If you build a man a fire, he'll stay warm for a night. If you set a man on fire, he'll stay warm for the rest of his life. At least that's the philosophy of whoever designed these heaters.
Excellent! So all we need is gallon of petrol each, and we're warm for the rest of our days! I like the thinking behind that, but there's just one slight snag with that! 🤦🎆💨🤣🤷
The "log display" looks like a pile of dog turds, so when you turn it on, you should have the forewarning and the spectacular "Burning Dogshit" alarm before finally laying waste to your rug.
The second I saw the flicker and heard the noise I went "I bet there is just a diode on that switch because it's cheap and easy", these sorts of things are always funny in a terrifying way.
I think Clive should arrange (under laboratory conditions) some gentle torture for this heater. It would be interesting to slightly restrict the airflow and see what catches fire before the thermal trip goes?
@@waqasahmed939 oil filled ones are fine. Since they most of the time have a self regulating heater element that is incapable of producing to much heat for the radiator to dissipate. The reason why I dislike fan heaters is simple. They are tremendously unsafe when operating unattended. I've seen 2 houses that I had to rebuild because a fan heater that caused a massive fire. It was not pleasant to walk through the burned down romms seeing the leftovers and the things the family owned. I'll forever rember that smell and the destroyed lives they left behind. Statistically they have a good likelihood to be the cause of an electrical fire if there is one. And seeing how on most of them there is only one single ridiculously cheap thermal fuse that keeps them from burning when they tip over or the fan fails that is just not something I'd like to have running in my house . Same goes for old heater based Clothes dryers. If I use a fan heater then I'll stay near it or use it on a surface that is incapable of burning. Also there is a large disaster involving these heaters that has been burned in my memory. It's quite popular but I forgot the name. A skii resort used train like transportation and they had a failing heater on board causing a burned down train with almost all of the passengers slowly and horrificaly dying. My mother used the same one days prior.
I have a scary story for you: i once had a fan heater plugged into the end of a 6 segment extention cord stretching like 200 feet and had to unplug it in the middle of the chain because the hester was still running BUT 5 of the plugs had completly melted....
i don't know why, but these videos help a lot with my anxiety. maybe its the regularity of them or the consistency. or maybe its the revelation of mysterious technological nuggets. whatever it is, i'm glad you keep making them
I have anxiety and maybe it's just me, but watching RUclips all day makes it much, much worse over the course of a few days to a week, even if it is an excellent distraction (or displacement activity) at the time. But of course everyone is different.
I like that both units seem to use the same molded red plastic logs to display the flame effect through, except one has what looks like dry brushed white paint to simulate ash. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that both heaters were made in the same factory. By the way, thanks for showing us the guts of one of these so long ago. I instantly recognized the effect and remembered the hardware upon seeing it lit up. I also remember you saying how jerky the flame would look if the mylar weren't twisted properly and here we are. See, some of us do pay attention.
I bought this same heater in a slightly different casing and without the LED effects. Full well knowing how crappy it would be, it's only purpose was to act as a thermostatically controlled enclosure heater for the little greenhouse to keep some plants above 16C during winter. It would turn on for less than 30 seconds at a time every few minutes or so, worked fine for a while until the fan motor stopped working for some reason intermittently, at which time it would melt the plastic grille before the bimetallic switch did its job.
Dude I'm Doing The Same Thing!!! Grow Box And It's Too Cool Out Side And I Need A Small Heater To Control The Temp In My Grass House!!!! I'm Only Using It When I'm In The Shop With It!!! Don't Want To Burn My Crop Up Until After Harvest!!! Then We Burn Down The House!!! Keep Rocking It Out Brother!!!
In the past I used a five 100W tungsten filament lamps, all running at half mains voltage, 240V lamps, connected to a isolating transformer with a 120V secondary (output). It was a very reliable arrangement.
"cheap and nasty" is the best that can be said for these! I cannot imagine any of these actually putting out enough heat to even keep a closet warm, much less a room. Mainly they waste costly electricity and that's all if you're lucky enough that it doesn't start an even more costly fire.
@@songsthatarecatchy Because people often turn on heaters and forget about them and leave them unattended. Combine that with a cheap plastic housing and questionable design decisions and you can easily get a fire.
These are always interesting to see how far they might go for realism, I understand a few actually have a random smoke and real fire feature built in, its like the silicone lottery though, never know if you got the one with extra features.
I Bought One Similar For A 2x4x6 Box I Have Some Grass Growing In And I Needed To Control The Temp In The Box!!! The First Thing I Noticed Is The Massive Stench In The Box After 5 Minutes Of Use!!! I Removed The PLASTIC Face Plate Because It Was Super Soft And I Figured It Was Going To Melt!!! Smell Went Away After Removing The Grill!!! Nice To See Thermal Protection!!! Keep Rocking It Out Brother!!!
If the heater element went open circuit between where the bridge rectifier is connected across, things would get very interesting for the fan motor, effects motor and LEDs !
A high school teacher had one of these! I’ve been looking for one for years I thought it was adorable, it reminded me of one my grandma has. Glad I didn’t find one 😅
More weapons of house destruction. 400/500 watt can take the chill out of a room, but people are using them as their sole room heater, recently one in the UK caused a fire due to the user having their chair too close. interesting design and schematic, many thanks for sharing. Regards John.
