I like to imagine someone using this for the first time, stepping away for a moment, then coming back to their desk to find their mug of coffee literally boiling over. 😂
The mystery hole is probably provision for a safety switch that, if included, would have turned it off if not placed right side up on a flat surface. But they probably decided to make it more exiting and therefore more appealing to BigClive and save 3 cent at the same time.
I have one with this exact safety switch and spring. If a mug is on the warmer, it turns on (mine actually does regulate the temperature and doesn't super heat). If a mug is off the warmer, it turns off.
That vibrating feeling when running your hand over a painted surface is concerning. I have a 45W LED grow light panel without a ground and the metal on the back of that has that feeling. Touching it with a wet hand once was not pleasant, I kept meaning to test it with a multimeter but I stopped using it entirely after the wet hand incident. Basically the back is live to some degree though.
Reminds me of some LED KINO refit tubes a company I once worked for sold, where I found out the careless assembly in China was regularly pinching the live input wiring against the aluminum housing, in many cases the only thing preventing a shock was the paint on them. I sounded the alarm as soon as I found out, and thankfully the supervisors actually pulled them out of circulation instead of trying to dismiss the concerns. If they hadn't, I was more than ready to get the law involved, and I'm glad I didn't have to
@@microwave221 A reply I made just vanished but yeah if I can find the panel and it isn't damaged I might send it to Clive to look at. I didn't put it somewhere with keeping it intact in mind though, just seemed a waste of good LEDs to discard it.
You can ground it pretty easily by adding your down cord Would be much cheaper than getting a new light and fairly simple with most led light housings being metal
@@wildbill9863 You're right, but my issue really is that it was sold sketchy. Besides, I replaced it with two higher power lights which didn't have the issue. I got that low power one to see if tomatoes would grow under LEDs in a cupboard before investing in a grow tent. It occurs to me that with a bit of diffusing acrylic from an old LCD TV it could be made into a hanging wall light to add some SAD reducing light to a room during winter though.
No, the Chinese sticker meant that it's made for China. Chinese wall sockets have a US & EU 2-prong outlet in addition to the 3-prong inverted Aussie outlet.
I have something similar, also made in China, but of much higher quality. It's rated at 23 watts and one of the legs is a spring-loaded power switch, so it's only on when there's a coffee mug (or, as happens a lot in my house, a cat) on it. If you don't touch it for longer than 30 minutes it turns itself off. Then you have to remove and replace the mug to turn it back on. I've been using it daily for around 20 years and it's still working. When it finally dies, I will dissect it and reverse engineer it. It must have some form of temperature regulation because it gets hot enough to be really uncomfortable, but it's never damaged the cat. Nor has it ever brought my coffee to boiling, or even burned it.
Cats are comfortable in temperatures far higher than people can stand. I have noticed it when I overloaded my wood heater once. My sister noticed it with hers too.
@@OffGridInvestorI think it’s their fur that insulates them from direct heat on skin. Our old tabby used to sit in front of a gas fire and we’d smell his fur singeing and have to move him away! He always looked peeved that we had moved him from a heat source lol
"it's a while since we've had an episode of Unbox Tragedy..." "it's got to be pink if it's dangerous, just for extra drama" around 3:30 the wire nut just falls off in shame. I always use wire nuts on solid wire because they don't work on stranded wire very well if at all. I didn't know that conducting in reverse was normal for red LEDs. Don't ever change Clive, you are an international treasure.
I also noticed this... They should have used the smaller blue or even gray wire nuts, or better yet, something else not prone to falling off due to improper sizing/installation.
@@Mike-tv9rk Maybe a "Sponsors get a bonus/early viewing" thing or maybe there's a beta/editing phase..? I mean, there's something; several people are '6 and 7 days' old on comments. :) Also, WOW, this thing is so MANY kinds of 'terrible'.
Most metallic wires are PTC resistors. Thermal coefficient of resistance is small, but it's not zero and it's positive. That thing *will* self regulate, just not as much as you'd like.
I once put a meat thermometer near the hot-air heater. It read 110°C . Hmm, I wonder how hot it is, I wondered, and touched it. A thermometer showing 110°C is 110°C, you idiot!! ;-)
It is self regulating. It heats up, melts and smoulders, and then reaches an equilibrium temperature as decided by your local fire hydrant water temperature.
Wait, was that a US American plug? And a 220V rating? Something tells me this is designed for 120V, at which voltage it would dissipate around 5W instead of almost 20. It would still get bloody hot, just not as quickly. Coincidentally, I think you've also found the best way to fix this. Open it up, cut the wire and throw it in the bin.
Most Chinese outlets are wired up for EU plugs & plugs that look like US/CA/JP plugs, but are easily identified by the lack of holes at the end. China has been slowly moving to a new plug standard that looks somewhat like the Australian/NZ plug, but is incompatible. Yes. it's a big mess.
@@MayaPosch And the holes are actually not required in the US, they're just usually there. They serve no function beyond manufacturing. ruclips.net/video/udNXMAflbU8/видео.html
That's a fun bit of kit there. I imagine your cup placed on it will pull some heat away, but probably not enough to keep it from either self-immolating at some point, or turning into a puddle of bubbling pink goo and then self-immolating. Fun for the whole family! I'll take two!
This video is more evidence that, on eBay, all feedback ratings below 99% are actually the percentage chance that the product you're buying will burn your house down given the chance.
If you left it for too long, you would find your cup dry and stuck down with pink melted plastic. LOL. I could see the thin wire for a split second a couple of times, when it caught the light just at the right time.
