EEVblog #873 - World's Most Dangerous Consumer Product!

[rch]

Thanks for the video.  But would it be a good idea to omit 'EEVBLOG'  from the Youtube title?   It has the potential to confuse.

He's got "Re:" in the title, so that's ok.

Thanks.  So I was only confused because I don't know much about Youtube.  Sorry!

[k4rlhp]

https://youtu.be/exn90L95dgI

What do you use for a fork?

Very good.
Now, if you keep the electrodes close to each-other and otherwise isolated, like in the contraption starred in the original subject video, where is the conductive path formed?
In between the exposed electrodes.
The very effect (stirring the water) in your video demonstrates this admirably.
Consider the rate of flow in btw the electrodes vs. elsewhere and the resistor network this creates.
This is fluid dynamics and probability.
You're welcome to try and prove me wrong.

My point was that if the device is properly built and used, it is safe enough even if at some local level it seems otherwise (exposed electrodes!!! ).

If the opposite were true, a user of the shower contraption would be killed as soon as one tries to start the water flow (touching metal presumably).
And the pictures posted in this thread form "the proof is in the pudding" evidence.
Or do we think that fellow Russians and Chinese are so tough that they just push the previous dead body next to the old pile of corpses and take shower without further hesitation???

The thing is that, if even the smacked together solutions seen on these photos are not regularly killing people, it's for a systemic reason, not for the lack of it (ie. massive persistent spike of luck in Russia and China???).

One more thing, these "contraptions" are certified in EU by EN 60335-1 and EN 60335-2-35
This, of course, presumes sound engineering in design and build, which was my original point.
Therefore, acceptably safe applications of the technology exist.
Therefore, the technology itself is not fundamentally "unsafe", (only the bad examples of application are unsafe, as with any other technology)
I rest my case. (damn, I sound like a lawyer, I best shut up...)

K

[Brumby]

Thanks for the video.  But would it be a good idea to omit 'EEVBLOG'  from the Youtube title?   It has the potential to confuse.

He's got "Re:" in the title, so that's ok.

I've not come across that on Youtube.  Is this a standard method to title a response video to another Youtuber's video - or just something you are OK with?

[k4rlhp]

1. there are tons of commercial solutions for consumer and industrial market employing this method. I can send you a picture of an industrial heater rated for 25kW used to either heat utility water or provide heating to HVAC systems (NB! directly coupled via conductive liquid to metal fixtures like radiators or kitchen taps). If you want, I can sell it to you for €300 + shipping, it's perfectly functional.

It's functional but not allowed in many countries. Can you post us a photo of the label to see the safety marks ?

Well, memory didn't serve me right here. it's 20kw and not industrial but consumer...
Nevertheless, a photo provided, see the attachment.

Hey, I just had a great idea!
I should send this to Dave for teardown
only 100kg 1m*1.2m*0.4m

[SeanB]

Plenty of electrodeless boilers around, often used to generate steam in industrial plant, using a 3 phase supply. The only thing you need to make sure of is that the water inles is a grounded metal fitting, and the supply piping is conductive and ground bonded. The other requirement is for an industrial GFCI to be installed, which has a sensitivity that can range from 100mA to 5A or more, depending on the size of the boiler.

With a 3 phase unit there is no ground current in normal use, unless there is a fault as the concentric arrangement of the electrodes means the water inlet is in an equipotential point, so it is effectively at neutral potential and thus ground. Single phase units do exist, as both steam and water heaters, but those will have a ground current through the fittings in normal use, so use a low sensitivity GFCI unit. The 3 phase ones and the single phase ones will only trip on ground current if the electrode breaks off or the one electrode boils dry.

They often are an all steel tank construction, and the bigger ones use an 11kV supply direct from a low voltage transformer, where you want a large amount of high pressure steam and do not want to have a conventional oil or coal fired boiler. Still the same pressure test and boiler examinations though.

[mux]

Very good.
Now, if you keep the electrodes close to each-other and otherwise isolated, like in the contraption starred in the original subject video, where is the conductive path formed?
In between the exposed electrodes.
The very effect (stirring the water) in your video demonstrates this admirably.
Consider the rate of flow in btw the electrodes vs. elsewhere and the resistor network this creates.
This is fluid dynamics and probability.
You're welcome to try and prove me wrong.

