Brand New Carbon Monoxide Detector failing testing

[Jeff Bayley]

I just ordered a new Safe-T-Alert brand Carbon Monoxide detector straight from the manufacturer. It’s date was 1 year old. They are supposed to be good for 5 years. Before hard wiring it in, I thought I’d see if there were any fumes in my generator bay that may in turn be seeping up and into the coach. The unit did not detect anything but since I already had it connected to a small 12 volt battery (which was fully charged) I thought to do some more testing with it directly on the exhaust of the generator and also again within a cardboard box over the tail pipe. I got zilch for response on the unit. The alarm as 3 levels of warning from low to high. I’m emailing these videos to the manufacture for their response which I expect will be that they will exchange it since it was only $60.00 but I also am pessimistic that the replacement will test any different. I don’t see how I can concentrate the fumes any more than I did in the test.


Test in generator bay:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJ_S_JRdj7o

Test on open exhaust
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GV6-tBxUKnE

Test in enclosed box on tail pipe.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1030t8uYurM

[jimshoen]

I only use the CO Experts unit. Used it in my airplane before and now three in the coach.
Many CO detectors will not alert a very low levels. Check out http://www.coexperts.com/

[Jeff Bayley]

I phoned the manufacturer of the detector a couple of hours ago and described the testing I had done. I said I could email them the videos. They were not interested. They told me the way to test the unit was to press down on the test switch and see if the alarm goes off. Well it DOES go off. I said "Doesn't it seem to you that the way to properly verify operation is to expose the unit to exhaust fumes in a real world test and see what happens ? Isn't pushing the test switch simply shorting the alarm out to go off ? I mean, it's not like the test switch is manufacturing Carbon Monoxide for test purposes is it ?" (end quote) They said that I had probably "contaminated the unit" and now I needed to send it to them for testing in the lab to make sure it worked. So what ? They get the unit back and push their test button and send it back to me with a nice letter saying "We tested it and your unit is fine ?". I "contaminated the unit" by putting it in a real world environment to observe that nothing happened ? Is that not the equivalent of saying that I contaminated my smoke detector by putting a candle up to it ?

I would welcome any suggestions for a better way to test the unit aside from a laboratory setting with a high tech instrument to measure the PPM levels. But that would be a good test to perform in light of this.

I should also mention this. A week ago, I tracked down a really good mechanic that was especially good with electric and also had my particular converter (which wound up being immaterial). The brake lights on my trailer were not working and I knew it was something on the bus side of the wiring. We needed a 5 way to 4 way adapter in order to combine the brake lights into the trailer which did not have separate brake lights. We went through 4 defective converters before finding one that worked. The only reason I know it WAS in fact 4 converters in a row is because the mechanic helping me called me back to show me with the volt meter and the wiring myself and directly. If I had been at any other coach electrician, he surely would have said "The problem is with your bus wiring.......I've connected everything correctly". No one would have believed there could have been a bad manufacturing run of faulty wiring converters. But fortunately for me, I was working with a technician that was very sure of what was what and insisted it was the converter. It was the converter(s). After that experience, I find it easy to believe that the unit could in fact be faulty. Comments welcomed and appreciated.