Contents
Exterior
The main casing is polypropylene (seemingly glass-fiber reinforced observing an audible crunch slicing off bits of the mold-flash), albeit with a slightly metallic (and rather tacky) paint finish.
Overall, it feels solid enough (including the rear frame, which is quite important given that some cheaper fan heaters have had to be recalled because of this breaking and enabling the heating elements to burn through the casing).
The front grille openings measure up to 5.3mm tall, the rear grille openings up to 5.7mm tall.
The switch and thermostat knobs are made of black ABS. Their hard-to-grip shape was a source of some user complaints; this has been fixed on the KFH7x0.
On the plus side, the switch knob has a pair of rotation stops in the front panel, so that trying to turn it too far won’t put all the stress on the switch itself.
The knobs on my unit still show no cracks after 4+ years of use, unlike those on Vornado fans (OK, “Air Circulators”) which can often be found already with a crack from new (and I had one break within a year of normal use); those are also ABS, but evidently the manufacturing quality (and dimensional accuracy) can itself make huge differences.
KFH660’s oscillation motor has a circular rocker switch on the base (KFH770 instead uses a rectangular rocker oriented horizontally).
KFH660 weighs about 1.8kg excluding the cord, KFH600 about 1.27kg (and presumably marginally more for the KFH610).
The tip-over switch is implemented in the simplest (and cheapest) way – a peg at the base, which has to be held in to power the heater. While trivial to override (just tape it flat) and hence decidedly less than ideal, this is not the catastrophe it would likely be with a radiant heater (for example).
KFH660’s base has four hollow cylindrical pillars apparently designed to hold silicone feet, although none have been installed. (The KFH600/610 don’t have that possibility.)
Cord
This is the expected H05VV-F2X1.0 (ordinary-duty PVC insulated and sheathed, 2 core 1.0mm2) with a useful length of 1.96m (measured), made by Guangzhou Mainland Wire & Cable; flexibility is moderate, neither terrible nor excellent for this size. The plugs have the model number “ML-240” (not listed on their site); unfortunately, this has the usual termination weakness in modern molded plugs, so on my unit I replaced it after the warranty end with a Clipsal 439S (which is still fine after another 3 years).
While I would prefer an IEC 60320 C18 inlet, the liability risk with counterfeit cords (of which far too many will burn up under 10A) may well be rather prohibitive for the makers.
A hyperbolic warning tag was attached, which I promptly cut off after taking this photo of it; there’s no way the air can get that hot without melting the heater itself down. (Tags with valid warnings survive by me.) You could probably ignite (or at least char) something by poking it into the heating elements, but those are behind the fan in this heater.
KFH660’s cord grip is integral to the base and cover; it’s not the strongest I’ve seen, but passable at least. KFH600 (and KFH610) use a bar-type cord grip mounted inside the rear casing with two screws; this has ridges, so may be more secure.
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