Being a software developer, I can tell this device would kill my few social skills. Whenever my coffee gets cold, I need to stand up, get out of my "tunnel", walk to the coffee machine and grab hot one. I meet other colleagues there, and this is a good thing. This device therefore is splitting societies, right? Conspiracy level 17, why China floods our markets with such devices ... :)
You're doing it wrong. I keep drinking till it's finished even though the last 1/3 is room temperature typically. Then I carefully plan my trip to the kitchen for when there's least chance of meeting someone there and put on a new pot
How silly. Of course one just takes a double espresso, downs it together with some water, and then stays FAR AWAY of those "humains" (is this how one spells it?).
I got one, it lasted 3 uses, it has a glass like disc that had a kapton tap circle holding on a copper track in a coil. It was very thin, hence the resistance to make the heat. It also had the same wiring and got excruciatingly hot in the centre but failed cos it burnt the track off. It also didn't really keep a mug warm cos there wasn't much heat making it into the mug itself. Seems a perfectly flat based mug is needed, to allow the heat to escape quick enough to not burn up the element.
Considering the surface area of a mug its baffling these things exists. You need the mug itself to have the element embedded or its never going to warm the mug never mind provide heat to the contents enough to offset what is being lost to the air. All this technology to fail to solve a problem that the flask did over 100 years ago. Pumping more heat into the mug is never the solution IMO, the contents will just stew as the water evaporates.
In the USA we have that style of 2-prong plug, but it usually has holes, though not required to. Holes are said to be for manufacturing purposes (i.e. for molding jigs or punch press indexing) but are not mandatory.
@Edward Elizabeth Hitler But there is nothing in a standard wall socket, that grabs onto the holes, making them meaningless in actuality. Which patent do you mean?
I saw a video this and ther was abslutely nothing in the socket to locate with the holes in the plug. Maybe there are different styles of socket which do have a bump?
I remember about 40 years ago putting reverse voltages across LEDs to see what happened. The details are hazy now, but I seem to remember that they actually lit with a few volts in reverse. Then when I tried them in the forward direction it took more than their rated voltage to make them light. After a few cycles like that they stopped emitting light at all. Somebody who knew this stuff said it was avalanche-induced migration of the dopant. I'm guessing that at 50 Hz and low current the dopant barely migrates at all so the lifetime may be reduced but it will still last for a while.
@@RUclipsSupportTeams We all know the LED was used incorrectly, we're just curious what happens when it's used incorrectly. Know your failure modes, if you know what I mean: does it simply not work, does it stop working, or does it go out with a bang?
Usually when I do that, the led pops.... at school we used to make 'guns' that sent 48 volts the wrong way through the connected component and had a handle so you could 'aim' the component at people/objects. Leds were a popular 'bullet' as were 555 timer chips, and of course electrolytic caps (which shot out a nice jet of capacitor juice and smoke).
I have seen a germanium power transistor emitting light in a soviet Junost TV. It was the series pass transistor of the regulator, it produced an orange glow which could be seen through the glass feed-though of its base and emitter legs. It was not working anymore, it converted itself into an LED :-) . This happened about 25 years ago, when I was under 10, so don't ask about the details. Unfortunately the transistor died when I removed the top of its case, as I wanted to see what glows in it. I might remember it wrong, and the unexpected light emitter could be the reference Zener diode in said regulator. I have a feeling I have seen both of them emitting light, but not in the same set, and a few years apart. The Zener is also metal encapsulated with glass feed-through for one leg, and IIRC it's germanium, just like the series pass transistor.
I love seeing how things work. So many of us would open something up, and "wow, it looks complicated". Then maybe end up ruining the device. Thanks so much for letting us see what we should look for to evaluate a well-designed or not-so-well-designed product.
I have a similar one that's completely made of metal which can become both hot and cold. It's been working perfectly for 10+ years. The plate on mine is more like a stove plate instead of just a thin metal sheet. It's USB powered so I keep it on my desk, really useful for long gaming sessions, movies, work etc.
Clive, we call them wire nuts in the states. If sized properly, and the wire stripped to match, they work great. At least they did use the "better" ones with the gripper spring (which should not stretch).
Very true...The "spring" is actually more like a tapered "helicoil". The inside threads are designed to grip the wires, the outside threads actually thread into grooves molded into the plastic cap. There should be no elasticity whatsoever.
Here kind westerners, place your conductive liquids on this unregulating unprotected unfused mains powered death trap that we made for you, we painted it pink so it can’t hurt you. Thanks Clive you’re doing good works.
Wow. I love how this was designed so that If you spilt the drink on it, you would literally fry. Nice lead crimps, open wires. SO GOOD! Bravo China. Yet another show of your technological advancement for humanity!
Thought the same, but I added: "plus an LED that becomes its own rectifier across mains (flickering). And, if they found one in a scrap drawer, with a tiny little ignit - I mean resistor."
I thought about buying one of these for ages. In the end I just bought a vacuum-insulated mug which keeps my tea and coffee hot for ages, especially if you use its lid.
I have a ancient version of that thing. It has a neon indicator instead of a led. And I stopped using it after the first time, because it gave off the smell of a failing Selenium rectifier.
I bought one of these many years ago at a thrift shop, and it works quite well for heating my shaving mug. I've never had the heart to take it apart to see what's inside, but I can say for sure that when shaving soap finds its way inside, it certainly stinks to high heaven. I'm sure it's not much different than this one, since if it's left too long, the mug gets too hot to handle comfortably!
How exciting! 😬 Metal parts, no grounding, no fuse, no thermal cut out, a recipe for blisters from a too hot drink or a shock from a live aluminium plate. Can I have one for my mother in law? 😁
I foresee visiting the Isle of Man in a few years, expressly to tour Big Clive's Museum of Electrical Deathtrap Oddities. Admission: 50p, fully refundable, should one experience a near-death experience in the "hands-on exhibit hall".
I've got a nice model that actually IS self regulated. With a Peltier cooler no less! It's a lot of fun. This one is a lot of fun for completely different reasons though~
I got similar product from Aliexpress for a tenner a year ago, but better construction as has black glass top. Have it on my desk connected to a TP link plug to auto shut off after an hour just to be sure in case I forget to turn off. Worked perfectly so far and no lattes gone cold!
