@@bigclivedotcom Maybe a kotatsu (type of low power Japanese heater) that is designed to pretty much only heat the small space under a blanket might do the trick if he can't stand waiting
I remember helping my father in law with his vacuum cleaner. He kept vacuuming his Astro Turf mat on the balcony. Everytime I visited I had to change the internal fuse and remind him not to vacuum when the mat was still wet from rain. He always forgot so I put in a resettable fuse and showed him how to reset it after letting the machine dry. He was a wonderful man and I still remember his childish face of guilt every time he asked me to have a look 😁❤️
@@Cheese_1337 I live in Sweden, and we don't have fuses in our plugs so that's not for us. I'm not sure how common it is around the world, I've been to Australia a couple of times. I don't think they have plug fuses from what I can remember, does anyone know how common it is?
"quite often he puts a heater under the blanket with him and wonders why they die" - Both heater and Ralfy if he's not careful! Thanks for some good safety advice with this video.- It's so easy to forget to unplug, particularly if you're getting tired/frustrated.
They make heaters designed for blowing hot air under a blanket. They got the BedJet in the US, but Japan has had similar things for quite a while. (Japanese houses have poor insulation. They also usually sleep on futons on the floor, which get folded up into a closet during the day. If you don't air them out, they become musty)
I recently saw a picture of a Japanese table with a downward facing quartz sort of heater on the bottom of the table. The table had a ring of sort of quilted blanket around it to capture the heat for the lower half of seated individuals around the table. Sounds toasty and scary at the same time.
@@amorphuc Depends how hot the filament is driven, if it's two in series (and thus half the rated voltage per heater) it doesn't get that hot to be that flammable._
@@amorphuc Kotatsu. Before electricity, they used charcoal in a cage, so you'd have a fire risk and carbon monoxide poisoning at the same time. They're about 500 watts. The latest ones are flat carbon heater panels, which give more legroom and spread the heat out more.
Good opening comments on preferring repair rather than replacement, even for very cheap items, to reduce landfill. As for unplugging items when repairing them, I'm sure I don't know what you mean. I worked at a repair cafe, so would be delving into the innards of electrical items more than most people. I would allow my self one zap per month in order to start paying attention again.
Regarding repair cafés - do they carry any public liability insurance? It was suggested to me that it would be a good use of my time as my imminent retirement approaches but I am wary on such matters.
@@HowardLeVert I hadn’t thought about it before, but there’s no record kept either of parts repaired So very little come back and generally people are so happy to have that special item working again be it Table Lamp, mower, toys, clothing etc ……
I'm glad you mentioned the need to thermally isolate the soldering of the thermal fuse. I suffered a severe forehead-slapping event when I replaced one on a friend's heater. Of course, it didn't work after the first repair attempt. The thermal fuses should come with the ID ten-T user warning (ID10T). The second repair attempt solved the problem.
the sinclair zx81 and zx spectrum power supplies have a thermal fuse...soldered to a pcb, below the transformer primary winding,...presumably the automated soldering is quick enough to not trip it, the length between the pcb holes is quite wide, though so hand soldering likely possible if you're quick enough, never yet come across a popped one in these...
This particular heater is probably the most generic on sale in the UK , they are branded with dozens of retail badges and cost around £10. Not surprising that most do not get repaired , tracing back from sale to manufacture and all the profit add ons and shipping it makes you wonder the actual cost is to make? Landfill galore. Excellent content as usual Clive.
Yes it's incredible that manufacturers actually make any profit but often they make more money from P&P than from their goods ! They usually turn things out by the tens of thousands and quite often part of the cost of manufacture (in China) is subsidised so even though only a fraction of the retail cost gets back to the manufacturer they don't lose out completely. This is mainly because their government recognises the value of factories and exporters and will support them even though they are not profitable !
These and others just like them are all over here in the states, I have 4 of them. All in various states of failing from the fan, which I doubt can be "fixed"
I have one here in Finland, not exactly like the specimen in the video, but the general shape is the same, the two knobs just aren't next to each other, but one of the left, one on the right. I have had it for a decade or more, and it was 15 euros at max. It keeps working like a champion, although it doesn't see awfully long hours in a winter, which might explain it.
@@herrakaarme Same here, I have that same kind of cheap and dreadful heater, though mine is from a somewhat reputable local brand (Supra, located in Obernai, Alsace) but still it feels cheaply made.. I don't even know where this thing came from. I did use it a few times when the central heating wasn't working (the joys of living in a 1970's tower block...), although I'd NEVER let that thing run unsupervised.... I sorta got a bit of a irrational fear about these things..
@@Alexis_du_60 Oh, yes, it's most certainly not going to run unsupervised. I've never let it run more than 10 minutes continuously at the hot (II) setting. The middle setting pushes out barely warm air, so I've once let it run for an hour, wanting to give a drying textile a flow of air. That was years ago. It's such a plastic bubble that it's immediately evident you either want to heavily limit its use or treat it as an expendable commodity.
Aye - the dulcet tones of Clives reassuring pilots voice.... "Ladies and gentlemen - we appear to have lost an engine but no worries - I shall now look for it again...."
I always used fine grit sand paper, but its been many years since I have worked on contacts, and back then it worked. In fact it hasn't been that long ago that did that to the thermostat for the furnace. The thermostat is quite old, so maybe that's why it worked.
Relay contact cleaners used to use about the equivalent of 2000 grit diamonds to get rid of oxides. Many metal oxides are harder than the metal it's self with Iron being one of the few that has a "soft" oxide. Aluminium oxide for example is the basis of sapphire and not that far behind diamond. It is now used in the replacement for "Emery Cloth" in most industries.
This reminded me of when I worked in a repair place on some kit that was quite sophisticated for measuring temperature in an industrial process. We had a new tech starting and we gave him a board where the (soldered) thermal fuse had popped. He was not the best at soldering and kept wondering why it still did not work after replacing the fuse time and time again. About a week later he had more or less mastered those fuses.
I replaced a thermal fuse on a small electric stove, the sort that can be used to heat a single pot on a table and then put away after use. It used crimped connections, not soldered because the thermal fuse was only rated at about 85 deg C.
The pins on the mains plug look tarnished as well. At least those are self cleaning. I took a similar heater apart a couple of weeks ago, just to see how it was wired and what protection it had. All the screws in that one were standard types.
A squirt of contact cleaner on the paper/card, card preferably as paper disintegrates more quickly, as you pull it through the contacts aids contact recovery. I have a pack of old BT burnishing papers designed just for this contact cleaning activity on 3000 Type relays - not sure if these are still available though.
Back in the 70s when I worked on PO Strowger/SxS I used these pink strips, brilliant they were, especially when you're trying to mount new selectors in an old rack where the silvery contacts were black from the polluted air (old glass tank lead acid cells), a quick wipe and they were clean. I was the only one on site with the nous to use them..... Contact strips are still available.
A "points file" would work well for this. My father had a good selection of these as he worked with relays (and points when he was tuning the car!) all the time.
That strategy doesn't eliminate the possibility of having the incorrect plug in view. A non-contact voltage detector can be quickly waved around the danger area at various times.
Teenage me wants you to know that advice is especially appropriate if using a non-insulated screwdriver with a metal handle to undo the screws on electrical terminals 😵💫
This is an ideal candidate for a diode in series with the element to halve the power, if he's got it under a blanket it'll warm up very quickly even on half the rated power! What I've found interesting with this one incidentally is the complete lack of a tilt switch, all of these upright style that I've owned have had a microswitch on the bottom to detect if it falls over.
How would that diode work to halve the voltage? A zener diode rated for high power at the right voltage? (that sounds implausible to me) Pardon me if that is a stupid question, I'm just curious.
@@InfoDav It doesn't halve the voltage as such, it just cuts off the negative half of the sine wave, so acting like a half-wave rectifier, this runs the elements at a 50% duty cycle, therefore the RMS power draw is half what the heater would usually use. No silly questions here, happy to help!
When working with electromechanical relays in substations, we used a $1 US bill for burnishing the contacts when the proper diamond dust burnishing tool wasn't available. My version of that fan "had" a tip switch safety feature. It didn't last long due to us repositioning the thing frequently while it was on.
In my experience, thermal fuses going open are one of the principal reasons that people get rid of microwave ovens. There are usually more that just a single one in a typical oven, and when they go, they're gone. Replacing one is usually very simple--just a couple of crimp terminal wires and a screw--and you've got your oven back again. I keep a bag of about 10 of them (very cheap if ordered through Aliexpress) around for just such events.
