground plane. 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_Impedance_Stabilization_Network

 

A LISN is NOT a interference filter.
It is a pice of test equipment that allows consistent measurement of interference levels regardless of the impedance of the power source. Effectively isolating any filter in the supply from the equipment under test. I’m currently involved in the update of the specification of the LISNs used for testing aircraft equipment.

LISNs would generally be considered UNSAFE for use during normal operation of mains powered equipment.

Robert.

[rjenkinsgb]

On rjenkinsgb Said:s”.

<SNIP>

Look at filters for motor inverters / VFDs?

Those are readily available with current ratings from single digits to hundreds of amps.

eg. Some suitable for a DIY workshop feed:

https://www.motorcontrolwarehouse.co.uk/cnw541-30-a.html

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005004066367653.html

 

ps. There is nothing fundamentally wrong with equipment from Chinese manufacturers; a lot of “branded” items sold around the world are made by the same companies and just have different labels.

What you have to be wary of are the places that re-sell anything they can get their hands on via ebay and amazon etc., with zero technical knowledge.

I get the impression that a lot of the cheap electronic components etc. they sell are the same as what what would have been in the mixed “untested” packs sourced from US manufacturers 40-50 years ago, but the resellers just pass it through the same as the clothes & makeup etc. they sell.

I’ve ordered hundreds of items from Aliexpress for hobby use and prototyping & the only problem I ever had was when the UK carrier lost an item! It tracked in to a local depot and never re-appeared.

Just absolutely avoid any kind of memory card / USB drive or lithium battery from Chinese resellers, as they are most often faked by scammers.

 

My last purchase was a quick change turret for my Unimat 3 – a kit with taper wedge type turret, six toolholders and a knurling tool, all parts really nice, everything well finished and the holder fit to the turret is excellent.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005006824733596.html

Also one of these 10mm tooling sets to go with it; that was via Amazon from a Chinese seller.

Listing them as “Wood turning accessories” shows how little tech knowledge the sellers have – but again, the actual item looks fine, for a small fraction of what a big-name branded equivalent would be.

[Edit – the site would not accept the Amazon link; this is almost the same set; I paid £26 for mine, Amazon UK stock]

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/33015393501.html

The filters in the first to links are not ideal. Read Dave’s (SOD) post above. There is not enough information on the motorcontrolwarehouse one to determine it’s performance. However the leakage current is ikely to trip the residual current protection on a domestic installation.
The Aliexpress one is 3 pahse so totally unsuited and again likely to cauase a leakage current trip.

On leakage current, it is essential that the case of these filters is robustly earthed. Even without a fault the case of a filter will rise to half the supply voltage if the earth is disconnected. This is a shock hazard.

Higher current filters are not “better”. Generally they have less inductance so less effective at lower frequencies. As Dave said the filter should be at the source of the interference. Even inches of conductor length, particuarly the “earth” can act as an antenna.

The filters being discussed here are for radio frequency interference. They have little or no effect on harmonic currents which are a big issue with equipment like VFDs, welders and plasma cutters. The Parkside units have poor harmonic supprssion. It is fundamental design choices (cost /complexity) that mainly deterine these. Filtering them once generated requires large and expensive, generally custom, filters.

Robert.

[Author]

Posts