These half-wave rectifier heaters can introduce significant harmonics into the power distribution system. I notice that when I switch my 1500W space heater to "LOW" mode (which similarly puts a diode in series with the heating elements), the induction motors throughout the house hum noticeably more loudly, and if my variac is plugged into the same circuit, it will buzz quite a bit more than usual!
TBH I have used an actual hair dryer to heat up the room in emergencies before. It's loud as heck, but it kinda does the job, I managed to raise the temperature by one degree as the clock on my wall said, probably even more around the bed where it was aiming.
@@DavidCurryFilms I had to crawl under my house with a hair dryer to thaw my water pipes, in a confined space that burning dust smell is almost overpowering.
So, with the two thermal safety parts, one would hope it wouldn't catch fire, so it's 400w heater in a very tiny package. Seems like it could be really nice for putting on your desk to blow straight at you... In any case, even if it does catch fire, at least you're right there & can (hopefully) put it out before it sets the house on fire. Personally I wouldn't recommend leaving any fan heater running while you're not in the room - even "safe" ones.
This is fascinating. I was intrigued when I saw the effect that reminded me of disco lights. Quite interesting that they built it like an effect spotlight rather than a few leds and an mcu. Very cool
I like the one you took apart. You could remove the heater and the fan and run it off a 5V powerbank just for the flame effect fireplace. :) (although it all depends on the current draw of the motor as to how long the powerbank will last)
Identical to a cheap 1800W hot air gun I bought a while back. The gun has low and high settings of about 300C and 400C. Not much difference between high and low heat, because the fan keeps the heating element cool - this means when the heating element is on low (half wave rectified) the fan is also going much slower, so the heating element does not get cooled as much. Without the fan, the element would probably burn out in seconds. I bought the heat gun hoping to modify it to variable heat (down to about 100C would have been good). Of course it didnt work, because a lower heating element meant a slower the fan. I think the only way to solve this problem is to give the low voltage fan an independent power supply but didnt get that far.
A friend loaned me a very similar one with the digital display to assess. I was surprised to see an infra red receiver next to the display. No remote in the box, no mention of remote capability in the instructions, but the remote for one of my novelty lamps works it.
Interesting and scary design at the same time. Just imagine the heater wire breaks between the taps of the rectifier. I would think that the fan, effect motor and the LEDs may make a brief, but intensive light show when basically connected to mains voltage with only the heating wire acting as a current limiting resistor. Would be a nice follow up video
Great video again Clive. Just wondering how the live passes through the diode when switched in low mode, is that a diode or a resister? You do great work on keeping us views educated on safe/unsafe products that are out there, British Standards should sponsor you as you are doing a wonderful job.
Its a diode.. When it's switched into the circuit by moving the switch to the low position, the diode only let's one half of the A/C sine wave through, then effectively only using half of the power. Thats why the LEDs then flicker, because they are only being powered by half of the alternating sine wave, and are dark for the other half.
Hah! My nextdoor neighbour bought the exact same product just five weeks ago. She hasn't seen it yet because she's seriously ill in hospital. I wanted to dismantle the thing to have a look inside, so thank you, Clive, for saving me the bother of buying triangular screwdrivers just to let me in. Whoever put it together must have been in a hurry to get finished, because it looks, even from the outside, as though its various outer components aren't fitted together properly, the display window components in particular. I did try to warn her!
Seems like a lot of trouble for 300 watts worth of heat; you could run Folding@Home on a modest PC and accomplish something useful with that much power.
1. they could've used a fancier switch, skip the diode, and not have any of the flicker issues. The switch would just power half of the heating element, but configured so on short/long heater section the potential divider is the same. (same middle tap, the switch changes top/bottom taps, so a double pole double throw.)
I wonder if the Mylar isn’t meant to derive a varying twist from its free end dragging against the motor. Thank you for featuring this Darwinian catalyst with your adoring fans!
The nichrome wire element one is liable to burn your house down. A plastic tunnel around heat coils? I can see it sagging off the wall now, once the cutoff fails.
As you said in the beginning it is a hairdryer, which has been squashed, and they are made of plastic, hairdryers are hand held. How many hairdryers go into melt down?
There are a LOT of plastic cased " bar fire " type heaters being sold ... these burn FAR TOO HOT ( bright orange ) and the Nichrome elements are super thin = VERY short life ( 4 months ? ) ... a better buy would be a 2nd hand 1960's bar fire from a junk ( thrift ) store .. these have THICK elements , run a dull red ... my mum's Belling™ from the 1950's STILL WORKS TODAY ! ! ..( tried - n - tested ) ..... DAVE™ ..............
Usually, I am happy when I guess something and confirm that I got it right. This time, I was frightened to guess it was a half-cycle diode rectifier on the switch. This semi-happy, semi-scared state bothers me now, especially since they will keep doing this, *I know they will.*
Clive,what about doing a safety vid on things like this, block the vents and film what happends, just make a box with an extracter and pipe to a window to get rid of toxic fumes? that would be interesting as well.
I think I'll stick to my Aladdin blue-flame paraffin heater, silent, no electrickery needed, and not made of cheap plastic, still could cause a fire if misused, but what doesn't have that risk these days? :P
Hey Clive have you ever taken apart a ECM furnace motor befrore? The ones in the US are 2 piece. A module and 1hp a DC motor. It be cool to see a video on it.