I had my sanyo microwave die, the Hv fuse had died. Easy to break, just stop start the microwave in quick succession a few times . I replaced the fuse. More modern ones I have seen dispense with that fuse completely
Actually, the standard line fuse in a microwave oven kills many of them-the link inside the fuse weakens due to metal fatigue, so often the scenario is: Person moves the microwave oven to clean, moves it back, and finds it dead.. replacing the inexpensive fuse generally fixes it. Of course, if the new fuse blows-start looking for other causes: Interlock switches are the first thing to look at in this case.
I never open the door to a microwave while it’s operating. If necessary before the cycle is over, I will press the Clear/Pause/Cancel button to shut off the oven before the door is opened. I think this may minimize the chance of a fuse blowing.
@@bobwigg761 Note that I'm talking about thermal fuses, not the traditional overcurrent ones. Usually the thermal ones trip if one does a long cooking cycle--most inexpensive ovens are ill-equipped to handle, say, defrosting a large roast.
@@bobwigg761 The doors are booby trapped. There are microswitches top & bottom, and wired so if one trips and not the other it'll blow the fuse. That's so if you have the door open and try to defeat the interlocks, it'll kill the microwave if you don't do both. If you open the door while running there's a chance this will happen, I guess that's why most ovens I find have dead fuses. The MOV can also fail and blow the fuse after a while. Surprising reliable machines otherwise.
I had one similar to this. I fell asleep with it on and awoke to the room getting brighter. It was slightly on fire. Needless to say I jumped out of bed, grabbed it, ran down the hallway and threw it outside.
I have a couple of them here in the states, they all have tip switches. I don't know if they have thermal cut offs. The fans love to die on these for me, and just get hotter and hotter. My luck I have been in the room and awake when they do.
I am not surprised about corrosion, when this heater was used in Ralfys bothy. It feels like a humid place in the videos. Im afraid the fix won't last very long ...
Lovely walk-through. Unfortunately I've got a couple of these style heaters and the corpse of my once favourite hair dryer/shop low heat gun that have popped the heating coils. Gave a few attempt on the heaters, as the hot-spots that popped the coils were near their original connection. I massaged the coils further along to give me something to crimp them back into the original connection, but they still failed again in short service. The hair dryer... perhaps still too soon to approach; I loved that little guy, and it gave out in the midst of a continuingly unfortunate repair experience I still haven't quite recovered from.
My circa-2005 Razer mouse had started developing what I coined as _"Phantom Clicks",_ where often when I would click, they're would be additional clicks that would be detected. This actually plagued me twice, but the first time it took me almost a year to conclude what the cause was... It inevitably had gotten worse, to the point where sometimes it wouldn't register a click AT ALL... That's when I broke down and decided to go to the extreme with the disassembly... Relevance to this video? Being they are quality mice, they actually use micro-switches (long and rectangular) for all 6 buttons - L/R conventional, then 2x on the left side (thumb), and 2x on the right side (middle/ring finger). These switches once removed and _themselves_ taken apart (their case clips together visually), they kind of resemble the thermal cutoffs: round metal pads welded to flat metal springs. The non-detection of a click was due to... believe it or not... carbon dust buildup on the pads! There's not much voltage here, so I was quite shocked (pun intended) that _this_ was the cause... So just as you had, I cleaned them off and reassembled to switch half! _RANDOMLY NOT DETECTING CLICKS: _*_SOLVED!_* As for the _other_ issue, the phantom clicks, it was still switch related..... but in THE weirdest way. _(actually, as I type this, I remember I fixed this prior to the non-detection issue, thinking that this manifested again... but anyways)_ One thing I had noticed with the phantom click was that I seemed to be able to have a higher chance at triggering it based on where I had pressed down on the mouse button (beings that mouse buttons are wide). Turns out, it was because after a decade and a half of daily use for hours each day, and probably a million or more clicks.... The tiny rounded bump on top of the physical switch, had _worn a groove into the plastic standoff attached to the mouse button!_ So if I depressed in a way slightly different from usual, the non-worn portion would trigger the switch like normal. The phantom click being that the mouse buttons being plastic, could flex a tiny bit left or right, making the standoff run across these precision switches enough to cause a rapid fire click sequence! 😐 Solution? Stupid simple: a tiny dot of super glue to fill in the worn plastic, carefully sanded flat. _RANDOMLY CAUSED PHANTOM CLICKS: _*_SOLVED!_* My 2005 Copperhead lives on! Albeit, needing a new USB cable, since it's internally broken (a few times, but bent in a certain way and taped to not move, solved it each time 😊). Which is GREAT news for me! Because the version 2 they released, which I bought, has different side button placement and lacks the rubberized side grip, making it horrible to use in my big hand!
That heater makes an interesting contrast to a compact fan heater that I have. My heater has a spring loaded "foot" sticking out the bottom, so that if the heater tips over or is not standing upright on a solid surface it will not operate. I am slightly surprised that your (brother's) heater does not have that feature.
I own the US version of this heater and it is identical except for being 120V and mine does have the "safety" foot. Nothing some duct tape can't fix. These are pretty much the cheapest heaters available. Dollar store stuff. Very cheaply made to the absolute minimum. Despite that, mine has lasted for years.
@@okaro6595 they come in different models with different names from the same factory in China. Some have these switches some don't. I prefer the ones with the tripping switches because they are much safer
Funny, I repaired a similar one myself lately. Mine had only heat and no fan. My 1st thought was also that bi-metal contact. But I had continuity. The problem was in the winding of the motor. One of the very thin wires had come off. after resolder it, it was working again. Always interesting watching your videos!
The notes accompanying video are often as informational as the video. Thank you BigClive for keeping us warm and safe at the same time. PS - My bro is just like Ralphy -God bless his sole.
I bought a metal case space heater for the small greenhouse. It didn't turn on. I opened it up and found the tip switch weight shaft bent from shipping perhaps. I straightened it out and it has worked since. One of the heater couple contacts did fail later, but using a burnishing stick, I got it working again. I used that stick in my career for the reed and relay contacts. It was in my wallet until I retired.
I've done many repairs on those cheap heaters. There is one more contact (bimetallic strip) in the temperature control. I use 600 grit sandpaper to clean all the contacts. If I see any warping or melted plastic, I let them know that even if it works, I highly recommend replacing the whole heater.
That's why I prefer dark beamer IR bulbs, no moving parts, no noise, no contacts that can corrode, easy to replace, lower power and the heat can be directed exactly where you want it. Gives you more movement freedom than a heated blanket. 250W at 0.5 to 1m is enough down to 10⁰C to make it feel like 20⁰C. Two, one from each side is even more comfy. They can be found in most pet shops or for heating chickens etc. Heat the person, not the room!
@@Mawww_MMD yeah heating a room does take much more energy. Still, at 10-13⁰C +IR you'll still be wearing multiple layers of clothing though. Heating my 16m² room from 9 to 13⁰C takes 0.5m³ of gas, and about 0.1 for every hour to keep it that way. 250W IR heating above the couch takes the temp to about 22 degrees where I sit. 1m³ of gas is 10KWh of power, so it takes about 5KWh to heat the room with outdoor temps of around 7⁰C currently. I'd need 2m³ more gas to heat to 20 degrees. That's 25kWh total, offset that against just 250W IR heat to just heat my person, there's no contest that IR heating is much more efficient. I heat using gas to 13⁰C so it also keeps moist and fungus away. Pointing it at your head, the part that looses most of the body heat is pretty effective.
I've recently repaired my own example of this very common heater. Damp and dusty storage had caused the fan motor to seize; a little cleaning and lubrication and it's back at work.
The thermal fuse i needed to repair an espresso machine was available with spot-welded pigtails, which saved me dealing with soldering to it. Recommended!
I am also guilty of leaving my space heaters in my garage after spring hits so they are out of the way, and then shocked when one of them doesn't work again the first frost of winter.
I have the North American version of that heater. I got it when the oil-fired boiler in my apartment building had a catastrophic failure just after the start of the heating season. The heat exchanger fractured in use, and there was a vast quantity of steam that roared out of the firebox, followed by a great deal of water. It took a week to get a gas boiler installed as a replacement, and it got quite chilly. I occasionally use it when, like this year, the date local regulations require the heating to be turned on is not the date I would have waited for if I had my own thermostat.