To answer the question about how long the device will last, the video length is 10 minutes... so there's your answer! LOL I really liked your remark about the "air vents"... more like "smoke vents"... yep, nothing like breathing burning adhesive. And lastly, those wire nuts were useless, that's not how they're supposed to work... something is real fishy about them! You've uncovered more of that "patented" crappiness
I have a feeling the “55C” is for the cup temperature - I got what seems to be a nicely made cup warmer, and the low mode is “120F”; I’ve found that it does keep my drink in that range, but the plate itself is often 250F or so! So the plate must be MUCH hotter to keep the cup warm
I think the added heat capacity of the full coffee mug will keep the temperature down and probably avoid burning the adhesive and plastic case. Fire hazard if ran without a mug on it!
The added heat capacity only helps until the coffee reaches the boiling point. And once it's boiled away the end result is the same... so it's an obvious fire hazard if you don't have a mug on there and a covert fire hazard if you forget a mug on there...
I wonder how long it would run for, before something just gave up. Ithought the hole was for spills to drain but it looks like the sides have moulded in walls. 2x👍
Yeah, good ones will have a higher rating but also a thermostat affixed to the underside of the plate. Bad ones like that just rely on heat in vs dissipation out to "regulate" the temperature of the mug. No mug means "no load", so it cooks itself to death. Kinda like bricking the accelerator of a car that's parked.
@@Alacritous China uses a plug _very_ similar to, and physically compatible with, NEMA 1-15 non-polarized. But it is used at 220V. NEMA 2-15 uses the same blade size but with one rotated 90°, for nominal 240V. Ungrounded 240V has been heavily discouraged for a long time, though, so you're _very_ unlikely to ever see one in the wild.
@@Azlehria I know that, but what do you think would happen if the device were plugged into 120 volts? It would be ~half the temperature and wouldn't boil water.
Oh I remember those heaters for coffee mugs - back in the late 80s early 90s. I had one from Radio Shack. Kept my coffee lukewarm in my cubicle job. Unfortunately the coffee continued to deteriorate to a yucky tar taste. Not the good kind of tar taste. Still used the thing though even though it didn't seem to prolong enjoyment of the coffee. I think it was counter productive. Knowing something kept my mug warm slowed my consumption. Whereas without it I would consume it faster and probably enjoy it more throughout the duration of the entire volume.
I have bought three of these from Wish,different models,and all have functioned perfectly. One is s Smart model with three selectable heats. All are fitted with base safety switches,so do not operate without a weight on the pressure disc.
oh no, it's the return of the rub your hand feel the "bzzz". I've had laptops that do the same, unnerving. Metal keyboard too so every keystroke while charging.
Those red caps were called screwits in the old days, they were ceramic and used to join wires together. The modern ones are plastic. As you say there no longer standard in the UK anymore but were commonly used from the 1930s to the 60s.
I have a "name brand" one in 120v flavor and it fluctuates between 100C and 125C. It'll keep your coffee warm, but not hot since you know, mugs don't have flat bottoms. The heat of this one looks like it'd be more effective, but when it's at the expense of the durability of the thing, well...maybe not so much.
Cor that is a bit of a stinker isn't it? My favourite bits are the twisted together mains conductors flopping about in a casing that's likely to get wet on the inside.
It almost looks like it would run far better on 120v but may still need a PTC element to self regulate. At 5 watts it would likely heat up a lot slower and may even reach equilibrium without overheating.
Since it heats up to 3 times the rated temperature, maybe it was designed for 110 volt operation and the "marketing department" said that it would be fine on 240 volts too.
If you want to keep your drink, soup, etc. warm, put a lid on it. You know the big hole at top, were all the heat rises from. Not rocket surgery. Thanks Clive. ;)
Hi Clive, thanks for your very entertaining channel, calling out cheap and nasty stuff! We're all concerned to get our electricity bills down, and a lot is made of the 'vampire devices' draw a small constant current which adds up to significant cost over time. However, I've tested a number of switched mode devices and found the quiescent current to be tiny, pennies per year- unless there's an old fashioned linear 'wall wart' which can use some watts,. (my old Roberts DAB radio draws 8 watts when on, 5 watts when off, so left plugged in would cost me 15 quid a year!). Anyway, I was thinking that you could do a public service by measuring the quiescent current for a number of items, and calling out the big users. I'm guessing that some "value engineered" power supplies will use more than the would if a few more pence was spent on the implementation. What do you think?
My guess about the self regulating part is that the heat output is not big enough to overpower the mug on top as the heatsink/dissipation combo, so temperature "regulates" until it reaches equilibrium with the mug and contents. Technically it "self regulates under it's intended use"
The reverse breakdown on LEDs can actually be useful in a pinch, a batch of InGaN green I have break over pretty reliably at 60V as long as the source impedance is pretty high (megs). Used this in a GM tube power supply lash up because I didn't have any zeners above around 15 volts. Really anything with a PN junction can probably do this, I found "zener" voltages in the range from 20 to around 150V from a variety of small signal diodes, LEDs, and BJT junctions when I was fine-tuning my regulator string.
Clive me old matey, I have bought several variants of these and they range from total rubbish to pretty damn good and does the job. Started at less than £5 to just under a tenner now. I have found one at £63…….yes £63!! Get a working version and they are so very useful. Thanks Clive Bob England
Terrific as usual Clive. My issue with these things is that they don’t get hot enough!!! So crawling their way to me from mainland China are two more units that have cost several times the original purchase, they will be so handy if they work?!?! Kindest Bob England
I have an old one of those, I have forgotten about it and left it on for a week. I'd guess it sits at 65degrees on it's hot setting. I don't know what the low setting is for.