Well, that is a very facetious argument. The electric field emanates from both electrodes radially. It will be neutral if no other conductors are present, but we're not talking about that, we're talking about a human for instance sticking their finger in the baby's bathwater while this contraption is in there heating the water. That human creates a conductive path to ground and will get a serious shock at 1/2 mains voltage. Because the water is essentially a conductor.

My point was that if the device is properly built and used, it is safe enough even if at some local level it seems otherwise (exposed electrodes!!! ).

It is categorically unsafe in any circumstance. It should never be used near humans.

If the opposite were true, a user of the shower contraption would be killed as soon as one tries to start the water flow (touching metal presumably).
And the pictures posted in this thread form "the proof is in the pudding" evidence.
Or do we think that fellow Russians and Chinese are so tough that they just push the previous dead body next to the old pile of corpses and take shower without further hesitation???

Direct water heaters are one of the leading causes of electrocution, the rate of which is almost two orders of magnitude higher in China compared to western countries. This would be considered an unacceptable risk by any lawmaker.

The thing is that, if even the smacked together solutions seen on these photos are not regularly killing people, it's for a systemic reason, not for the lack of it (ie. massive persistent spike of luck in Russia and China???).

But they do regularly kill people. However, this is the cheapest way to heat water and we're dealing with people far below the poverty line. What's worse, dying from disease or having to use a dangerous device that, if used under specific circumstances, doesn't kill you?

One more thing, these "contraptions" are certified in EU by EN 60335-1 and EN 60335-2-35
This, of course, presumes sound engineering in design and build, which was my original point.
Therefore, acceptably safe applications of the technology exist.
Therefore, the technology itself is not fundamentally "unsafe", (only the bad examples of application are unsafe, as with any other technology)
I rest my case. (damn, I sound like a lawyer, I best shut up...)

... they are certified for use in an enclosed, insulated container (water boiler). Not with open conductors to mains in user-reachable areas.

[classical]

Using youtube search with keywords "electrica doucha lorenzetti" you can find a lot of users of these directly heated showers.
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=electrica+doucha+lorenzetti

This one

seems to be the official installation guide by Lorenzetti. Have a look on the distribution box at 04:58.
Safety in electricity seems to be handled different than in AUS, EU or even US.

Does anyone have statistics about electrocution in these countries compared to the US, EU, AU?

[sarepairman2]

Wouldn't thad trip the RCCB in any modern building?
Since the drain is grounded the breaker would kick in immediately.

If the bath was ungrounded, no.

Okay, lets make things more interesting 
My claim is that the 'technology' is fairly safe and not as dangerous as you try to portray (when used properly, of course).

1. there are tons of commercial solutions for consumer and industrial market employing this method. I can send you a picture of an industrial heater rated for 25kW used to either heat utility water or provide heating to HVAC systems (NB! directly coupled via conductive liquid to metal fixtures like radiators or kitchen taps). If you want, I can sell it to you for €300 + shipping, it's perfectly functional.
2. falling water does not conduct due to formation of droplets (shower case). Else, everybody who walks out during thunderstorm would already be toast meat a'la hotdogger.
3. water is fairly poor conductor so the resistor network it forms in between the electrodes, human body and the grounding point (fault current) wont normally pass current or potential to matter (e.g. even to trip the RCCD fault current condition).

Obviously, using intrinsically unsafe device (i.e. broken or some hacked/smacked device) will be just as dangerous as with any other home appliance. So if you are stupid enough to heat water in your mouth with this method using two spoons in your mouth connected to mains, then you deserve to die and relieve us from further contamination in gene pool.

Hopefully this stirs things up a bit

LOOLOLOLOL assuming that something is safe because its sold commercially is downright fucking RETARDED. 

 

never see a shower get a laminar flow before? hooking this up to anything but some kind of specialized industrial equipment with skilled technicians is just STUPID.

not to mention contamination of the water from electrolysis.

not to mention that its made of chinese mystery metal, meaning that the electrodes will decay and eventually your gonna have a electrode that is sticking out of the protective housing due to excessive decay, completely changing how the electric field forms between the electrodes.

then your gonna get some person that forgets to unplug it when they wanna fix up a cup of ramen noodles at 3am after doing ketamine and drinking all night in a hong kong strip club... god forbid someone decides to stick it up their ass too.

some things should just not be built.

[crispy_tofu]

Thanks for the video.  But would it be a good idea to omit 'EEVBLOG'  from the Youtube title?   It has the potential to confuse.

He's got "Re:" in the title, so that's ok.