@@bigclivedotcom The ones I see have a black rubber filling around the components & board located inside the motor module. Why do they put it in there? Is it for rigidity, insulation, cooling, or to keep people out?
As an electrician and super model, I used to use this exact hair dryer back in the day. Tragically I was irreparably disfigured when my diaphanous scarf and complexion caught fire.
How long before the outlet melts or worse, bursts into flames? That just looks nasty on all tick boxes. Sleeved earth prongs should always set alarms ringing, hopefully not fire alarms.
The flame effect on these is interesting, but I'm not sure how one might reuse the effect outside the heater if not for fake fire in a haunted house or something. Small heaters like this give me the heebie-jeebies. The thinner the footprint and the taller the device, the more likely it is to topple and cause a fire. That's why when we heat our construction sites where I work we use massive heaters that have a broad base and are pretty bottom heavy and require a forklift to move.
Looks like you could increase the resale value of this by approximately the price of a low voltage electrolytic cap, an NPN transistor, and 2 resistors at a ratio of 12:1, so that the transistor will trim the tops off the pulsating DC at around 6-9V, and the cap helps keep the LEDs from starving out and flickering.
This needs a filter cap across the bridge rectifier placed conveniently close to the heating element, such that when the cap pops (as such things are wont to do when heated) the vent end of the cap is on the intake side of the fan and will then add smoke to the flame effect. Naughty, but oddly appropriate! 😆
What would happen if - everybody uses this type of device for heating - everybody switches it to half power - every diode is pointing in the same direction ? Will the grid get unstable?
that 248V line voltage is crazy, do you think electric companies always run their voltage at the highest in-spec voltage to increase electricity consumption or to not have below-spec line voltage for someone who's having a kilometer of aluminum cable feeding the house?
I got one of these sent to me through the post the other day without ordering or asking for it! I occasionally get something odd from Aliexpress that I didn't order.
I wondered if it had that diode behind the switch when it flicked but that diode is also under rated. As the average might only be 180W, the peek will still be the 360W. I wonder how long it will last.
Assuming from appearance that it would be a 1N4007 or 4004, the 1A average rectified current rating for the 1N4xxx series would be (just) sufficient, as it is averaging 0.8A. The peak current is not significant for a resistive load - any rectifier passes peak currents significantly greater than the average, but it is the average that counts. If it's an unknown off-brand device, all bets are off...
Big Clive mate, you just had me going around checking that all my earths were uninsulated! I noticed with my Alexa the earth pin is white but the live / neutral is partially white and bare ends. Am I to presume that this is the same thing or is it a conductive coating I am not familiar with? Thanks bud!
I took apart an old toaster oven, and used the parts to make a space heater. Actually works great, but I wouldn't trust it enough to leave it on without me here.
Hey Clive. I have a usb travel charger which has failed in a strange way. It does nothing when plugged into mains, but shortly after unplugging it the status LED lights up for a few seconds. This brand (called “LENCENT”) seems to be one of the only multiport travel usb chargers I can find on the market that fits my needs. I would like to send it to you if you’d be interested in seeing what went wrong and critiquing the design. Let me know if you’re interested. Thanks.
The fuse on the neutral - I've seen it in other circuits and I don't understand why it's on the neutral. I mean, if the fuse blows then the whole circuit will be live. Is this simply a case of bad practice or could it be ignorance?
Seems like many cheap heaters have plastic grilles these days so maybe it could be ok. I could see a personal use for these.... I work in a metal workshop and heating it is difficult at best. I can envisage putting 4 of these behind my large fan running on slow to take the edge off the cold coming days. Probably easier and cheaper to buy a bigger mains one though...
@@bigclivedotcom I actually have one! I even wear dark clothing in the winter which helps absorb the heat and it's great if I'm near it but operating a 6m guillotine means I have to duck back to the wall when I want the heat. My fan blows along the machine front so having some heat behind the airflow would be nice when I'm away from the halogen heater. Probably impractical but I'm a dreamer 🤷♂️👍😂
Of all the things we do in electronics creating heat is then most efficient. I make heat even when it is not a desired result, I even generate heat when I am designing a cooling circuit.. it is a miracle
Below 100°C it may be OK, above that I'd be wary (I doubt something this cheap would go for high-temperature plastic, which I suspect would cost more than steel). By my measurements
bought a simpler version of one of these years ago ( no flame effect ) for the RV to keep it above freezing in winter . No problems with it yet and it's pretty quiet , no reason for comments suggesting " catching fire " thermal cutouts work - and are on millions of fan heaters ,hair dryers etc worldwide .
I just had to grind down the circumference of my triangular bit to get into a Sunbeam Xpress heat electric blanket. Once in I discovered the damn thing has a 28 pin SMD. You should take one of these apart, Clive, because the wiring in the blanket is not at all what I expected. It's all flat wire spiral wound and there are at least two layers like this. I have to look closer because there might even be another conductor inside for safety. Lots of high tech safety has gone into this thing. Frankly I doubt I will ever get it working again at this rate but I need to spend more time with it, too.
you see these advertised on bench top's in kitchens good grief i would never ever have one of these in my house or even any where near a bench top with maybe you wife or kid's putting thing's in front of them i still don't trust them (NOT ON BENCH TOPS) am an old very old school sparky in my fifties i don't trust (A LOT OF THIS PLASTIC STUFF AROUND HEAT) seen too many fire's because of it ? nice one Clive keep up your good work 👍👍👍
1 Ampere diode is totally under rated considering that the load is around 8A. I wonder how long will it take to blow up adding to the overall flame (and smoke) effect.