I had a very well made vintage heater of this style made before the days of safety and certainly before RCDs were commonplace. It failed spectacularly when a large sewing needle fell into it whereupon it briefly shone brightly then spat out red hot heating element coil sections all over the carpet. I wasn’t sure which way to run!
We had a few of these fail and it was always the one shot thermal fuse. They were used as preheating the bathroom for the children, they were never covered, only used in the I. setting (1kW-230V) and most of the time they were let to cool down for a minute in the fan-only setting.
remembering to unplug devices is quite possibly the best advice one can give when repairing home appliances twice now i've been fixing something and turned it off by the switch on the device, assumed it's off and safe to work on, completely neglecting that the job i was doing was replacing capacitors on the power supply board and given myself a hearty dose of mains electricty across my fingertip
I just started to go and undo the crimp carefully, so you can use it on the next one. Works well, and otherwise you just take any of the common plastic insulated crimps, and remove the plastic, cut the crimp ferrule off the end ( pin terminals are ideal for this) and use that small copper sleeve instead, and a pair of pliers to graunch it down good and tight.
Took my fan heater apart this week. The thermostat wasn't behaving, either wouldn't switch on or wouldn't switch off. Luckily it was an equally simple fix. The thermostat control dial just applied different pressure to bimetallic strip. I bend it back into shape and it's working fine now.
I was fixing something on my bench at work, as i plugged it in, switched it on ALL the power in the workshop tripped. Bloody flying leads, (I should really have had a Cliff power terminal). I had big, black and copper skid marks on the back of the repair manual. 🤣🤣
I've found that when a heater cuts out and in,,,,, as it's designed to do,,,,, the biometric strip loses some of it's springtness due to heat and flexability causing a weaker pressure between the contacts. This causes a bit of arcing, hence points failure. As you said these do have a cycle time as the heating and cooling takes place. Clive can you give us all a test on the accuracy of bimetallic trips and the differences in the temperatures of a trip, you might be surprised just how innacurate they are. Good vid, plus it keeps Ralfy happy
I soak the paper in a bit of contact cleaner before dragging it between the contacts. Usually works like a charm if the rest of the components are still functioning properly.
I was thinking the same thing as soon as the contact started going then it's going to build heat and shut off probably even more often and then like compoundingly take itself out which like you said if it welds then you got the fuse so I like how robust the safety is as silly as it seems
My expenses with these: Fan can fall off. Once switch for fan failed (inductive load), but not for heaters. I once de-rated one of these for use on old Communist apartment block where electrical wiring is rated only for lights and TVs, in all rooms there were unfused 6A sockets with 1.5mm sqr aluminium cables. They assumed that district heating would be good (it was not, 19 degrees at best). I first disconnected 2nd heater. Then my wife complained that 2nd level is not working (even though I warned her not to use it, because there was fire in identical tower block due to wire overloading). Next was to put diodes in series with heating elements (they were at least anty paralel). Last revision was that on 1st level both heaters are in series, and on 2nd only one, second heater was shorted out. Placebo is interesting thing when you have 2 levels, when one is hotter them other. Like amplifier that goes to 11.
I have this same kind of fan, but it has one more failure point. It has a springloaded switch at the bottom, that kills the power if it's not pressed in. It's meant to be a tipping killswitch for clumsy people, but it's annoying because it requires a hard surface under the fan and you can't pick up the fan and blow at your cold feet unless you either push the switch stem in or tape it over.
Had the exact same issue with one of the Beldray branded jobbies from Wilko. I recall I used Servisol to clean-up the contacts, and it's been fine ever since.
Your brother and his stone-age heater... I laugh heartily from deep within my wearable blanket. My feet resting comfortably upon a - slightly too hot - electric rug, while it is a bone-shattering 68F in this room. More of an icy torture chamber, really.
A fan with two blades is not something I expected. I have a box style heater fan. The switch tripped once when I ran it on full for a bit too long(I think? IDKY it tripped.) On this one, it cuts the fan also. I think the fan should always work, so even if the heater fails, it still works as a fan, which may also help it reset a bit faster.
I have repaired several for friends and family by using a low-abrasive contact file and contact cleaner. They all seem to use very similar thermal breakers that get burnt contact surfaces within days of first use.
When I was young and still learning, I once got my soldering iron out, opened the TV to be worked on, pulled the plug, started poking around, and found a loose wire. I reached for my soldering iron, only to discover it was cold. I then realized I had unplugged the soldering iron rather than the TV I was working on, and had been poking around in a live chassis for over 10 minutes. My knees got weak and I had to sit for a moment. So the comment about "sometimes they unplug the wrong thing" hit home. Never made that mistake again, though - one near-accident was enough to scare me into a more cautious behavior.
I’ve just been looking at all the videos on repairing patio heaters. Usually the tilt or “dump” switich. Most look to bypass but all the switch is is a microswitch with a ball bearing that sits in a cup when upright whose lever pushes the switch closed. Digging is a similar contact repair. They carry the thermocouple voltage of 30 mA so sensitive to corrosion.
I've often used an emery board on contacts like these. If they are solid silver and not gold plated it's fine, and often by the time this becomes an issue the gold playing is gone, anyway. It's only a few microns thick. OTOH, if arcing in involved and the contacts are pitted, then you're stuck replacing the part. I had a refrigerator thermostat i replaced a few years back where the contacts looked like the surface of the Moon, with deep pits completely covering each surface.
@@pizzablender That's why switches with silver contacts cost more than ones with gold contacts. Silver contacts: material is too thick for it to matter. Gold contacts: material is too thin for it to matter
Vinegar and a couple of cotton buds, possibly a neutralising agent depending on how much vinegar has been used, and dry thoroughly. Works great on very corroded battery contacts.
When I worked with PMG/Telecom in the 60's and 70's we were issued special cleaning strips called Microscrub. They had tiny abrasive hook tips, like micro fine Velcro which we used on relay contacts. I have never been able to source them commercially. We were taught to never use paper or cardboard as they would leave an insulating residue. Paper probably OK for 240v though.
Some paper/cardboard contain wax for gloss, that's what they were probably worried about, don't use the shiny stuff. I've always had good results with cheap index cards.
One would assume that being in close proximity to the heating elements plus the physical forces involved meant a properly built plastic blade would be more expensive than the cheap stamped metal one.
I fixed an appliance today. My vacuum cleaner's (Hoover's) on-off switch was "broken" in an "always on mode" for quite some time, figured I would just have to live with it. Needing to plug it into another wall outlet I set it upright and running. As I moved away, I tripped over the cord and knocked it to the floor. It hit hard enough that now the switch is working properly!
I recently had to start using one of these as the central heating packed in and on full (2kW) the plug becomes its own heater, excellent. It could be worth advising Ralph to check that after 10 mins or so on whatever heaters he has around the place. Cleaning up the prongs and tightly screwing down the contacts in the plug allowed me to use it on 1kW until I could get another heater.
I favour using something like Electrolube contact cleaner, the sort that leaves a protective film behind, to soak the paper that I drag between the contacts in cases like these.
that protective film is probably not intended for something that gets as hot as an electric heater-a non-residue cleaner is probably better in this case-something like CRC QD is a reasonable choice.
Switches and thermostats that break high current need a bit of time, a few seconds to a minute, to cool down from the arcing on opening before they are opened again or the contacts melt, corrode or weld together and then the thermal fuse becomes all that protects you from a fire or plastic casing turning to slag. The AC circuit switch arc only lasts until the AC voltage next passes thru zero ( 1/100th or 1/120th of a second). High voltage DC switches are always "snap action" as the arc will continue until the contacts are far enough apart to break the arc.
the heaters we have here, most anyway, have a safety switch that prevents them from working unless they are flat on the floor. if you tilt them at all they shut off
You can buy strips of cardboard with sandpaper on it. I used it for open contact relays 23 years ago. A little bit of contact cleaner would help a lot.
The issue I have with these cheap blower heaters (I've got about 4) is that new or old, dusty or not, on the high setting they run too hot and cut off the element, usually with a burning smell. I've had 2 of these things catch fire in front of me, not to be trusted if you're sleeping or go out for more than a few minutes.
excellent, Thanks for the video. I have these heaters in one of the shops i work in and the same thing has happened to those as what has happened with this one. So going to have a look now i'm confident what to look for inside.👍
It's a fairly well thought out design having a thermal cut out on the plastic case, one I used to have that the motor failed in didn't have that so Ralph's heater is safer by design.
