Counterfeit Electrical Components – Just Say NO!

Counterfeit Electrical Components

I got an email from a reader that his “Blue Sea” Battery switch melted. He was going on& on about how bad Blue Sea Switches are and wanting me to write an article about it.. Having been doing this sort of work for more than 30 years and never  seen a properly sized Blue Sea Systems Switch Melt, I asked him for more info.

This is what he sent me:

EDIT: 3/25/23: I am eagerly awaiting the suspect switch in the mail. I offered to pay for shipping and the reader agreed to ship it to us at no charge. Thanks Brian! The switch showed up and it had definitely melted. Note from Brian; “I was running my 2000 Watt inverter to make coffee when I noticed an strange burning smell. When I shut everything off  the battery switch turned oddly. This made me look at the back of the switch.One of the studs was close to falling out. The switch came to me in a small tan box labeled “Made in China. I will be more careful in the future.”

As can be seen this Switch above is being sold as s Blue Sea 6007 M-Series. The Sad Reality is that this is nothing more than a Cheap Chinese Counterfeit! I use the term counterfeit here because they are selling a known fake as a Blue Sea product  with the intent to decieve.

Merriam Webster – Counterfeit; made in imitation of something else with intent to deceive.

This switch fits the bill! Our reader got ripped off trusting eBay! This guy nearly Lost his boat because eBay could care less about selling counterfeit products on its site.

When buying off Amzon, eBay etc.you really, really need to be careful. The Chinese have made “Look-a-Like” products that may appear identical to a Blue Sea Product  but it all ends at appearance!

We have made buying off Amazon easy by carefully selecting the products in our Amazon store:

Marine How To  Amazon Web Store

Counterfeit vs. Genuine

The sleazy Communists have done an excellent job making the switch look like a Blue Sea Switch. If you look closely you can see it’s not quite the same. This switch design is the intellectual property of Blue Sea Systems and Protected by law. Sadly the sleazy Chinese could care less.

Can You Trust The Ratings?

The scary thing is they copied the amperage ratings which are actually approved/tested by UL for Blue Sea  System. The Counterfeit switch has no UL testing to ensure it is safe or actually passes this testing. Is it worth losing your boat over a few dollars? Do you know for sure this switch can actually handle 300A continuous, 500A for 5 minutes or 900A for 30 Seconds? It is clear the Chinese have no third party  testing to back these claims. I have emailed 13 sellers of these switches asking for third party testing certs and cannot even get a single response. Buying knock-off electrical anything is, as Forest Gump used to say, “Stupid is as stupid does”.

It’s Not Just eBay

These phony switches are all over Amazon too!

BEP  Has Also Been Ripped Off:

The Results of buying knock-off junk!

Even Fuses & Breakers are Faked

These counterfeit/copy-cat products are not just limited to battery switches. It spreads all the way to critical safety gear such as fuses & breakers too…. The MRBF was designed by Blue Sea Systems in conjunction with their manufacturer of this product, Cooper-Bussman. Electrical components are no place to cut corners!

Breakers too

Please be extremely careful when buying electrical components on-line especially from eBay & Amazon. FWIW Amazon is reported by a number of sources to be the worlds largest seller of counterfeit products. Both Blue Sea Systems and Cooper Bussman are well aware of the fake products but dealing with China is like a game of Whack-a-mole once you stop one of these scammers another four pop up!

 Mystery electrical components can be dangerous!