That wire looks like the same type they use in fridges. At least it's in my fridge anyway. Mine had this outer sheath that almost completely melted when the fridges temperature control went awry. Had to replace it.
"Self Regulating" Basically the idea with a device like this is that you're not suppose to run it without a load. A typical coffee mug would have enough thermal mass to sink that 20 watts. In fact, in practice, this wouldn't even keep your drink hot as much as it would just take longer to cool off. Buy you some time to drink it if you will. Put a cold cup for tea on it, it'd be hard pressed to come up to temperature, if at all. Agree, still not safe tho if you forget it on with no load. PS, Wire nuts are not typically springy, at least I don't find. They are standard in my area. They just didn't install them correctly or they used the wrong size. (Fyi, long time sub on my personal account).
The wire nuts falling off: the problem here is not the spring in the nut being springy or not. The problem is they used the wrong size wire nut. Wire nuts come in various sizes. The sizes are specified by saying how many wires of a given wire gage can be used in the wire nut. In this case we have a couple of very tiny stranded wires. The smallest wire nuts (which are grey in modern color coding) would probably be about right for that. The next size up (blue) might work, but it would be iffy. You could do the trick of folding the wires back over themselves (as they did here) to try to make the wires hold in the nut, but the directions on using wire nuts say to never do this as it reduces the pullout strength. In this case they used the third size of wire nuts (orange in modern coding), which are for wires much larger than used here. Even with twisting the wires and folding them back, there is no possible way these wire nuts would have stayed on the wires.
Could it be the the seller has taken US version (hence the US plug) and just sold them in 220V area? That would explain the double wattage on the resistor and the higher temps?
I have a similar thing, Mr. Coffee branded. Don't know if it hits 153C, I did leave it on without anything on it for a while to see how hot it'd get and I quit the experiment after it hit 120C because I actually use it and didn't trust plastic parts to stay solid at much higher than that (not knowing what kind of plastic was used). But I'm guessing internally it's basically the same device. This does make me want to open it up and look, though!
Is this maybe one of these thing that are intended for 110v and then just get another cable slapped on? How would that compare on 110v? Would it still burn down it's own glue and casing? Always amazed on what stuff is being made and sold.
I've built a lot of crude lash-ups in my time, but that one sets an all-time low. I'm guessing, however, that it relies on a cup of liquid sitting on it to help conduct away some of the heat.
I like to imagine someone using this for the first time, stepping away for a moment, then coming back to their desk to find their mug of coffee literally boiling over. 😂
Secret Santa for the office this year -> sorted.
Or more likely to find said desk in flames. Another Chinese deathcrap.
@@peterbrown6224 More like Secret Satan for the office!
@@jfgobin they do it best and cheap too!
Ah. That'd be the "self regulating" part right there. The coffee would hit the heater and cool it down as it boils to steam.
"oh it's got air vents on the back -- well, smoke vents really." - and this is why we love you, Big C.
The mystery hole is probably provision for a safety switch that, if included, would have turned it off if not placed right side up on a flat surface.
But they probably decided to make it more exiting and therefore more appealing to BigClive and save 3 cent at the same time.
yes, and the switch spring means it will not turn on until a mug or other object is placed on it.
"Decided to make it more exciting" 😹 stolen. that's comedy gold
I have one with this exact safety switch and spring. If a mug is on the warmer, it turns on (mine actually does regulate the temperature and doesn't super heat). If a mug is off the warmer, it turns off.
@@urusaiinu Awesome! 👍
@@urusaiinu i think it might double as a wax melter for either scented wax or making candles
In all fairness, it does not specify to which temperature it self-regulates. "55 C" might be just the product name. ;)
55 C(ups)? The name may be more indicative of the number of heatings in its lifetime ☕️🔥
Oh you're good! You in marketing? If not you should be , lol
Fairly sure they've missed a "1" off the packaging.
That vibrating feeling when running your hand over a painted surface is concerning. I have a 45W LED grow light panel without a ground and the metal on the back of that has that feeling. Touching it with a wet hand once was not pleasant, I kept meaning to test it with a multimeter but I stopped using it entirely after the wet hand incident. Basically the back is live to some degree though.
It's usually just capacitive coupling, but a ground connection is good.
Reminds me of some LED KINO refit tubes a company I once worked for sold, where I found out the careless assembly in China was regularly pinching the live input wiring against the aluminum housing, in many cases the only thing preventing a shock was the paint on them. I sounded the alarm as soon as I found out, and thankfully the supervisors actually pulled them out of circulation instead of trying to dismiss the concerns. If they hadn't, I was more than ready to get the law involved, and I'm glad I didn't have to
@@microwave221 A reply I made just vanished but yeah if I can find the panel and it isn't damaged I might send it to Clive to look at. I didn't put it somewhere with keeping it intact in mind though, just seemed a waste of good LEDs to discard it.
You can ground it pretty easily by adding your down cord
Would be much cheaper than getting a new light and fairly simple with most led light housings being metal
@@wildbill9863 You're right, but my issue really is that it was sold sketchy. Besides, I replaced it with two higher power lights which didn't have the issue. I got that low power one to see if tomatoes would grow under LEDs in a cupboard before investing in a grow tent. It occurs to me that with a bit of diffusing acrylic from an old LCD TV it could be made into a hanging wall light to add some SAD reducing light to a room during winter though.
i wonder if this was designed for the us market 120v? I would imagine it would operate much closer to spec at half the voltage.
No, the Chinese sticker meant that it's made for China. Chinese wall sockets have a US & EU 2-prong outlet in addition to the 3-prong inverted Aussie outlet.
@@Avantime No wonder they're so angry.
And the box says 55 degrees C.
It's 220V rated
Maybe they accidentally stuck the 120v one in the 220v box
I have something similar, also made in China, but of much higher quality. It's rated at 23 watts and one of the legs is a spring-loaded power switch, so it's only on when there's a coffee mug (or, as happens a lot in my house, a cat) on it. If you don't touch it for longer than 30 minutes it turns itself off. Then you have to remove and replace the mug to turn it back on.