@@bigclivedotcom I was in the shower and the thought of the magic smoke crossed my mind and it hit me, there would be no magic smoke... As you mentioned at the 6:00 min mark, the heating element is like a loaded resistor network with the tap having a much lower voltage as you said of 6.5V which filtered RMS would be less than 8V. You should be able to get away with that having the motors run a little faster with the LED's a little brighter.
![Noob To Max With DRAGON REWORK In Blox Fruits [FULL MOVIE]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnBMOinoOvA/mqdefault.jpg)
If you build a man a fire, he'll stay warm for a night. If you set a man on fire, he'll stay warm for the rest of his life. At least that's the philosophy of whoever designed these heaters.
Beat me to it.
Excellent! So all we need is gallon of petrol each, and we're warm for the rest of our days! I like the thinking behind that, but there's just one slight snag with that! 🤦🎆💨🤣🤷
@@XFolf Same here.
@@whitesapphire5865 no snag. try it with youre friends :D
GNU Pterry
It is appropriate to have flames animated. This is an early warning for what will happen to your house.
There's a scene from the I.T. Crowd which makes me look at something like this and think only one thing... 😳
„Made in Britain!” 🔥🇬🇧🙃
The "log display" looks like a pile of dog turds, so when you turn it on, you should have the forewarning and the spectacular "Burning Dogshit" alarm before finally laying waste to your rug.
@@buckstarchaser2376 🤣 I thought exactly the same thing!
@@buckstarchaser2376 sold elsewhere as the Turdblaster 9000
@@noisepuppet There's room in any home for an electric Flammenschiser .
Once the fan motor fails, you probably won't need the flame effect!
No yo might need to redecorate after and pick the plastic out of the carpet. 🔥🤣🤣
You would be able to distinguish the real flame from the fake!
There was some kind of thermal fuse behind the motor strapped to the wires, Clive just misted that I think
@@kitecattestecke2303 he mentioned it at least twice; and I seriously doubt it will have a chance to cut the power off.
3:00
These cheap house igniters never disappoint... 🔥🙂
The second I saw the flicker and heard the noise I went "I bet there is just a diode on that switch because it's cheap and easy", these sorts of things are always funny in a terrifying way.
I had exactly the same thought lol
I had the same but that diode is also under rated. as the average might only be 180W, the peek will still be the 360W.
Indeed. In half wave mode I they could have made it much more stable if they had added a smoothing capacitor
Yepp here too :)
A diode is in no way funny or terrifying. It's just a safe and clever solution that's used in hair dryers all the time.
I think Clive should arrange (under laboratory conditions) some gentle torture for this heater. It would be interesting to slightly restrict the airflow and see what catches fire before the thermal trip goes?
Agree
Definitely!
As an electrician that is literally scared of Electric fan heaters this is pretty much my worst nightmare.
Any particular reason? Do you also dislike oil filled radiators for instance?
@@waqasahmed939 oil filled ones are fine. Since they most of the time have a self regulating heater element that is incapable of producing to much heat for the radiator to dissipate.
The reason why I dislike fan heaters is simple.
They are tremendously unsafe when operating unattended.
I've seen 2 houses that I had to rebuild because a fan heater that caused a massive fire.
It was not pleasant to walk through the burned down romms seeing the leftovers and the things the family owned.
I'll forever rember that smell and the destroyed lives they left behind.
Statistically they have a good likelihood to be the cause of an electrical fire if there is one.
And seeing how on most of them there is only one single ridiculously cheap thermal fuse that keeps them from burning when they tip over or the fan fails that is just not something I'd like to have running in my house .
Same goes for old heater based Clothes dryers.
If I use a fan heater then I'll stay near it or use it on a surface that is incapable of burning.
Also there is a large disaster involving these heaters that has been burned in my memory.
It's quite popular but I forgot the name.
A skii resort used train like transportation and they had a failing heater on board causing a burned down train with almost all of the passengers slowly and horrificaly dying.
My mother used the same one days prior.
It was the Kaprun disaster
Yeah, but it's so terribly portable! Take your fire everywhere. No, I mean... FIRE!!! CALL 911! OR 999 if you're 'cross the pond!
I have a scary story for you: i once had a fan heater plugged into the end of a 6 segment extention cord stretching like 200 feet and had to unplug it in the middle of the chain because the hester was still running BUT 5 of the plugs had completly melted....
i don't know why, but these videos help a lot with my anxiety. maybe its the regularity of them or the consistency. or maybe its the revelation of mysterious technological nuggets. whatever it is, i'm glad you keep making them
I agree!
It’s Clive’s sublime narration, definitely.
@@Lumibear. giant Scots bear, can't go wrong. woof, sigh
@@idjtoal well no disagreement there from here.