I've not come across that on Youtube.  Is this a standard method to title a response video to another Youtuber's video - or just something you are OK with?

If only video responses were still around... 
thanks Google Plus

[WVL_KsZeN]

This is how coffee was made at the university campus in Khartoum, Sudan. Had a ball while we where there!!! It also really heated up the water really quickly  Too bad the coffee was hardly drinkable, but you have to get your caffeine shot someway 

I also had the pleasure of using the suicide showers in Peru, Guatemala, Honduras and prolly also in Costa Rica.

In Myanmar I had the pleasure of switching on the lights in a room by making/breaking the connection with a safety pin.

I'm still alive  O0

[apis]

Well, that is a very facetious argument. The electric field emanates from both electrodes radially. It will be neutral if no other conductors are present, but we're not talking about that, we're talking about a human for instance sticking their finger in the baby's bathwater while this contraption is in there heating the water. That human creates a conductive path to ground and will get a serious shock at 1/2 mains voltage. Because the water is essentially a conductor.

Exactly, stick in your finger too stir and see if the temperature is high enough... and zaaap

Babys bath getting a bit cold? Dip in the heater (with baby and hand) and stir a bit... zaaap zaaap 

For boilers it's fine (ignoring electro-chemistry, may not be suitable for drinking water) since the electrodes are far from any human and the water inlet and outlets and piping would be grounded (I presume). It's actually safer in the sense it can't overheat if run dry.

As for the suicide shower: the device might be safe-ish (in theory) if installed properly and the drain is connected with plastic piping... and you didn't have to adjust the power level close to the heating elements (in this case you're supposed to reach up and touch the thing if you want higher power!) Apparently some installations don't even bother with the earth wire and if you look at bigclives video, his specimen had the water-exit earth wire dipped in silicone (if I understood it correctly) so it was completely useless anyway. 

[rrinker]

 Holy cow, talking about boats leaking current into the water when using shore power - a 15 year old girl was recently killed swimming in a lake in Alabama, and while her official cause of death was listed as accidental drowning, it seems like what happened was that she was electrocuted swimming too close to some docked boats.

[mux]

Thanks for the video.  But would it be a good idea to omit 'EEVBLOG'  from the Youtube title?   It has the potential to confuse.

He's got "Re:" in the title, so that's ok.

I've not come across that on Youtube.  Is this a standard method to title a response video to another Youtuber's video - or just something you are OK with?

Back in the day, you had the option below any youtube video to make a 'video response', which would automatically be titled 'Re: [video title]', unlisted by default and the creator of the original video would get notified that somebody made a response. The reason for this feature originally was that Youtube started out as a dating site, and such a feature makes sense then. Google turned Youtube around from dating to general video site, and axed this feature even though it was used pretty usefully.

[mikeselectricstuff]

Holy cow, talking about boats leaking current into the water when using shore power

If you're swimming, you wouldn't need enough current to actually kill, just cause enough muscle control problems to prevent you swimming properly. Coupled with  the very good connection of water to the body, I wouldn't be surprised if it only took a few tens of mA
 
Sort of related :

[rolycat]

Holy cow, talking about boats leaking current into the water when using shore power

If you're swimming, you wouldn't need enough current to actually kill, just cause enough muscle control problems to prevent you swimming properly. Coupled with  the very good connection of water to the body, I wouldn't be surprised if it only took a few tens of mA
 
Sort of related :

Big Clive is a mine of information.

Of course, electric shock drowning only occurs in fresh water, so the seagoing vessels he is talking about aren't capable of causing it - you would need to be touching them directly to get a shock.

[SeanB]

Harbours often have large areas of mostly fresh ( well sort of, at least not too salty, though it would not be classed as potable or healthy to drink) water in them, and often the yacht marinas are located there as the draught is to little for bigger ships, and the area is not good for wharfing so it becomes the private yacht area sort of by default. This will have similar conductivity to fresh river water at times, so the shock hazard is as great.

[RGB255_0_0]

This is relevant:

[VK3DRB]

Well, it is dangerous, but what do you expect from a people who value life so cheaply, where dog-eat-dog has been the cultural norm. "To Get Rich is Glorious!"

The end user in the West who buys this stuff is the biggest idiot of them all, second to their own idiotic government that reacts rather than prevents...

https://www.accc.gov.au/update/infinity-cable-recall-act-now-before-its-too-late
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-27/cheap-cladding-turns-apartments-into-time-bombs/6501716