I've been using it daily for around 20 years and it's still working. When it finally dies, I will dissect it and reverse engineer it.
It must have some form of temperature regulation because it gets hot enough to be really uncomfortable, but it's never damaged the cat. Nor has it ever brought my coffee to boiling, or even burned it.
Cats are comfortable in temperatures far higher than people can stand. I have noticed it when I overloaded my wood heater once. My sister noticed it with hers too.
@@OffGridInvestorI think it’s their fur that insulates them from direct heat on skin.
Our old tabby used to sit in front of a gas fire and we’d smell his fur singeing and have to move him away! He always looked peeved that we had moved him from a heat source lol
"it's a while since we've had an episode of Unbox Tragedy..."
"it's got to be pink if it's dangerous, just for extra drama"
around 3:30 the wire nut just falls off in shame.
I always use wire nuts on solid wire because they don't work on stranded wire very well if at all.
I didn't know that conducting in reverse was normal for red LEDs.
Don't ever change Clive, you are an international treasure.
I also noticed this... They should have used the smaller blue or even gray wire nuts, or better yet, something else not prone to falling off due to improper sizing/installation.
It's absolutely fantastic... in the worst possible ways.
Not really, I was deeply disappointed by the distinct lack of exposed mains and metallic bits all over the place wher fingers would normally go.
It says you posted this 7 days ago. ?? Time travel IS possible ???
@@Mike-tv9rk Maybe a "Sponsors get a bonus/early viewing" thing or maybe there's a beta/editing phase..? I mean, there's something; several people are '6 and 7 days' old on comments. :)
Also, WOW, this thing is so MANY kinds of 'terrible'.
@@Mike-tv9rk Video was posted 8 days ago as unlisted for patreons, regular mortals get to see it when it goes public later.
Most metallic wires are PTC resistors. Thermal coefficient of resistance is small, but it's not zero and it's positive. That thing *will* self regulate, just not as much as you'd like.
Well, every conductive material except for superconductors and semiconductors.
@@drkastenbrot I said metallic, not conductive.
Kind of like how every component is a temperature sensor, just of varying utility and linearity...
It's a PTC in the same sense that foil shoved into a plug is a fuse.
After you removed the heating wire from the aluminum plate I was hoping you would just plug it in and see how hot it gets
I once put a meat thermometer near the hot-air heater. It read 110°C .
Hmm, I wonder how hot it is, I wondered, and touched it.
A thermometer showing 110°C is 110°C, you idiot!! ;-)
It is self regulating. It heats up, melts and smoulders, and then reaches an equilibrium temperature as decided by your local fire hydrant water temperature.
Wait, was that a US American plug? And a 220V rating? Something tells me this is designed for 120V, at which voltage it would dissipate around 5W instead of almost 20. It would still get bloody hot, just not as quickly.
Coincidentally, I think you've also found the best way to fix this. Open it up, cut the wire and throw it in the bin.
Chinese 220V plug.
Most Chinese outlets are wired up for EU plugs & plugs that look like US/CA/JP plugs, but are easily identified by the lack of holes at the end. China has been slowly moving to a new plug standard that looks somewhat like the Australian/NZ plug, but is incompatible. Yes. it's a big mess.
@@MayaPosch And the holes are actually not required in the US, they're just usually there. They serve no function beyond manufacturing. ruclips.net/video/udNXMAflbU8/видео.html
@@MayaPosch and in Australia/NZ, they can take pliers and bend the straight ones to fit their receptacles.
ok I'm not the only one that thought that
The hole in the bottom is for a button that only get pressed when something heavy is on top. That way it only turns on when you put a mug onto it.
That's a fun bit of kit there. I imagine your cup placed on it will pull some heat away, but probably not enough to keep it from either self-immolating at some point, or turning into a puddle of bubbling pink goo and then self-immolating. Fun for the whole family! I'll take two!
I'll take 3 in case the first 2 self immolate
This video is more evidence that, on eBay, all feedback ratings below 99% are actually the percentage chance that the product you're buying will burn your house down given the chance.
If you left it for too long, you would find your cup dry and stuck down with pink melted plastic. LOL.
I could see the thin wire for a split second a couple of times, when it caught the light just at the right time.
I would have loved a schematic diagram cause this is very complicated stuff to comprehend without !
no
@@kobrapromotions yes
@@RS-Amsterdam Noooooo 😅😅
@@RS-Amsterdam If you want one I'll do one up just my looking at it, theres literally like 4-5 parts
... Said Homer Simpson...
Being a software developer, I can tell this device would kill my few social skills. Whenever my coffee gets cold, I need to stand up, get out of my "tunnel", walk to the coffee machine and grab hot one. I meet other colleagues there, and this is a good thing. This device therefore is splitting societies, right? Conspiracy level 17, why China floods our markets with such devices ... :)
You're doing it wrong. I keep drinking till it's finished even though the last 1/3 is room temperature typically. Then I carefully plan my trip to the kitchen for when there's least chance of meeting someone there and put on a new pot
@@simonneep8413 We have a few Simons at work, too ;)
Your comment is superb. Made my day to read it :P
How silly. Of course one just takes a double espresso, downs it together with some water, and then stays FAR AWAY of those "humains" (is this how one spells it?).
i think off-gassing aromatic hydrocarbons might chase you off into the proximity of human civilization before long
I like when you cut the wire and said “it’s a different resistance now”
Oh, how I've missed Unbox Tragedy! Always good for a laugh.
I got one, it lasted 3 uses, it has a glass like disc that had a kapton tap circle holding on a copper track in a coil. It was very thin, hence the resistance to make the heat. It also had the same wiring and got excruciatingly hot in the centre but failed cos it burnt the track off. It also didn't really keep a mug warm cos there wasn't much heat making it into the mug itself. Seems a perfectly flat based mug is needed, to allow the heat to escape quick enough to not burn up the element.