I have anxiety and maybe it's just me, but watching RUclips all day makes it much, much worse over the course of a few days to a week, even if it is an excellent distraction (or displacement activity) at the time. But of course everyone is different.
I like that both units seem to use the same molded red plastic logs to display the flame effect through, except one has what looks like dry brushed white paint to simulate ash. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that both heaters were made in the same factory.
By the way, thanks for showing us the guts of one of these so long ago. I instantly recognized the effect and remembered the hardware upon seeing it lit up. I also remember you saying how jerky the flame would look if the mylar weren't twisted properly and here we are.
See, some of us do pay attention.
Both consist of Chineseum crap 😠
The moment you stated they "tapped" into the coil, I was like, please test that. And then I smiled. Thanks, your videos are brilliant!
I bought this same heater in a slightly different casing and without the LED effects. Full well knowing how crappy it would be, it's only purpose was to act as a thermostatically controlled enclosure heater for the little greenhouse to keep some plants above 16C during winter. It would turn on for less than 30 seconds at a time every few minutes or so, worked fine for a while until the fan motor stopped working for some reason intermittently, at which time it would melt the plastic grille before the bimetallic switch did its job.
lol, go figure!
Dude I'm Doing The Same Thing!!!
Grow Box And It's Too Cool Out Side And I Need A Small Heater To Control The Temp In My Grass House!!!!
I'm Only Using It When I'm In The Shop With It!!! Don't Want To Burn My Crop Up Until After Harvest!!! Then We Burn Down The House!!!
Keep Rocking It Out Brother!!!
In the past I used a five 100W tungsten filament lamps, all running at half mains voltage, 240V lamps, connected to a isolating transformer with a 120V secondary (output). It was a very reliable arrangement.
@@rockerpat1085 Isn't it terribly exhausting to begin every word with a capital letter, especially for those that shouldn't have one?
Isn't It Terribly Exhausting To Worry About Such Things?
And For The Record: It Ain't Hard At All To Be Awesome!!!!
Its more an incendiary device than a heater. Great video Clive, thank you.
"you say toe-may-toe, I say toe-mah-toe..." ^_^ ;D
a gift for the in-laws?
"cheap and nasty" is the best that can be said for these! I cannot imagine any of these actually putting out enough heat to even keep a closet warm, much less a room. Mainly they waste costly electricity and that's all if you're lucky enough that it doesn't start an even more costly fire.
At least the fire they start would keep you warm
As soon as you said "sci-fi effect" my immediate thought was the warp core in Star Trek Voyager, it had a very similar plasma flame effect look to it
Fag factor five Captain
Having been a firefighter, I always find these kinds of heating products terrifying; or is it horrifying?
terrifying people buy these horrifying they allowed to be sold
But why is it so dangerous?
@@songsthatarecatchy Because people often turn on heaters and forget about them and leave them unattended. Combine that with a cheap plastic housing and questionable design decisions and you can easily get a fire.
Job security.
Why not both?
These are always interesting to see how far they might go for realism, I understand a few actually have a random smoke and real fire feature built in, its like the silicone lottery though, never know if you got the one with extra features.
I Bought One Similar For A 2x4x6 Box I Have Some Grass Growing In And I Needed To Control The Temp In The Box!!!
The First Thing I Noticed Is The Massive Stench In The Box After 5 Minutes Of Use!!! I Removed The PLASTIC Face Plate Because It Was Super Soft And I Figured It Was Going To Melt!!! Smell Went Away After Removing The Grill!!!
Nice To See Thermal Protection!!!
Keep Rocking It Out Brother!!!
The oil filled radiator heater I purchased last winter is a real miracle heater. No noisy fan.
I quite like them because they heat up and cool down just like your normal radiators
The heat stays in the room for a lot longer too
They’re good for steady output.
I agree, oil filled heaters are great!
The 'flame effect' is a very ominous prediction of what eventually awaits these plastic heaters.
If the heater element went open circuit between where the bridge rectifier is connected across, things would get very interesting for the fan motor, effects motor and LEDs !
A follow-up video ??
i think that happened to a 9$ harbor freight heat gun i had. fan went BRRRRRRRR and poof
Just more realistic flames!
Thus living up to the advertised house warming effect with even less use of electricity. Nice!!
A high school teacher had one of these! I’ve been looking for one for years I thought it was adorable, it reminded me of one my grandma has. Glad I didn’t find one 😅
More weapons of house destruction.
400/500 watt can take the chill out of a room, but people are using them as their sole room heater, recently one in the UK caused a fire due to the user having their chair too close.
interesting design and schematic, many thanks for sharing.
Regards John.
These half-wave rectifier heaters can introduce significant harmonics into the power distribution system. I notice that when I switch my 1500W space heater to "LOW" mode (which similarly puts a diode in series with the heating elements), the induction motors throughout the house hum noticeably more loudly, and if my variac is plugged into the same circuit, it will buzz quite a bit more than usual!
The only thing missing is a USB port to charge your phone at 6.5 V pulsed DC.
Product Listing: "Product may differ from illustration"
Me: "...especially after running for a couple of hours"
God bless you Big Clive for highlighting these dangerous pieces of crap
Nice teardown. The cheaper one works exactly like a 70s hair dryer i have. The half wave diode low speed heat setting is a clever old trick.
Out of curiosity, what do more modern heaters do for this? Regulate the voltage?
