Van de Graaf generator with dangerous wiring

I recently bought a van de Graaf generator from here.

It came with the central column broken at the bottom where the screws attach it to the base. I got them to send me a replacement, but the replacement was broken in the same place. Rather than continue that game I talked them into refunding half the price and kept one of the broken generators. I was able to superglue the plastic tube to repair it, so everything was good.

Then one day I clean the unit, carefully following the directions, plug it back in, flip the switch and ... ZAP! The circuit breaker got tripped. Good thing too, since it turns out that the wiring in this thing is dangerously bad. Instead of using one of the many types of standard connectors for the wires, they are simply twisted together, and an insulating sleeve is slid over the junctions. The insulating sleeve is not adequately secured and the wires can easily pull out of them, and when that happens, since the junction on both wires is at the same place, they short out. The result for me was that the wires welded themselves to the metal strap holding the motor in place, the in-line power switch was melted in the "on" position, and (fortunately) the circuit breaker stopped anything worse from happening.

In my opinion the wiring in this product is dangerously bad, and I would recommend that anyone with one of these generators take it apart (unplugged), slide back the insulating sleeves (before it happens by accident) located under the metal straps next to the motor, and put a couple of twist-on connectors (like they use in home lighting wiring) on the twisted-together wires. You will have much safer experiments afterwards.