Considering the surface area of a mug its baffling these things exists. You need the mug itself to have the element embedded or its never going to warm the mug never mind provide heat to the contents enough to offset what is being lost to the air.
All this technology to fail to solve a problem that the flask did over 100 years ago. Pumping more heat into the mug is never the solution IMO, the contents will just stew as the water evaporates.
I bet it might work if you use one of those tin enamel cups - nice and flat and better heat transfer.
Always great content when Clive handles his Pink Things.
oo, matron 😉
In the USA we have that style of 2-prong plug, but it usually has holes, though not required to.
Holes are said to be for manufacturing purposes (i.e. for molding jigs or punch press indexing) but are not mandatory.
Good guess, but not true.
@Edward Elizabeth Hitler Check out Technology Connections - the standard says the holes are for manufacturing purposes only.
@Edward Elizabeth Hitler But there is nothing in a standard wall socket, that grabs onto the holes, making them meaningless in actuality.
Which patent do you mean?
I saw a video this and ther was abslutely nothing in the socket to locate with the holes in the plug. Maybe there are different styles of socket which do have a bump?
I've seen padlocks put through the holes for some devices. I'd assumed kid proofing or something.
I remember about 40 years ago putting reverse voltages across LEDs to see what happened. The details are hazy now, but I seem to remember that they actually lit with a few volts in reverse. Then when I tried them in the forward direction it took more than their rated voltage to make them light. After a few cycles like that they stopped emitting light at all. Somebody who knew this stuff said it was avalanche-induced migration of the dopant.
I'm guessing that at 50 Hz and low current the dopant barely migrates at all so the lifetime may be reduced but it will still last for a while.
a fancy term for using it incorrectly
@@RUclipsSupportTeams We all know the LED was used incorrectly, we're just curious what happens when it's used incorrectly. Know your failure modes, if you know what I mean: does it simply not work, does it stop working, or does it go out with a bang?
Usually when I do that, the led pops.... at school we used to make 'guns' that sent 48 volts the wrong way through the connected component and had a handle so you could 'aim' the component at people/objects. Leds were a popular 'bullet' as were 555 timer chips, and of course electrolytic caps (which shot out a nice jet of capacitor juice and smoke).
I have seen a germanium power transistor emitting light in a soviet Junost TV. It was the series pass transistor of the regulator, it produced an orange glow which could be seen through the glass feed-though of its base and emitter legs. It was not working anymore, it converted itself into an LED :-) . This happened about 25 years ago, when I was under 10, so don't ask about the details. Unfortunately the transistor died when I removed the top of its case, as I wanted to see what glows in it. I might remember it wrong, and the unexpected light emitter could be the reference Zener diode in said regulator. I have a feeling I have seen both of them emitting light, but not in the same set, and a few years apart. The Zener is also metal encapsulated with glass feed-through for one leg, and IIRC it's germanium, just like the series pass transistor.
I love seeing how things work. So many of us would open something up, and "wow, it looks complicated". Then maybe end up ruining the device. Thanks so much for letting us see what we should look for to evaluate a well-designed or not-so-well-designed product.
I have a similar one that's completely made of metal which can become both hot and cold. It's been working perfectly for 10+ years. The plate on mine is more like a stove plate instead of just a thin metal sheet. It's USB powered so I keep it on my desk, really useful for long gaming sessions, movies, work etc.
Spudger and sprue are two of my favorite words. Thank you for saying them in quick succession and with plenty of flair.
Sounds like the name of a law firm: Spudger & Sprue, Attorneys
Clive, we call them wire nuts in the states. If sized properly, and the wire stripped to match, they work great. At least they did use the "better" ones with the gripper spring (which should not stretch).
Unfortunately they used the wrong size. Grey would have been appropriate.
@@lwilton True!
Very true...The "spring" is actually more like a tapered "helicoil". The inside threads are designed to grip the wires, the outside threads actually thread into grooves molded into the plastic cap. There should be no elasticity whatsoever.
Here kind westerners, place your conductive liquids on this unregulating unprotected unfused mains powered death trap that we made for you, we painted it pink so it can’t hurt you.
Thanks Clive you’re doing good works.
Wow. I love how this was designed so that If you spilt the drink on it, you would literally fry. Nice lead crimps, open wires. SO GOOD! Bravo China. Yet another show of your technological advancement for humanity!
It makes me wonder if they took a 110V design, changed just the plug and started selling it as 220V, changing a 40C heater into a 160C one...
When I saw the power factor of 1.000 I thought "There's nothing in there but a heating element."
A PTC would also be a 1 power factor
Thought the same, but I added: "plus an LED that becomes its own rectifier across mains (flickering). And, if they found one in a scrap drawer, with a tiny little ignit - I mean resistor."
I thought about buying one of these for ages. In the end I just bought a vacuum-insulated mug which keeps my tea and coffee hot for ages, especially if you use its lid.
I have a ancient version of that thing.
It has a neon indicator instead of a led.
And I stopped using it after the first time, because it gave off the smell of a failing Selenium rectifier.
I bought one of these many years ago at a thrift shop, and it works quite well for heating my shaving mug. I've never had the heart to take it apart to see what's inside, but I can say for sure that when shaving soap finds its way inside, it certainly stinks to high heaven. I'm sure it's not much different than this one, since if it's left too long, the mug gets too hot to handle comfortably!
My weekend begins with new big Clive every week! The joys of working overnight in WA while Clive is awake on the Isle.
Electronic coaster plugged directly into the mains...... Sounds like a good way to get electrocuted or is it only me that spills drinks?