PJ - Um, not sure, but the mains voltage is fairly well regulated.
TBH I have used an actual hair dryer to heat up the room in emergencies before. It's loud as heck, but it kinda does the job, I managed to raise the temperature by one degree as the clock on my wall said, probably even more around the bed where it was aiming.
Ah the smell of burning dust, I've missed that ...
@@DavidCurryFilms I had to crawl under my house with a hair dryer to thaw my water pipes, in a confined space that burning dust smell is almost overpowering.
So, with the two thermal safety parts, one would hope it wouldn't catch fire, so it's 400w heater in a very tiny package. Seems like it could be really nice for putting on your desk to blow straight at you... In any case, even if it does catch fire, at least you're right there & can (hopefully) put it out before it sets the house on fire. Personally I wouldn't recommend leaving any fan heater running while you're not in the room - even "safe" ones.
Splendid! It's cool to get something cheap and trashy once in a while. I wouldn't get 3 at a time though. Good luck. Keep warm.
Thanks to you I repaired an electric heater. Replaced the thermal fuse. A part for 40 cent that made it the whole thing useless.
You had me at trashiest 😍 absolute 80s style trash tech!
This is fascinating. I was intrigued when I saw the effect that reminded me of disco lights. Quite interesting that they built it like an effect spotlight rather than a few leds and an mcu. Very cool
As soon as you said half wave rectifier, I got excited and hoped you'd put in a capacitor.
sleeved earth, sums it up pretty much
I like the one you took apart. You could remove the heater and the fan and run it off a 5V powerbank just for the flame effect fireplace. :)
(although it all depends on the current draw of the motor as to how long the powerbank will last)
Identical to a cheap 1800W hot air gun I bought a while back. The gun has low and high settings of about 300C and 400C. Not much difference between high and low heat, because the fan keeps the heating element cool - this means when the heating element is on low (half wave rectified) the fan is also going much slower, so the heating element does not get cooled as much. Without the fan, the element would probably burn out in seconds. I bought the heat gun hoping to modify it to variable heat (down to about 100C would have been good). Of course it didnt work, because a lower heating element meant a slower the fan. I think the only way to solve this problem is to give the low voltage fan an independent power supply but didnt get that far.
A friend loaned me a very similar one with the digital display to assess. I was surprised to see an infra red receiver next to the display. No remote in the box, no mention of remote capability in the instructions, but the remote for one of my novelty lamps works it.
Interesting and scary design at the same time. Just imagine the heater wire breaks between the taps of the rectifier. I would think that the fan, effect motor and the LEDs may make a brief, but intensive light show when basically connected to mains voltage with only the heating wire acting as a current limiting resistor. Would be a nice follow up video
Great video again Clive. Just wondering how the live passes through the diode when switched in low mode, is that a diode or a resister? You do great work on keeping us views educated on safe/unsafe products that are out there, British Standards should sponsor you as you are doing a wonderful job.
Its a diode.. When it's switched into the circuit by moving the switch to the low position, the diode only let's one half of the A/C sine wave through, then effectively only using half of the power. Thats why the LEDs then flicker, because they are only being powered by half of the alternating sine wave, and are dark for the other half.
Power's also going throw a resistor divider network on high and low. It's using some heating element windings as the resistor.
I can smell that thing from here and I'm Australian.
Hah! My nextdoor neighbour bought the exact same product just five weeks ago. She hasn't seen it yet because she's seriously ill in hospital. I wanted to dismantle the thing to have a look inside, so thank you, Clive, for saving me the bother of buying triangular screwdrivers just to let me in. Whoever put it together must have been in a hurry to get finished, because it looks, even from the outside, as though its various outer components aren't fitted together properly, the display window components in particular.
I did try to warn her!
Sabotage it so it gets sent back! It'd save her getting burnt to death
Maybe it should "magically" disappear before she returns home...
@@snakezdewiggle6084 Or better yet, it "never arrived".. 🤷🏻
I hope she's in hospital for something other than inhalation of fumes from the plastic grill melting
Seems like a lot of trouble for 300 watts worth of heat; you could run Folding@Home on a modest PC and accomplish something useful with that much power.
That’s what I do to heat my attic
Yep. Used to do that on a dual xeon workstation, it warmed under my desk nicely.
You can also overclock some GPUs and mine cryptocurrency. Or grow marijuana.
Seems like a great design. Can't be cold when you're on fire.
This can cremate a grandma with her house basically for free.
1. they could've used a fancier switch, skip the diode, and not have any of the flicker issues. The switch would just power half of the heating element, but configured so on short/long heater section the potential divider is the same. (same middle tap, the switch changes top/bottom taps, so a double pole double throw.)
I wonder if the Mylar isn’t meant to derive a varying twist from its free end dragging against the motor. Thank you for featuring this Darwinian catalyst with your adoring fans!
Who wouldn't like their housefire device to come with a nice, ear-grating scraping noise!
The nichrome wire element one is liable to burn your house down. A plastic tunnel around heat coils? I can see it sagging off the wall now, once the cutoff fails.
As you said in the beginning it is a hairdryer, which has been squashed, and they are made of plastic, hairdryers are hand held. How many hairdryers go into melt down?
How many hairdryers are operated for hours with low airflow?