My old blow heater needs a service every year, it's just the fan bearings well bushes really. So every year I take it apart and give it a clean and lubricate the bearings and like Ralphy I use it in conjunction with a blanket but never covered. The heater blows into my blanket which hangs down from my chair trapping the heat around my legs.
I have an identical looking heater, purchased from a UK retailer, except mine has a switch on the bottom so it won't operate if it is knocked over. It's concerning that some penny-pincher thought that removing a safety feature was a suitable way to retain a little more profit from these, but here we are.
I always hang the cable round my neck, and I now wear rubber gloves after too many shocks to count. A couple with burns, one with irregular heart rhythm for a couple of days in hospital. That one was a colleague plugging it back in.
Unless they have changed the plastic recipe these plastic fans are a disaster waiting to happen. . I know someone who had a black and decker fan heater in a shed . Left it on for 10 mins before he went in the shed as it was middle of winter. 10 mins later the shed was half burnt down . Fire brigade said the motor probably stoped and the thermo cutout failed
I've had one of these for more than 5 years. Always been fine. I use it in my electronics workshop, it's on right now. Outside is 6 C, in hear it's a comfortable 21.
The most common faults I had with mine was if you put them above low settings they would trip within a few seconds, I lived in a property where the landlord had a crazy no gas heating 8 months a year and the 4 months it was on, it was on low as "the boiler couldn't handle it" but we could use as much electricity as we needed, went through so many heaters, I think as I had them on hours a day during cold winters so must of worn out something in cable, in the end I just used the ceramic bar heaters instead, seemed warmer and no noise.
Umm nice cheers Clive, I just brought a cheap 750w heater with 24h timer for my bedroom to reduce my central heating usage. It works really well for the 15 minuet bursts I run it, it’s definitely a death trap inside though. I expect a huge bang one day 😁
@@casemodder89 well the smart meter seems to soon be clocking up a huge bill when using the gas heating, £3.20 for a 60 minuets total usage on Saturday plus a shower and washing up. The electric heater just heats my bed room mainly and only seems to add around 80p extra a day with an hours use total. I don’t know what to think of it tbf or how to calculate the efficacy of things vs the rates 😭
Cool! I also had to fix this kind of heater in the past (the internals are literally the same), but the repairs were far less straightforward then here. It's actually a good heater in the sense of heating, but it could also be very dangerous! I was living in my cottage out of the city, and it got cold at night, so I usually had this heater on to maintain a temperature in the room. And one night I was already half-asleep when I heard the fan slow down just slightly. I didn't really pay much attention to that since it was still working fine. But what really woke me up seconds later was the big fire show in the middle of total darkness! I immediately jumped out of the bed and moved towards the outlet in the dark, my path being illuminated by all kinds of sparks and a fire in the middle of the room! Luckily I was not asleep and quickly reacted to that, and in the end only the heater suffered any damage. So, what went wrong? In my case, since my house was far from the city, there was not much power to run different loads. And if the neighbors decide to use, for example, a kettle, then all lights dim and flicker at my place. So it's very possible that my neighbor just wanted some tea in the middle of the night, and the power drop caused the fan inside the heater to slow down a bit. But the heating element is so strong that all the wiring inside immediately caught fire! I gotta say, based on that experience these heaters are running on edge all the time by poor design and could easily turn into fire hazard. As for the repairs, all the wiring was completely burned inside, so I had to reverse engineer the schematic using only my knowledge and experience (but its a very simple circuit of course). Everything else was burned and a bit molten, but still good enough to be put back together. So the moral of the story is: Don't leave working electronics unattended! Know your power supply capabilities before using loads! Use only reliable things and not this plastic crap (like, I have the same type of heater now but it's made completely out of metal, and way better engineered)
A common trick with classic arcade games is to drag a fresh US one-dollar bill between the button and joystick contacts to clean them. Super fine grit, and not as easy to rip as writing paper. Not sure how other currencies would fare in this regard.
I miss the old days when heaters were in metal cases. Well, some still are. We have a few for our green houses. I wouldn't even think of putting a plastic one in there. LOL
A friend's standard lamp has an E27 light bulb which flickers. The replacement did the same. The fault is a high impedance in-line switch moulded onto the cable. I need a new switch. I have fixed fan and convector heaters in the past.
"Turn it on, turn it off, turn it on", I've seen several devices where the owner had assumed the fault was the power switch (because it would not turn on) and has subsequently tried to 'punish' the power switch into submission. Signs of this being panel damage around the switch where various implements (i.e. hammer) have been used to try and help it 'turn on'
I have identical looking heater, but it has only one set of thermal fuse and a cutout and it cuts all the power to the thing so the fan also doesn't work. I blown my thermal fuse by accidentally pushing it back against the wall reducing airflow. They use rivets on a mica board to mount the fuse and I used same technique to replace it without soldering. Instead of 2nd cutout mine has anti flip switch that didn't work due to the warped bottom plastic meaning that it would not close standing on a flat surface.
Usually if either of the thermal cutouts trigger then the fan doesn't run either. It is unusual to find the fan running at all if the device has triggered one of its safety devices
Someone should get Ralphy an electric blanket.
I think he has one.
@@bigclivedotcom Maybe a kotatsu (type of low power Japanese heater) that is designed to pretty much only heat the small space under a blanket might do the trick if he can't stand waiting
I have a bedjet unit. It blows hot/cool air between a special 2 layer sheet. I absolutely love mine but it has its brand specific downfalls.
@@bigclivedotcom If I were you, I'd take it off him, for his own safety...
This is why I have cats, I can strategically place them in areas to keep warm lol
I remember helping my father in law with his vacuum cleaner. He kept vacuuming his Astro Turf mat on the balcony. Everytime I visited I had to change the internal fuse and remind him not to vacuum when the mat was still wet from rain. He always forgot so I put in a resettable fuse and showed him how to reset it after letting the machine dry.
He was a wonderful man and I still remember his childish face of guilt every time he asked me to have a look 😁❤️
Do dysons have internal fuses, I have so many failed motors it seems ?
@@highpath4776 or the fuse inside the plug?
@@Cheese_1337 deff not wir. the motors are on the bench
I enjoyed that story, thank you.
Great solution BTW
@@Cheese_1337 I live in Sweden, and we don't have fuses in our plugs so that's not for us. I'm not sure how common it is around the world, I've been to Australia a couple of times. I don't think they have plug fuses from what I can remember, does anyone know how common it is?
"quite often he puts a heater under the blanket with him and wonders why they die" - Both heater and Ralfy if he's not careful! Thanks for some good safety advice with this video.- It's so easy to forget to unplug, particularly if you're getting tired/frustrated.
Yep, it takes only one faulty overheat fuse and Ralphy is crispy._
They make heaters designed for blowing hot air under a blanket. They got the BedJet in the US, but Japan has had similar things for quite a while. (Japanese houses have poor insulation. They also usually sleep on futons on the floor, which get folded up into a closet during the day. If you don't air them out, they become musty)
I recently saw a picture of a Japanese table with a downward facing quartz sort of heater on the bottom of the table. The table had a ring of sort of quilted blanket around it to capture the heat for the lower half of seated individuals around the table.
Sounds toasty and scary at the same time.
@@amorphuc Depends how hot the filament is driven, if it's two in series (and thus half the rated voltage per heater) it doesn't get that hot to be that flammable._
@@amorphuc Kotatsu. Before electricity, they used charcoal in a cage, so you'd have a fire risk and carbon monoxide poisoning at the same time. They're about 500 watts. The latest ones are flat carbon heater panels, which give more legroom and spread the heat out more.
Never apologise to your brother, it sets a dangerous precedent! 😂
Why would you? It's a natural universal constant, that a sibling is always wrong.
@@philippesteindl3356 Can concur.
Tell him it was Stinky-Socks Shmoo Residoo that gummed the contacts and he should be ashamed of himself. 🤣
LOL i hate the narcissississississist That brings out in my sister.
Good opening comments on preferring repair rather than replacement, even for very cheap items, to reduce landfill. As for unplugging items when repairing them, I'm sure I don't know what you mean. I worked at a repair cafe, so would be delving into the innards of electrical items more than most people. I would allow my self one zap per month in order to start paying attention again.