How exciting! 😬 Metal parts, no grounding, no fuse, no thermal cut out, a recipe for blisters from a too hot drink or a shock from a live aluminium plate. Can I have one for my mother in law? 😁
I foresee visiting the Isle of Man in a few years, expressly to tour Big Clive's Museum of Electrical Deathtrap Oddities.
Admission: 50p, fully refundable, should one experience a near-death experience in the "hands-on exhibit hall".
at 150C it might be used as a moderate preheater for smaller PCBs
I've got a nice model that actually IS self regulated. With a Peltier cooler no less!
It's a lot of fun.
This one is a lot of fun for completely different reasons though~
Quality engineering and construction right there Mate! The wire nuts are the "quality" icing on the cake!
I found you at random and I feel like I’m to dumb to understand everything you say but I love watching you take apart dangerous electronics
I love your presentation skills:
You have interesting content, but the presentation makes is highly enjoyable.
I got similar product from Aliexpress for a tenner a year ago, but better construction as has black glass top. Have it on my desk connected to a TP link plug to auto shut off after an hour just to be sure in case I forget to turn off. Worked perfectly so far and no lattes gone cold!
To answer the question about how long the device will last, the video length is 10 minutes... so there's your answer! LOL I really liked your remark about the "air vents"... more like "smoke vents"... yep, nothing like breathing burning adhesive. And lastly, those wire nuts were useless, that's not how they're supposed to work... something is real fishy about them! You've uncovered more of that "patented" crappiness
It makes me wonder how splash resistant it would be, considering it is supposed to heat a beverage. Spill …. Zzzzttt … arrrgggh .. zap !!!
ikr ! 😹 quite nasty and manufactures would probably be screaming & sooking to the UN demanding apologies if such items were sent their direction💦
It might not get so hot with a thermal mass on it.
I have a feeling the “55C” is for the cup temperature - I got what seems to be a nicely made cup warmer, and the low mode is “120F”; I’ve found that it does keep my drink in that range, but the plate itself is often 250F or so! So the plate must be MUCH hotter to keep the cup warm
Makes sense of it's porcelain cup, like most are.
Both a potential first hazard, and a potential burn hazard. Excellent!
I think the added heat capacity of the full coffee mug will keep the temperature down and probably avoid burning the adhesive and plastic case.
Fire hazard if ran without a mug on it!
The added heat capacity only helps until the coffee reaches the boiling point. And once it's boiled away the end result is the same... so it's an obvious fire hazard if you don't have a mug on there and a covert fire hazard if you forget a mug on there...
I also love how it has no spill protection at all.
I wonder how long it would run for, before something just gave up. Ithought the hole was for spills to drain but it looks like the sides have moulded in walls. 2x👍
Yeah, good ones will have a higher rating but also a thermostat affixed to the underside of the plate.
Bad ones like that just rely on heat in vs dissipation out to "regulate" the temperature of the mug. No mug means "no load", so it cooks itself to death. Kinda like bricking the accelerator of a car that's parked.
No need for a thermostat, just a self-regulating PTC heating element, and a non-resettable thermal fuse for safety.
The listing was for 240V but you got the 120V version, that's why it got so hot.
Check around 2:10 - it clearly states 220V and NOT 120V 😑
@@jacoprinsloo199 That's what I said. The plug is not a 240V plug, it's a 120V plug.
@@Alacritous China uses a plug _very_ similar to, and physically compatible with, NEMA 1-15 non-polarized. But it is used at 220V.
NEMA 2-15 uses the same blade size but with one rotated 90°, for nominal 240V. Ungrounded 240V has been heavily discouraged for a long time, though, so you're _very_ unlikely to ever see one in the wild.
@@Azlehria I know that, but what do you think would happen if the device were plugged into 120 volts? It would be ~half the temperature and wouldn't boil water.
Just what we like Danger Gadgets.... Thanks Clive
Oh I remember those heaters for coffee mugs - back in the late 80s early 90s. I had one from Radio Shack. Kept my coffee lukewarm in my cubicle job. Unfortunately the coffee continued to deteriorate to a yucky tar taste. Not the good kind of tar taste. Still used the thing though even though it didn't seem to prolong enjoyment of the coffee. I think it was counter productive. Knowing something kept my mug warm slowed my consumption. Whereas without it I would consume it faster and probably enjoy it more throughout the duration of the entire volume.
So can a mug of coffee dissipate 20W at 55C? Maybe it works under load!
It does have a constant temperature, just one that is about 100c above what you might be comfortable with.
What Clive is describing at 1:07, what is it? I've felt it on a lot of metal things, like an old macbook and some other electrical devices.
Terrifyingly Pink! Not sure what is worst, the construction or the paint scheme. Great choice as always!
I have bought three of these from Wish,different models,and all have functioned perfectly. One is s Smart model with three selectable heats. All are fitted with base safety switches,so do not operate without a weight on the pressure disc.
oh no, it's the return of the rub your hand feel the "bzzz". I've had laptops that do the same, unnerving. Metal keyboard too so every keystroke while charging.
It's similar to the wire we use to prevent freezer door openings from frosting. I am surprised you never ran across that at Hussman.
We tended to use stainless steel strip heaters.
Those red caps were called screwits in the old days, they were ceramic and used to join wires together. The modern ones are plastic. As you say there no longer standard in the UK anymore but were commonly used from the 1930s to the 60s.
I have a "name brand" one in 120v flavor and it fluctuates between 100C and 125C. It'll keep your coffee warm, but not hot since you know, mugs don't have flat bottoms. The heat of this one looks like it'd be more effective, but when it's at the expense of the durability of the thing, well...maybe not so much.
"Well smoke vents really." Had me laughing, thanks Clive.
its one of those things you buy if you want to make a insurance claim... for the whole house.
Cor that is a bit of a stinker isn't it? My favourite bits are the twisted together mains conductors flopping about in a casing that's likely to get wet on the inside.
It almost looks like it would run far better on 120v but may still need a PTC element to self regulate. At 5 watts it would likely heat up a lot slower and may even reach equilibrium without overheating.