There are a LOT of plastic cased " bar fire " type heaters being sold ... these burn FAR TOO HOT ( bright orange ) and the Nichrome elements are super thin = VERY short life ( 4 months ? ) ... a better buy would be a 2nd hand 1960's bar fire from a junk ( thrift ) store .. these have THICK elements , run a dull red ... my mum's Belling™ from the 1950's STILL WORKS TODAY ! ! ..( tried - n - tested ) ..... DAVE™ ..............
I've seen those.
And can only imagine that the "UL" listing was simply the Uneasy Laughter as somebody plugged it in 😬
I'm curious what that half-wave output actually looks like in an oscilloscope, figuring in the back-emf from the motor.
I love the way they used the diode. Just delightful isn't it!
Usually, I am happy when I guess something and confirm that I got it right.
This time, I was frightened to guess it was a half-cycle diode rectifier on the switch.
This semi-happy, semi-scared state bothers me now, especially since they will keep doing this, *I know they will.*
01:08 - Can't stop seeing a pile of poo in the fireplace.
I agree.... It IS what it IS. 😕
😄 ~ polished turd
It *is* a miracle: a fire starter brick that works without the need of matches or any other source of flame!
Another lovely teardown analysis. Cheers, Clive!
Clive,what about doing a safety vid on things like this, block the vents and film what happends, just make a box with an extracter and pipe to a window to get rid of toxic fumes? that would be interesting as well.
Hmm no tilt switch definately a fire hazard, nice video🙂
I think I'll stick to my Aladdin blue-flame paraffin heater, silent, no electrickery needed, and not made of cheap plastic, still could cause a fire if misused, but what doesn't have that risk these days? :P
Yeah....but that smell I remember almost as well as the dentist gasmask. Urgh!
I noticed the moulding for the logs are the same on both units....
The only way to make those flames realistic is to spray gasoline on the device and set it off
That flame effect was surprisingly nice to look at.
Can you do a review of the 3500W electric water heater on Aliexpress for £30? It shows it with a shower attachment, but I don't think I'd trust it!
Hey Clive have you ever taken apart a ECM furnace motor befrore? The ones in the US are 2 piece. A module and 1hp a DC motor. It be cool to see a video on it.
I'll keep an eye out for one.
@@bigclivedotcom The ones I see have a black rubber filling around the components & board located inside the motor module. Why do they put it in there? Is it for rigidity, insulation, cooling, or to keep people out?
Hmmm… Beans & Weenies??? A phantom olfactory delight!!! Thanks, Clive…
Could you go outside and simulate a motor fail?
Will it cut it in time or go up in flames?
It'll do what a hairdryer does, as it's basically a hairdryer, the thermal cutoff bigclive showed kicks in.
@@thegorgon7063 A normal hairdryer does, but I'd be curious if this cut-off will be fast enough
That low setting sounds very like the fans in an E46 3 series when the Final stage resistor dies
I'm curious how long it would take to melt the grill?
Will it self destruct?
5 Minutes!!! After That The Whole Room Smelled Like Hot Plastic!!! I Removed The Grill And It's Much Better!!!
Keep Rocking!!!
This serves as a reminder to all: make SURE your fire/renter insurance is paid & current!
Perfect way to heat your whole house this winter, just be sure you're out when it burns down.
As an electrician and super model, I used to use this exact hair dryer back in the day. Tragically I was irreparably disfigured when my diaphanous scarf and complexion caught fire.
How long before the outlet melts or worse, bursts into flames? That just looks nasty on all tick boxes. Sleeved earth prongs should always set alarms ringing, hopefully not fire alarms.
That lighting effect is something similar that we used for stage productions in High School. Early 90s?.
The flame effect on these is interesting, but I'm not sure how one might reuse the effect outside the heater if not for fake fire in a haunted house or something. Small heaters like this give me the heebie-jeebies. The thinner the footprint and the taller the device, the more likely it is to topple and cause a fire. That's why when we heat our construction sites where I work we use massive heaters that have a broad base and are pretty bottom heavy and require a forklift to move.
Looks like you could increase the resale value of this by approximately the price of a low voltage electrolytic cap, an NPN transistor, and 2 resistors at a ratio of 12:1, so that the transistor will trim the tops off the pulsating DC at around 6-9V, and the cap helps keep the LEDs from starving out and flickering.
This needs a filter cap across the bridge rectifier placed conveniently close to the heating element, such that when the cap pops (as such things are wont to do when heated) the vent end of the cap is on the intake side of the fan and will then add smoke to the flame effect. Naughty, but oddly appropriate! 😆
What would happen if
- everybody uses this type of device for heating
- everybody switches it to half power
- every diode is pointing in the same direction
?
Will the grid get unstable?
It's definitely not substation friendly.
"One Moment Pleeeze" Love your videos, interesting.
You buy them, so we dont have to.👍👍
that 248V line voltage is crazy, do you think electric companies always run their voltage at the highest in-spec voltage to increase electricity consumption or to not have below-spec line voltage for someone who's having a kilometer of aluminum cable feeding the house?
I got one of these sent to me through the post the other day without ordering or asking for it! I occasionally get something odd from Aliexpress that I didn't order.
Has your data been stolen?
I wondered if it had that diode behind the switch when it flicked but that diode is also under rated. As the average might only be 180W, the peek will still be the 360W. I wonder how long it will last.
