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Company Information
Our Vision
To safeguard life, health, and property through electrical distribution system technology.
Our Mission
Maximize installation of overload and shock prevention technology to save lives as soon as possible.
Richard Simpson (first Chairman of CPSC) on the cover of Business Week Magazine spearheading product safety in the US.
Our History
2D2C, Inc. has developed and patented technologies that can significantly reduce or eliminate household electrical fires and electrocutions. These technologies are easy to use and implement. They can be installed in existing homes without replacing any of the existing electrical distribution system.
In 1998, Richard Simpson was reading a book on his sofa beside a table lamp. To his surprise the lamp wiring smoldered signaling a pending fire, yet his circuit breaker did not trip. Mr. Simpson had a lifetime of dedication to life safety. Thus, he immediately took to understanding the problem: Overloaded appliances can ignite fires without tripping a circuit breaker.
Simpson's dedication to safety started in the early 1960's as one of Dr. Charles Dalzeil's students at the University of California in Berkeley where he learned about electrocution and ground faults. In the late 1960's, armed with a technology license from Dalzeil, Simpson led an elite design team in the development of the Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter (GFCI) receptacle while at the Rucker company in California. The GFCI has dramatically reduced the number of electrocutions and is required by both the US National Electric Code and the Canadian Electric Code throughout residential wiring systems.
In 1972, Simpson became the founding Chairman of the US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)and reported directly to the President of the United States. During his tenure at CPSC, Mr. Simpson initiated dozens of major safety initiatives to protect the American public.
After his retirement from the CPSC, Richard Simpson experienced the smoldering lamp cord caused by an over-Wattage light bulb in the lamp fixture. The circuit breaker could not protect against this appliance fire since a 15 Amp circuit breaker needs at least 17 Amps for an hour before it trips, whereas a 100 Watt powered incandescent light bulb draws less than one Ampere. Simpson invented an intelligent receptacle solution to prevent fire ignition from overloaded appliances, lamps and extension cords. Simpson, Stephen Jarvis and John La Grou prototyped the solution. They named this protection to be "Overload Fault Circuit Interrupter" (OFCI) technology. Additionally, the prototype kept electricity turned off at the receptacle socket until a cord plug is inserted to prevent child shocks. They named this protection to be "Shock Fault Circuit Interrupter" (SFCI) technology. Patents were applied for and granted.
Photo: Richard Simpson shaking hands with President Gerald Ford as the first Chairman of the CPSC.
To follow through, Mr. Simpson founded a company in California and hired a management team of Greg Baker and Steve Montgomery to convert the OFCI concept into a manufactureable product and license the technology and designs. The company established a Canadian division (called OFI, Inc.) and set up a research and development (R&D) laboratory in Ontario, Canada. Montgomery hired an engineering team and developed a cost effective, manufactureable smart receptacle design that incorporated OFCI and SFCI protection.
After researching its ability to prevent fires, the team enhanced the outlet design with added protection against fires from bad wire junctions in walls and open-neutral conditions. They named this added protection to be "Power Fault Circuit Interrupter" (PFCI) technology. PFCI detects electrical current flowing through high-resistance electrical connections and detects over-voltage and under-voltage conditions. Patents for this technology are pending as of May 2006.
In the summer of 2008, the combination of appliance overload protection (then called Overload Fault Circuit Interrupter, OFCI) and bad wire-junction protection (then called Power Fault Circuit Interrupter, PFCI) was renamed Electrical Fault Circuit Interrupter (EFCI), since both are needed for complete fire protection in a home.
The first commercial products to protect against fires using EFCI technology are sold under the SafePlug® brand name (www.safeplug.com). Both the SafePlug Model 1200 and Model 1300 electrical duplex receptacles have been tested and listed against UL safety standards 498, 498A and 1449 and FCC emissions standards for the United States, and certified against CSA safety standard C22.2 42-99 and Industry Canada emissions standards for Canada. The Model 1200 installs as a retrofit over an existing electrical receptacle. The Model 1300 installs at the time of new construction, in lieu of a standard receptacle.
2D2C has a number of alliances with companies involved in fire safety and electrical distribution.