Since it heats up to 3 times the rated temperature, maybe it was designed for 110 volt operation and the "marketing department" said that it would be fine on 240 volts too.
If you want to keep your drink, soup, etc. warm, put a lid on it. You know the big hole at top, were all the heat rises from.
Not rocket surgery.
Thanks Clive. ;)
"Pink for extra drama" HAHAHA I love you clive.
Hi Clive, thanks for your very entertaining channel, calling out cheap and nasty stuff! We're all concerned to get our electricity bills down, and a lot is made of the 'vampire devices' draw a small constant current which adds up to significant cost over time. However, I've tested a number of switched mode devices and found the quiescent current to be tiny, pennies per year- unless there's an old fashioned linear 'wall wart' which can use some watts,. (my old Roberts DAB radio draws 8 watts when on, 5 watts when off, so left plugged in would cost me 15 quid a year!). Anyway, I was thinking that you could do a public service by measuring the quiescent current for a number of items, and calling out the big users. I'm guessing that some "value engineered" power supplies will use more than the would if a few more pence was spent on the implementation. What do you think?
My guess about the self regulating part is that the heat output is not big enough to overpower the mug on top as the heatsink/dissipation combo, so temperature "regulates" until it reaches equilibrium with the mug and contents. Technically it "self regulates under it's intended use"
How about upgrading it by fitting a PTC thermistor to show how it should be done?
I picked up a 3phase rotation tester off ebay the other day. You should have a look at one of those. Was 25 aud
The reverse breakdown on LEDs can actually be useful in a pinch, a batch of InGaN green I have break over pretty reliably at 60V as long as the source impedance is pretty high (megs). Used this in a GM tube power supply lash up because I didn't have any zeners above around 15 volts. Really anything with a PN junction can probably do this, I found "zener" voltages in the range from 20 to around 150V from a variety of small signal diodes, LEDs, and BJT junctions when I was fine-tuning my regulator string.
Every time I hear you say "That's interesting" in that tone of voice I know it's time to get the popcorn
Clive me old matey, I have bought several variants of these and they range from total rubbish to pretty damn good and does the job. Started at less than £5 to just under a tenner now. I have found one at £63…….yes £63!!
Get a working version and they are so very useful.
Thanks Clive
Bob
England
Terrific as usual Clive. My issue with these things is that they don’t get hot enough!!! So crawling their way to me from mainland China are two more units that have cost several times the original purchase, they will be so handy if they work?!?!
Kindest
Bob
England
I wonder what could happen if it gets wet from the leaking of a cup cracked by the hot spot.
Unboxed tragedy sounds like a great name for a series of videos
I have an old one of those, I have forgotten about it and left it on for a week. I'd guess it sits at 65degrees on it's hot setting. I don't know what the low setting is for.
Based on that plug I bet you’re running it at 2.5 times it’s intended voltage 😅. But their posting says 220V…
Ebay postings say a lot of things...
You might as well keep a crucible on that. Maybe with a couple tweaks it'll keep your brass molten.
That wire looks like the same type they use in fridges. At least it's in my fridge anyway. Mine had this outer sheath that almost completely melted when the fridges temperature control went awry. Had to replace it.
"Self Regulating" Basically the idea with a device like this is that you're not suppose to run it without a load.
A typical coffee mug would have enough thermal mass to sink that 20 watts. In fact, in practice, this wouldn't even keep your drink hot as much as it would just take longer to cool off. Buy you some time to drink it if you will. Put a cold cup for tea on it, it'd be hard pressed to come up to temperature, if at all. Agree, still not safe tho if you forget it on with no load.
PS, Wire nuts are not typically springy, at least I don't find. They are standard in my area. They just didn't install them correctly or they used the wrong size. (Fyi, long time sub on my personal account).
I thought, just for a fleeting moment, that Big Clive was doing a personal advertisement, but realised that there was no comma after 'hot'.
The wire nuts falling off: the problem here is not the spring in the nut being springy or not. The problem is they used the wrong size wire nut. Wire nuts come in various sizes. The sizes are specified by saying how many wires of a given wire gage can be used in the wire nut. In this case we have a couple of very tiny stranded wires.
The smallest wire nuts (which are grey in modern color coding) would probably be about right for that. The next size up (blue) might work, but it would be iffy. You could do the trick of folding the wires back over themselves (as they did here) to try to make the wires hold in the nut, but the directions on using wire nuts say to never do this as it reduces the pullout strength.
In this case they used the third size of wire nuts (orange in modern coding), which are for wires much larger than used here. Even with twisting the wires and folding them back, there is no possible way these wire nuts would have stayed on the wires.
Might make a good soldering preheater for aluminium substrate boards...
Could it be the the seller has taken US version (hence the US plug) and just sold them in 220V area? That would explain the double wattage on the resistor and the higher temps?
You can't unbox it after you already tested it! Humbug!
I have a similar thing, Mr. Coffee branded. Don't know if it hits 153C, I did leave it on without anything on it for a while to see how hot it'd get and I quit the experiment after it hit 120C because I actually use it and didn't trust plastic parts to stay solid at much higher than that (not knowing what kind of plastic was used). But I'm guessing internally it's basically the same device. This does make me want to open it up and look, though!
A very good Thursday afternoon to you all from Wellington Somerset in the UK
Unsafe electronic "tat" makes the best videos, especially when it comes in pink!
Nothing says quality like heating elements held on with nothing but tape.
Is this maybe one of these thing that are intended for 110v and then just get another cable slapped on?
How would that compare on 110v? Would it still burn down it's own glue and casing?
Always amazed on what stuff is being made and sold.
I've built a lot of crude lash-ups in my time, but that one sets an all-time low. I'm guessing, however, that it relies on a cup of liquid sitting on it to help conduct away some of the heat.