One ZPM - that's a new unit of measure which could be applied to repair technicians!!
@@stepheneyles2198 I’d probably need 2-4 ZPM 😂😂😂😂😂
I too work at a Repair Café i fact its on tomorrow the last one of the year …..wish me luck lets hope I don’t get any ZPM 😂
Regarding repair cafés - do they carry any public liability insurance? It was suggested to me that it would be a good use of my time as my imminent retirement approaches but I am wary on such matters.
@@HowardLeVert
I hadn’t thought about it before, but there’s no record kept either of parts repaired
So very little come back and generally people are so happy to have that special item working again be it
Table Lamp, mower, toys, clothing etc ……
I'm glad you mentioned the need to thermally isolate the soldering of the thermal fuse. I suffered a severe forehead-slapping event when I replaced one on a friend's heater. Of course, it didn't work after the first repair attempt. The thermal fuses should come with the ID ten-T user warning (ID10T). The second repair attempt solved the problem.
the sinclair zx81 and zx spectrum power supplies have a thermal fuse...soldered to a pcb, below the transformer primary winding,...presumably the automated soldering is quick enough to not trip it, the length between the pcb holes is quite wide, though so hand soldering likely possible if you're quick enough, never yet come across a popped one in these...
"Hold on a minute, just let me pop this off and take a closer look at it" is one of my most used bedroom lines
Followed by "No worries - I shall look at it".
This particular heater is probably the most generic on sale in the UK , they are branded with dozens of retail badges and cost around £10. Not surprising that most do not get repaired , tracing back from sale to manufacture and all the profit add ons and shipping it makes you wonder the actual cost is to make? Landfill galore. Excellent content as usual Clive.
Yes it's incredible that manufacturers actually make any profit but often they make more money from P&P than from their goods !
They usually turn things out by the tens of thousands and quite often part of the cost of manufacture (in China) is subsidised so even though only a fraction of the retail cost gets back to the manufacturer they don't lose out completely. This is mainly because their government recognises the value of factories and exporters and will support them even though they are not profitable !
These and others just like them are all over here in the states, I have 4 of them. All in various states of failing from the fan, which I doubt can be "fixed"
I have one here in Finland, not exactly like the specimen in the video, but the general shape is the same, the two knobs just aren't next to each other, but one of the left, one on the right. I have had it for a decade or more, and it was 15 euros at max. It keeps working like a champion, although it doesn't see awfully long hours in a winter, which might explain it.
@@herrakaarme Same here, I have that same kind of cheap and dreadful heater, though mine is from a somewhat reputable local brand (Supra, located in Obernai, Alsace) but still it feels cheaply made.. I don't even know where this thing came from.
I did use it a few times when the central heating wasn't working (the joys of living in a 1970's tower block...), although I'd NEVER let that thing run unsupervised.... I sorta got a bit of a irrational fear about these things..
@@Alexis_du_60 Oh, yes, it's most certainly not going to run unsupervised. I've never let it run more than 10 minutes continuously at the hot (II) setting. The middle setting pushes out barely warm air, so I've once let it run for an hour, wanting to give a drying textile a flow of air. That was years ago.
It's such a plastic bubble that it's immediately evident you either want to heavily limit its use or treat it as an expendable commodity.
Even the simplest repairs are good to watch,you have the ability to captivate an audience Clive.TY.
Aye - the dulcet tones of Clives reassuring pilots voice.... "Ladies and gentlemen - we appear to have lost an engine but no worries - I shall now look for it again...."
The designers made the plastic housing look pre-melted, hoping one wouldn't notice it if it did. 😂
You're a very good brother.
I did not know about the layers in contacts and would have been tempted to use some 600 grit sandpaper.
Thanks Big Clive.
Ditto 😅Thanks Big Clive
they are hard to find now but back in the day we had burnishing tools in our toolboxes to clean contacts.
I always used fine grit sand paper, but its been many years since I have worked on contacts, and back then it worked. In fact it hasn't been that long ago that did that to the thermostat for the furnace. The thermostat is quite old, so maybe that's why it worked.
Relay contact cleaners used to use about the equivalent of 2000 grit diamonds to get rid of oxides. Many metal oxides are harder than the metal it's self with Iron being one of the few that has a "soft" oxide. Aluminium oxide for example is the basis of sapphire and not that far behind diamond. It is now used in the replacement for "Emery Cloth" in most industries.
I thought this too, it worked fine on my commutator.
This reminded me of when I worked in a repair place on some kit that was quite sophisticated for measuring temperature in an industrial process. We had a new tech starting and we gave him a board where the (soldered) thermal fuse had popped. He was not the best at soldering and kept wondering why it still did not work after replacing the fuse time and time again. About a week later he had more or less mastered those fuses.
I replaced a thermal fuse on a small electric stove, the sort that can be used to heat a single pot on a table and then put away after use. It used crimped connections, not soldered because the thermal fuse was only rated at about 85 deg C.
The pins on the mains plug look tarnished as well. At least those are self cleaning.
I took a similar heater apart a couple of weeks ago, just to see how it was wired and what protection it had. All the screws in that one were standard types.
I cleaned the plug pins too. They were very tarnished.
A squirt of contact cleaner on the paper/card, card preferably as paper disintegrates more quickly, as you pull it through the contacts aids contact recovery. I have a pack of old BT burnishing papers designed just for this contact cleaning activity on 3000 Type relays - not sure if these are still available though.
Wil contact lens cleaner work? 😉
@@Nono-hk3is Probably not - different chemical composition and purpose. It may even cause more corrosion.
@@Nono-hk3is I think Ralfy wears glasses 🥸
Back in the 70s when I worked on PO Strowger/SxS I used these pink strips, brilliant they were, especially when you're trying to mount new selectors in an old rack where the silvery contacts were black from the polluted air (old glass tank lead acid cells), a quick wipe and they were clean. I was the only one on site with the nous to use them..... Contact strips are still available.
A "points file" would work well for this. My father had a good selection of these as he worked with relays (and points when he was tuning the car!) all the time.
It is good practice when working on anything with a plug, to get into the strict rule of having the unplugged plug visible where you're working.
That strategy doesn't eliminate the possibility of having the incorrect plug in view.
A non-contact voltage detector can be quickly waved around the danger area at various times.
Teenage me wants you to know that advice is especially appropriate if using a non-insulated screwdriver with a metal handle to undo the screws on electrical terminals 😵💫
That’s a really good advise.
And to have the work area (a bit) clean from other similar cables, so you minimise the risk of unplugging the wrong one.
I usually hang mine on a little hook screwed into the side of my trust bench. That reminds - must get an Explosion-Containing Pie Dish.....
This is an ideal candidate for a diode in series with the element to halve the power, if he's got it under a blanket it'll warm up very quickly even on half the rated power! What I've found interesting with this one incidentally is the complete lack of a tilt switch, all of these upright style that I've owned have had a microswitch on the bottom to detect if it falls over.
How would that diode work to halve the voltage? A zener diode rated for high power at the right voltage? (that sounds implausible to me) Pardon me if that is a stupid question, I'm just curious.
@@InfoDav It doesn't halve the voltage as such, it just cuts off the negative half of the sine wave, so acting like a half-wave rectifier, this runs the elements at a 50% duty cycle, therefore the RMS power draw is half what the heater would usually use. No silly questions here, happy to help!
@@ArlenMoulton2 Makes perfect sense now, thank you. Somehow AC always throws me off slightly.
Tilt switch - one of the best (safety) inventions ever....
When working with electromechanical relays in substations, we used a $1 US bill for burnishing the contacts when the proper diamond dust burnishing tool wasn't available.
My version of that fan "had" a tip switch safety feature. It didn't last long due to us repositioning the thing frequently while it was on.
Reminds me of cleaning the points in a distributor when cars used to have them.
In my experience, thermal fuses going open are one of the principal reasons that people get rid of microwave ovens. There are usually more that just a single one in a typical oven, and when they go, they're gone. Replacing one is usually very simple--just a couple of crimp terminal wires and a screw--and you've got your oven back again. I keep a bag of about 10 of them (very cheap if ordered through Aliexpress) around for just such events.