Assuming from appearance that it would be a 1N4007 or 4004, the 1A average rectified current rating for the 1N4xxx series would be (just) sufficient, as it is averaging 0.8A. The peak current is not significant for a resistive load - any rectifier passes peak currents significantly greater than the average, but it is the average that counts. If it's an unknown off-brand device, all bets are off...
Big Clive mate, you just had me going around checking that all my earths were uninsulated! I noticed with my Alexa the earth pin is white but the live / neutral is partially white and bare ends. Am I to presume that this is the same thing or is it a conductive coating I am not familiar with? Thanks bud!
Though I have just noticed its my 5-12v dc power supplies that have that?
Double insulated adaptors use a plastic pin just to unlock the safety shutters.
@@bigclivedotcom Ok, I understand now! I appreciate the explaination, thank you. Look forward to the next vid.👍
I took apart an old toaster oven, and used the parts to make a space heater. Actually works great, but I wouldn't trust it enough to leave it on without me here.
Hey Clive. I have a usb travel charger which has failed in a strange way. It does nothing when plugged into mains, but shortly after unplugging it the status LED lights up for a few seconds. This brand (called “LENCENT”) seems to be one of the only multiport travel usb chargers I can find on the market that fits my needs. I would like to send it to you if you’d be interested in seeing what went wrong and critiquing the design. Let me know if you’re interested. Thanks.
The fuse on the neutral - I've seen it in other circuits and I don't understand why it's on the neutral. I mean, if the fuse blows then the whole circuit will be live.
Is this simply a case of bad practice or could it be ignorance?
It's preferable in the live, but will still break the circuit.
Fortunately I've not seen those yet. Where are they being pushed heavily?
Places like Facebook and RUclips advertising.
Seems like many cheap heaters have plastic grilles these days so maybe it could be ok. I could see a personal use for these.... I work in a metal workshop and heating it is difficult at best. I can envisage putting 4 of these behind my large fan running on slow to take the edge off the cold coming days. Probably easier and cheaper to buy a bigger mains one though...
Try a halogen heater. It heats you up by radiant heat.
@@bigclivedotcom I actually have one! I even wear dark clothing in the winter which helps absorb the heat and it's great if I'm near it but operating a 6m guillotine means I have to duck back to the wall when I want the heat. My fan blows along the machine front so having some heat behind the airflow would be nice when I'm away from the halogen heater. Probably impractical but I'm a dreamer 🤷♂️👍😂
Of all the things we do in electronics creating heat is then most efficient. I make heat even when it is not a desired result, I even generate heat when I am designing a cooling circuit.. it is a miracle
I wonder how the plastic grille stands up after a few hours on high.
Probably look like somethimg similar to this.... 🙁 and smell like this.... 🤥
Below 100°C it may be OK, above that I'd be wary (I doubt something this cheap would go for high-temperature plastic, which I suspect would cost more than steel).
By my measurements
Comes with a deathdapter it doesn't need - Perfect!
Sorry Clive but I've got to mark you down for the wrong use of 'simplistic' in the description. Or did you get Dave Jones to write it?
bought a simpler version of one of these years ago ( no flame effect ) for the RV to keep it above freezing in winter . No problems with it yet and it's pretty quiet , no reason for comments suggesting " catching fire " thermal cutouts work - and are on millions of fan heaters ,hair dryers etc worldwide .
I thought the thumbnail was a joke. I'll give them an A for showmanship.
I just had to grind down the circumference of my triangular bit to get into a Sunbeam Xpress heat electric blanket. Once in I discovered the damn thing has a 28 pin SMD. You should take one of these apart, Clive, because the wiring in the blanket is not at all what I expected. It's all flat wire spiral wound and there are at least two layers like this. I have to look closer because there might even be another conductor inside for safety. Lots of high tech safety has gone into this thing. Frankly I doubt I will ever get it working again at this rate but I need to spend more time with it, too.
Circumference of a triangle?? 🤔 Hmm...
Just got a youtube ad for one of these today and now this video :D
you see these advertised on bench top's in kitchens good grief i would never ever have one of these in my house or even any where near a bench top with maybe you wife or kid's putting thing's in front of them i still don't trust them (NOT ON BENCH TOPS) am an old very old school sparky in my fifties i don't trust (A LOT OF THIS PLASTIC STUFF AROUND HEAT) seen too many fire's because of it ? nice one Clive keep up your good work 👍👍👍
1 Ampere diode is totally under rated considering that the load is around 8A. I wonder how long will it take to blow up adding to the overall flame (and smoke) effect.
Around 1.5 amps, actually. :O)
On 240V the current is on average less than an amp over the full sinewave.
Put a capicitor across the output of the bridge to get rid of the flicker on low. 10V/100uF should do.
That would end badly with a peak of around 340V.
@@bigclivedotcom
We like the magic smoke 🙂
@@bigclivedotcom I was in the shower and the thought of the magic smoke crossed my mind and it hit me, there would be no magic smoke... As you mentioned at the 6:00 min mark, the heating element is like a loaded resistor network with the tap having a much lower voltage as you said of 6.5V which filtered RMS would be less than 8V. You should be able to get away with that having the motors run a little faster with the LED's a little brighter.