I had my sanyo microwave die, the Hv fuse had died. Easy to break, just stop start the microwave in quick succession a few times . I replaced the fuse. More modern ones I have seen dispense with that fuse completely
Actually, the standard line fuse in a microwave oven kills many of them-the link inside the fuse weakens due to metal fatigue, so often the scenario is:
Person moves the microwave oven to clean, moves it back, and finds it dead..
replacing the inexpensive fuse generally fixes it.
Of course, if the new fuse blows-start looking for other causes:
Interlock switches are the first thing to look at in this case.
I never open the door to a microwave while it’s operating. If necessary before the cycle is over, I will press the Clear/Pause/Cancel button to shut off the oven before the door is opened. I think this may minimize the chance of a fuse blowing.
@@bobwigg761 Note that I'm talking about thermal fuses, not the traditional overcurrent ones. Usually the thermal ones trip if one does a long cooking cycle--most inexpensive ovens are ill-equipped to handle, say, defrosting a large roast.
@@bobwigg761 The doors are booby trapped.
There are microswitches top & bottom, and wired so if one trips and not the other it'll blow the fuse. That's so if you have the door open and try to defeat the interlocks, it'll kill the microwave if you don't do both.
If you open the door while running there's a chance this will happen, I guess that's why most ovens I find have dead fuses. The MOV can also fail and blow the fuse after a while. Surprising reliable machines otherwise.
I had one similar to this. I fell asleep with it on and awoke to the room getting brighter. It was slightly on fire. Needless to say I jumped out of bed, grabbed it, ran down the hallway and threw it outside.
I have a couple of them here in the states, they all have tip switches. I don't know if they have thermal cut offs. The fans love to die on these for me, and just get hotter and hotter. My luck I have been in the room and awake when they do.
I am not surprised about corrosion, when this heater was used in Ralfys bothy. It feels like a humid place in the videos. Im afraid the fix won't last very long ...
Yeah, I'm suspicious that it may have been in there.
Lovely walk-through. Unfortunately I've got a couple of these style heaters and the corpse of my once favourite hair dryer/shop low heat gun that have popped the heating coils. Gave a few attempt on the heaters, as the hot-spots that popped the coils were near their original connection. I massaged the coils further along to give me something to crimp them back into the original connection, but they still failed again in short service. The hair dryer... perhaps still too soon to approach; I loved that little guy, and it gave out in the midst of a continuingly unfortunate repair experience I still haven't quite recovered from.
Did a similar repair on a turn signal relay many years ago, thanks for sharing, Clive!
Doubtless the corrosion is from all the whisky vapors!🎉
My circa-2005 Razer mouse had started developing what I coined as _"Phantom Clicks",_ where often when I would click, they're would be additional clicks that would be detected.
This actually plagued me twice, but the first time it took me almost a year to conclude what the cause was... It inevitably had gotten worse, to the point where sometimes it wouldn't register a click AT ALL... That's when I broke down and decided to go to the extreme with the disassembly...
Relevance to this video? Being they are quality mice, they actually use micro-switches (long and rectangular) for all 6 buttons - L/R conventional, then 2x on the left side (thumb), and 2x on the right side (middle/ring finger). These switches once removed and _themselves_ taken apart (their case clips together visually), they kind of resemble the thermal cutoffs: round metal pads welded to flat metal springs.
The non-detection of a click was due to... believe it or not... carbon dust buildup on the pads! There's not much voltage here, so I was quite shocked (pun intended) that _this_ was the cause...
So just as you had, I cleaned them off and reassembled to switch half!
_RANDOMLY NOT DETECTING CLICKS: _*_SOLVED!_*
As for the _other_ issue, the phantom clicks, it was still switch related..... but in THE weirdest way. _(actually, as I type this, I remember I fixed this prior to the non-detection issue, thinking that this manifested again... but anyways)_
One thing I had noticed with the phantom click was that I seemed to be able to have a higher chance at triggering it based on where I had pressed down on the mouse button (beings that mouse buttons are wide). Turns out, it was because after a decade and a half of daily use for hours each day, and probably a million or more clicks.... The tiny rounded bump on top of the physical switch, had _worn a groove into the plastic standoff attached to the mouse button!_
So if I depressed in a way slightly different from usual, the non-worn portion would trigger the switch like normal. The phantom click being that the mouse buttons being plastic, could flex a tiny bit left or right, making the standoff run across these precision switches enough to cause a rapid fire click sequence! 😐
Solution? Stupid simple: a tiny dot of super glue to fill in the worn plastic, carefully sanded flat.
_RANDOMLY CAUSED PHANTOM CLICKS: _*_SOLVED!_*
My 2005 Copperhead lives on! Albeit, needing a new USB cable, since it's internally broken (a few times, but bent in a certain way and taped to not move, solved it each time 😊). Which is GREAT news for me! Because the version 2 they released, which I bought, has different side button placement and lacks the rubberized side grip, making it horrible to use in my big hand!
That heater makes an interesting contrast to a compact fan heater that I have. My heater has a spring loaded "foot" sticking out the bottom, so that if the heater tips over or is not standing upright on a solid surface it will not operate. I am slightly surprised that your (brother's) heater does not have that feature.
I own the US version of this heater and it is identical except for being 120V and mine does have the "safety" foot. Nothing some duct tape can't fix. These are pretty much the cheapest heaters available. Dollar store stuff. Very cheaply made to the absolute minimum. Despite that, mine has lasted for years.
@@LatitudeSky you dident perhaps have worked at Thernobyl in the past did you? XD
I have a similar (basically identical) heater and it has the switch. I find strange that this one does not seem to have it.
@@okaro6595 they come in different models with different names from the same factory in China.
Some have these switches some don't.
I prefer the ones with the tripping switches because they are much safer
@@LatitudeSky duct tape and make it a fire hazard.
These cutouts work perfectly. I’ve just replaced one in an electric water heater. It was stuck on. Averages out nicely!
Funny, I repaired a similar one myself lately.
Mine had only heat and no fan.
My 1st thought was also that bi-metal contact. But I had continuity. The problem was in the winding of the motor. One of the very thin wires had come off. after resolder it, it was working again.
Always interesting watching your videos!
Poor Ralphy being cold, nice quick fix Clive thanks
The notes accompanying video are often as informational as the video. Thank you BigClive for keeping us warm and safe at the same time.
PS - My bro is just like Ralphy -God bless his sole.
You got some kind of foot fetish?
is god interested in our footwear?
greetings Mr. CLIVE, I really like when you repair any failure of anything electrical.
Hope Ralphy found you some of his delicious beverages as a thank you.
He sometimes shares the lesser ones.
I bought a metal case space heater for the small greenhouse. It didn't turn on. I opened it up and found the tip switch weight shaft bent from shipping perhaps. I straightened it out and it has worked since. One of the heater couple contacts did fail later, but using a burnishing stick, I got it working again. I used that stick in my career for the reed and relay contacts. It was in my wallet until I retired.
I've done many repairs on those cheap heaters. There is one more contact (bimetallic strip) in the temperature control. I use 600 grit sandpaper to clean all the contacts. If I see any warping or melted plastic, I let them know that even if it works, I highly recommend replacing the whole heater.
That's why I prefer dark beamer IR bulbs, no moving parts, no noise, no contacts that can corrode, easy to replace, lower power and the heat can be directed exactly where you want it. Gives you more movement freedom than a heated blanket. 250W at 0.5 to 1m is enough down to 10⁰C to make it feel like 20⁰C. Two, one from each side is even more comfy. They can be found in most pet shops or for heating chickens etc. Heat the person, not the room!
. . . i might use this idea instead of my oil electical radiator o-o ... if it really draw such a small amount of power
@@Mawww_MMD yeah heating a room does take much more energy. Still, at 10-13⁰C +IR you'll still be wearing multiple layers of clothing though.
Heating my 16m² room from 9 to 13⁰C takes 0.5m³ of gas, and about 0.1 for every hour to keep it that way. 250W IR heating above the couch takes the temp to about 22 degrees where I sit. 1m³ of gas is 10KWh of power, so it takes about 5KWh to heat the room with outdoor temps of around 7⁰C currently. I'd need 2m³ more gas to heat to 20 degrees. That's 25kWh total, offset that against just 250W IR heat to just heat my person, there's no contest that IR heating is much more efficient. I heat using gas to 13⁰C so it also keeps moist and fungus away.
Pointing it at your head, the part that looses most of the body heat is pretty effective.
I've recently repaired my own example of this very common heater. Damp and dusty storage had caused the fan motor to seize; a little cleaning and lubrication and it's back at work.
The thermal fuse i needed to repair an espresso machine was available with spot-welded pigtails, which saved me dealing with soldering to it. Recommended!
I have returned a number of hair dryers to normal operation by removing an errant hair from between the contacts.
I love simple fixes.
I am also guilty of leaving my space heaters in my garage after spring hits so they are out of the way, and then shocked when one of them doesn't work again the first frost of winter.
Me and my parent's own these fans. When the boiler packs up, they feel so good to stand in front of the hot air! Good products.
I have the North American version of that heater. I got it when the oil-fired boiler in my apartment building had a catastrophic failure just after the start of the heating season. The heat exchanger fractured in use, and there was a vast quantity of steam that roared out of the firebox, followed by a great deal of water. It took a week to get a gas boiler installed as a replacement, and it got quite chilly. I occasionally use it when, like this year, the date local regulations require the heating to be turned on is not the date I would have waited for if I had my own thermostat.
I had a very well made vintage heater of this style made before the days of safety and certainly before RCDs were commonplace. It failed spectacularly when a large sewing needle fell into it whereupon it briefly shone brightly then spat out red hot heating element coil sections all over the carpet. I wasn’t sure which way to run!
Holy crap
We had a few of these fail and it was always the one shot thermal fuse. They were used as preheating the bathroom for the children, they were never covered, only used in the I. setting (1kW-230V) and most of the time they were let to cool down for a minute in the fan-only setting.
remembering to unplug devices is quite possibly the best advice one can give when repairing home appliances
twice now i've been fixing something and turned it off by the switch on the device, assumed it's off and safe to work on, completely neglecting that the job i was doing was replacing capacitors on the power supply board and given myself a hearty dose of mains electricty across my fingertip
I try to make a habit of keeping the unplugged end of the cord visible on the bench, RCD/GFCI is also mandatory.
Good tip for soldering the thermal fuses! I learned that one the hard way.
Tinfoil.....or to be accent correct aloo min e yum
I just started to go and undo the crimp carefully, so you can use it on the next one. Works well, and otherwise you just take any of the common plastic insulated crimps, and remove the plastic, cut the crimp ferrule off the end ( pin terminals are ideal for this) and use that small copper sleeve instead, and a pair of pliers to graunch it down good and tight.
most thermal fuse are screwed down or crimp contact to avoid the solder problem.
Interesting delve into the internals. Normally that style of heater has a switch under the base to switch off the heater if it gets knocked over
Took my fan heater apart this week. The thermostat wasn't behaving, either wouldn't switch on or wouldn't switch off. Luckily it was an equally simple fix. The thermostat control dial just applied different pressure to bimetallic strip. I bend it back into shape and it's working fine now.
I was fixing something on my bench at work, as i plugged it in, switched it on ALL the power in the workshop tripped. Bloody flying leads, (I should really have had a Cliff power terminal). I had big, black and copper skid marks on the back of the repair manual. 🤣🤣
I've found that when a heater cuts out and in,,,,, as it's designed to do,,,,, the biometric strip loses some of it's springtness due to heat and flexability causing a weaker pressure between the contacts.
This causes a bit of arcing, hence points failure.
As you said these do have a cycle time as the heating and cooling takes place.
Clive can you give us all a test on the accuracy of bimetallic trips and the differences in the temperatures of a trip, you might be surprised just how innacurate they are.
Good vid, plus it keeps Ralfy happy
" We'll put the cover back on, *just for safety* ".
Says the man who cuts open fireworks, with a craft knife, on his work bench. 😁
Takes me back to my student days. Now I have a wonderful system called "central heating".
I soak the paper in a bit of contact cleaner before dragging it between the contacts. Usually works like a charm if the rest of the components are still functioning properly.
You’d think all that whisky would keep him warm! 😂
I was thinking the same thing as soon as the contact started going then it's going to build heat and shut off probably even more often and then like compoundingly take itself out which like you said if it welds then you got the fuse so I like how robust the safety is as silly as it seems
My expenses with these:
Fan can fall off.
Once switch for fan failed (inductive load), but not for heaters.
I once de-rated one of these for use on old Communist apartment block where electrical wiring is rated only for lights and TVs, in all rooms there were unfused 6A sockets with 1.5mm sqr aluminium cables. They assumed that district heating would be good (it was not, 19 degrees at best).
I first disconnected 2nd heater. Then my wife complained that 2nd level is not working (even though I warned her not to use it, because there was fire in identical tower block due to wire overloading). Next was to put diodes in series with heating elements (they were at least anty paralel). Last revision was that on 1st level both heaters are in series, and on 2nd only one, second heater was shorted out.
Placebo is interesting thing when you have 2 levels, when one is hotter them other. Like amplifier that goes to 11.
I have this same kind of fan, but it has one more failure point. It has a springloaded switch at the bottom, that kills the power if it's not pressed in. It's meant to be a tipping killswitch for clumsy people, but it's annoying because it requires a hard surface under the fan and you can't pick up the fan and blow at your cold feet unless you either push the switch stem in or tape it over.
Had the exact same issue with one of the Beldray branded jobbies from Wilko. I recall I used Servisol to clean-up the contacts, and it's been fine ever since.
Your brother and his stone-age heater... I laugh heartily from deep within my wearable blanket. My feet resting comfortably upon a - slightly too hot - electric rug, while it is a bone-shattering 68F in this room. More of an icy torture chamber, really.
A wonderful tip re the paper/card for dealing with possible oxidation, thank you as always Clive.
A fan with two blades is not something I expected.
I have a box style heater fan. The switch tripped once when I ran it on full for a bit too long(I think? IDKY it tripped.) On this one, it cuts the fan also. I think the fan should always work, so even if the heater fails, it still works as a fan, which may also help it reset a bit faster.
I have repaired several for friends and family by using a low-abrasive contact file and contact cleaner. They all seem to use very similar thermal breakers that get burnt contact surfaces within days of first use.
I always use open barrel wire splices for that kind of thermal fuses and diodes in hair dryers, they also work to crimp the resistive wire.
When I was young and still learning, I once got my soldering iron out, opened the TV to be worked on, pulled the plug, started poking around, and found a loose wire. I reached for my soldering iron, only to discover it was cold. I then realized I had unplugged the soldering iron rather than the TV I was working on, and had been poking around in a live chassis for over 10 minutes. My knees got weak and I had to sit for a moment. So the comment about "sometimes they unplug the wrong thing" hit home. Never made that mistake again, though - one near-accident was enough to scare me into a more cautious behavior.
I’ve just been looking at all the videos on repairing patio heaters. Usually the tilt or “dump” switich. Most look to bypass but all the switch is is a microswitch with a ball bearing that sits in a cup when upright whose lever pushes the switch closed. Digging is a similar contact repair. They carry the thermocouple voltage of 30 mA so sensitive to corrosion.
I've often used an emery board on contacts like these. If they are solid silver and not gold plated it's fine, and often by the time this becomes an issue the gold playing is gone, anyway. It's only a few microns thick.
OTOH, if arcing in involved and the contacts are pitted, then you're stuck replacing the part. I had a refrigerator thermostat i replaced a few years back where the contacts looked like the surface of the Moon, with deep pits completely covering each surface.
An emery board is rather course for this-a much finer abrasive is more suitable for this, assuming the contacts are far enough gone to need this.
The whole heater costs 10 coins. Do you expect massive silver? Probably a very thin layer.
@@pizzablender That's why switches with silver contacts cost more than ones with gold contacts.
Silver contacts: material is too thick for it to matter.
Gold contacts: material is too thin for it to matter
Vinegar and a couple of cotton buds, possibly a neutralising agent depending on how much vinegar has been used, and dry thoroughly. Works great on very corroded battery contacts.
When I worked with PMG/Telecom in the 60's and 70's we were issued special cleaning strips called Microscrub. They had tiny abrasive hook tips, like micro fine Velcro which we used on relay contacts. I have never been able to source them commercially. We were taught to never use paper or cardboard as they would leave an insulating residue. Paper probably OK for 240v though.
Some paper/cardboard contain wax for gloss, that's what they were probably worried about, don't use the shiny stuff. I've always had good results with cheap index cards.
For such a cheaply made unit, I was supprised to see a metal fan blade.
One would assume that being in close proximity to the heating elements plus the physical forces involved meant a properly built plastic blade would be more expensive than the cheap stamped metal one.
I've seen ones with plastic
I fixed an appliance today. My vacuum cleaner's (Hoover's) on-off switch was "broken" in an "always on mode" for quite some time, figured I would just have to live with it. Needing to plug it into another wall outlet I set it upright and running. As I moved away, I tripped over the cord and knocked it to the floor. It hit hard enough that now the switch is working properly!
Ralphy should get a bear hug that will keep him warm
I recently had to start using one of these as the central heating packed in and on full (2kW) the plug becomes its own heater, excellent. It could be worth advising Ralph to check that after 10 mins or so on whatever heaters he has around the place.
Cleaning up the prongs and tightly screwing down the contacts in the plug allowed me to use it on 1kW until I could get another heater.
One thing I tend to do when working on mains stuff is put the plug in my pocket. Cant be live if the plug is in my pocket!
You don't have an electric personality then?
@@tin2001 Nah, I'm pretty grounded.
I favour using something like Electrolube contact cleaner, the sort that leaves a protective film behind, to soak the paper that I drag between the contacts in cases like these.
that protective film is probably not intended for something that gets as hot as an electric heater-a non-residue cleaner is probably better in this case-something like CRC QD is a reasonable choice.
@@m.k.8158 On careful reflection I am sure you are right, I was thinking in terms of light current equipment rather than power-hungry appliances.
Switches and thermostats that break high current need a bit of time, a few seconds to a minute, to cool down from the arcing on opening before they are opened again or the contacts melt, corrode or weld together and then the thermal fuse becomes all that protects you from a fire or plastic casing turning to slag. The AC circuit switch arc only lasts until the AC voltage next passes thru zero ( 1/100th or 1/120th of a second). High voltage DC switches are always "snap action" as the arc will continue until the contacts are far enough apart to break the arc.
the heaters we have here, most anyway, have a safety switch that prevents them from working unless they are flat on the floor. if you tilt them at all they shut off
You can buy strips of cardboard with sandpaper on it. I used it for open contact relays 23 years ago.
A little bit of contact cleaner would help a lot.
The issue I have with these cheap blower heaters (I've got about 4) is that new or old, dusty or not, on the high setting they run too hot and cut off the element, usually with a burning smell. I've had 2 of these things catch fire in front of me, not to be trusted if you're sleeping or go out for more than a few minutes.
Years of great videos....glad you keep producing great content.
The old one pound note was ideal to clean contacts as it had an ideal amount of abrasives to clean them nicely…
excellent, Thanks for the video. I have these heaters in one of the shops i work in and the same thing has happened to those as what has happened with this one. So going to have a look now i'm confident what to look for inside.👍
It's a fairly well thought out design having a thermal cut out on the plastic case, one I used to have that the motor failed in didn't have that so Ralph's heater is safer by design.
Your brother should be more careful. The blanket could catch fire. Or the unit may if the safety features fail.
My old blow heater needs a service every year, it's just the fan bearings well bushes really. So every year I take it apart and give it a clean and lubricate the bearings and like Ralphy I use it in conjunction with a blanket but never covered. The heater blows into my blanket which hangs down from my chair trapping the heat around my legs.
I have an identical looking heater, purchased from a UK retailer, except mine has a switch on the bottom so it won't operate if it is knocked over. It's concerning that some penny-pincher thought that removing a safety feature was a suitable way to retain a little more profit from these, but here we are.
The tilt feature was required in the US after 20xx thus an old version may not have it.
I always hang the cable round my neck, and I now wear rubber gloves after too many shocks to count. A couple with burns, one with irregular heart rhythm for a couple of days in hospital. That one was a colleague plugging it back in.
Unless they have changed the plastic recipe these plastic fans are a disaster waiting to happen. . I know someone who had a black and decker fan heater in a shed . Left it on for 10 mins before he went in the shed as it was middle of winter. 10 mins later the shed was half burnt down . Fire brigade said the motor probably stoped and the thermo cutout failed
I've had one of these for more than 5 years. Always been fine. I use it in my electronics workshop, it's on right now. Outside is 6 C, in hear it's a comfortable 21.
The most common faults I had with mine was if you put them above low settings they would trip within a few seconds, I lived in a property where the landlord had a crazy no gas heating 8 months a year and the 4 months it was on, it was on low as "the boiler couldn't handle it" but we could use as much electricity as we needed, went through so many heaters, I think as I had them on hours a day during cold winters so must of worn out something in cable, in the end I just used the ceramic bar heaters instead, seemed warmer and no noise.
Umm nice cheers Clive, I just brought a cheap 750w heater with 24h timer for my bedroom to reduce my central heating usage. It works really well for the 15 minuet bursts I run it, it’s definitely a death trap inside though. I expect a huge bang one day 😁
you should also expect a huge electricity bill.
@@casemodder89 well the smart meter seems to soon be clocking up a huge bill when using the gas heating, £3.20 for a 60 minuets total usage on Saturday plus a shower and washing up. The electric heater just heats my bed room mainly and only seems to add around 80p extra a day with an hours use total. I don’t know what to think of it tbf or how to calculate the efficacy of things vs the rates 😭
Cool! I also had to fix this kind of heater in the past (the internals are literally the same), but the repairs were far less straightforward then here. It's actually a good heater in the sense of heating, but it could also be very dangerous!
I was living in my cottage out of the city, and it got cold at night, so I usually had this heater on to maintain a temperature in the room. And one night I was already half-asleep when I heard the fan slow down just slightly. I didn't really pay much attention to that since it was still working fine. But what really woke me up seconds later was the big fire show in the middle of total darkness! I immediately jumped out of the bed and moved towards the outlet in the dark, my path being illuminated by all kinds of sparks and a fire in the middle of the room! Luckily I was not asleep and quickly reacted to that, and in the end only the heater suffered any damage.
So, what went wrong? In my case, since my house was far from the city, there was not much power to run different loads. And if the neighbors decide to use, for example, a kettle, then all lights dim and flicker at my place. So it's very possible that my neighbor just wanted some tea in the middle of the night, and the power drop caused the fan inside the heater to slow down a bit. But the heating element is so strong that all the wiring inside immediately caught fire! I gotta say, based on that experience these heaters are running on edge all the time by poor design and could easily turn into fire hazard.
As for the repairs, all the wiring was completely burned inside, so I had to reverse engineer the schematic using only my knowledge and experience (but its a very simple circuit of course). Everything else was burned and a bit molten, but still good enough to be put back together.
So the moral of the story is: Don't leave working electronics unattended! Know your power supply capabilities before using loads! Use only reliable things and not this plastic crap (like, I have the same type of heater now but it's made completely out of metal, and way better engineered)
Moral: do not releave yourself near the fan heater.
A common trick with classic arcade games is to drag a fresh US one-dollar bill between the button and joystick contacts to clean them. Super fine grit, and not as easy to rip as writing paper. Not sure how other currencies would fare in this regard.
sounds like Ralfy has been sipping too much sauce and sleeping, when he should be stoking and feeding the fire up. 🤣🥳
I miss the old days when heaters were in metal cases.
Well, some still are. We have a few for our green houses.
I wouldn't even think of putting a plastic one in there. LOL
A friend's standard lamp has an E27 light bulb which flickers. The replacement did the same. The fault is a high impedance in-line switch moulded onto the cable. I need a new switch. I have fixed fan and convector heaters in the past.
"Turn it on, turn it off, turn it on", I've seen several devices where the owner had assumed the fault was the power switch (because it would not turn on) and has subsequently tried to 'punish' the power switch into submission.
Signs of this being panel damage around the switch where various implements (i.e. hammer) have been used to try and help it 'turn on'
Ralph here is your heater. Now where is the bottle of Scotland's finest.
Ps: those socket prongs looking dark?
I have identical looking heater, but it has only one set of thermal fuse and a cutout and it cuts all the power to the thing so the fan also doesn't work. I blown my thermal fuse by accidentally pushing it back against the wall reducing airflow. They use rivets on a mica board to mount the fuse and I used same technique to replace it without soldering. Instead of 2nd cutout mine has anti flip switch that didn't work due to the warped bottom plastic meaning that it would not close standing on a flat surface.
Usually if either of the thermal cutouts trigger then the fan doesn't run either. It is unusual to find the fan running at all if the device has triggered one of its safety devices
My Heater suffered from crimp failure over heat tripping the cut out, so soldered both crimps. Still works after 4 years.