Suicide shower head teardown

[station240]

What puzzles me, is why they never considered inserting a 12V transformer and making the coil from thicker wire. Would do the same job and be far safer.
Only downside is the weight of the transformer.

Of course if they cared about safety, it would come with a decent length of cord attached for a start, instead of 10cm.

The most powerfull electric shower has a power of 8500W...in 12V, that's 708A...
They sell this shower for 10 US§....How much is a 10KVA transformer ?

I wouldn't put 8.5kW through anything that costs US$10. If not for the water I'd call it a fire risk.
My huge 210L hot water tank was only 5kW, since replaced with solar.

water + electricity = bad
I find your lack of respect for electrical safety deeply disturbing.
As I do when people who should know better do the same, eg an electrician I had here once that uses completely uninsulated screwdrivers, even the handle is metal.

Save up for another year and invest in a new metal trashcan, random heating element (stove, kettle etc) and a thermostat. A sealed metal can that is earthed has minimal safety issues, and you get some hot water for tea/coffee.

[HackedFridgeMagnet]

How much does power cost in Brasil? 50cents a shower? it adds up fast and dwarfs the cost of those shower heaters.

It seems you are saving on water heaters but you should be saving with Solar?

[oldway]

Another country, another way of life and also others rules and regulations.

Safety ? Most of my brazilians friends are dead...in less than 10 years.

How did they died?

shot dead
road accident
poor care in hospital

Only one died of natural death.

There are other priorities in Brazil than safety of showers.

As I measured, at 10 cm from the shower, there is no conduction of water anymore because it became droplets isolated one from the others.

But there is something far more dangerous: the electric water tap.
That's the same as the shower, but there is no isolation more by the droplets principle.

[oldway]

How much does power cost in Brasil? 50cents a shower? it adds up fast and dwarfs the cost of those shower heaters.

It seems you are saving on water heaters but you should be saving with Solar?

How much do you think they pay ?

[AF6LJ]

Another country, another way of life and also others rules and regulations.

Safety ? Most of my brazilians friends are dead...in less than 10 years.

How did they died?

shot dead
road accident
poor care in hospital

Only one died of natural death.

There are other priorities in Brazil than safety of showers.

As I measured, at 10 cm from the shower, there is no conduction of water anymore because it became droplets isolated one from the others.

But there is something far more dangerous: the electric water tap.
That's the same as the shower, but there is no isolation more by the droplets principle.

That thing is scary....

Death by doctor is very high on the list of leading causes of death in the US.

[mikerj]

Distilled water is almost an insulator and water with low ionic salts as tap water is a poor electrical conductor

Have a look at this .  If tap water is such a poor conductor, then explain why is there a couple of amps passing through it in this video?

[AlxDroidDev]

How much does power cost in Brasil? 50cents a shower? it adds up fast and dwarfs the cost of those shower heaters.

It seems you are saving on water heaters but you should be saving with Solar?

Power costs have skyrocketed in the last 15 months: in my state (Minas Gerais), the total raise has been about 140% (in the last 15 months!). My electricity bill has become absurdly high, and we don't even turn the AC on anymore, unless in extremely hot nights. The wine cellar has been turned off. Not even the microwave stays constantly plugged to mains. We connect it, use, disconnect. The electric coffee machine has been retired: we're only using the gas stove now. Considering our power consumption in my home, we're consuming about 50% less than Jan/2015, and yet our electricity bill is a lot higher.

I estimate that a 10min shower might cost between .75 to 1 USD.

Alternate energy has seen a hige increase in acceptance since 2014. Until then electricity was really cheap, so nobody even cared about solar panels. Nowadays they are becoming more and more omnipresent, specially in high-income areas.

Low-income areas either have a discount on the bill if they stay below a certain power consumption or they just steal electricity from the electricity company (that is called "gato"). Neverthless, solar power is still expensive for most people.

On a side note, and without getting into a political argument, but f*ck our corrupt, socialist government, elected by the uneducated and ignorant. A day doesn't go by when my wife and I don't plan on leaving Brazil and move to Australia, where her sister lives (and is married to a very nice Aussie fellow).

[AlxDroidDev]

How did they died?

shot dead
road accident
poor care in hospital

Out of the 10 most common causes of death in Brazil (2013 statistics), only the 5th and 8th places are "unnatural" causes: firearms and traffic/road accidents, respectively.

I've lost a friend to a car crash, but that is pure stupidity on his part. He was driving drunk at 7AM and crashed his car.

Poor hospital care is certainly a thing, but most times it is attributed to other natural causes, mostly due to undiagnosed or misdiagnoses causes. The free health care system we have might as well be absent, since it is of very low quality. Unless you have a private health plan, you can kiss your ass goodbye if you have to go into one of the free hospitals. Anyone who can afford - even if barely - a private health plan, will get one.

[janoc]

Conductivity of tap water vary with temperature, but not with voltage. Of course with dc current, you have another behaviour because you have electrolyse of water, but this does not happen with ac current.

Careful, I am not sure how did you figure out that water does not get electrolysed with AC current. Of course it does.

The difference between DC and AC electrolysis is that with DC you get oxygen on one electrode and hydrogen on the other. With AC it depends on the electrode material - with some you will only get heating, but some materials will cause the water to decompose. Moreover, in that case the gasses will be mixed and in just the perfect ratio to go BOOM in a sufficient concentration.

Here is even an scientific article on electrolysis happening in AC water heaters - from 1929. The abstract is sufficient already:
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjr29-020

or this one:
http://www.iosrjen.org/Papers/vol3_issue8%20%28part-2%29/I03825259.pdf

[Fungus]

What puzzles me, is why they never considered inserting a 12V transformer and making the coil from thicker wire. Would do the same job and be far safer.
Only downside is the weight of the transformer.

A 12V transformer would cost much more than the entire shower head.

[oldway]

Conductivity of tap water vary with temperature, but not with voltage. Of course with dc current, you have another behaviour because you have electrolyse of water, but this does not happen with ac current.

Careful, I am not sure how did you figure out that water does not get electrolysed with AC current. Of course it does.

The difference between DC and AC electrolysis is that with DC you get oxygen on one electrode and hydrogen on the other. With AC it depends on the electrode material - with some you will only get heating, but some materials will cause the water to decompose. Moreover, in that case the gasses will be mixed and in just the perfect ratio to go BOOM in a sufficient concentration.

Here is even an scientific article on electrolysis happening in AC water heaters - from 1929. The abstract is sufficient already:
http://www.nrcresearchpress.com/doi/abs/10.1139/cjr29-020

or this one:
http://www.iosrjen.org/Papers/vol3_issue8%20%28part-2%29/I03825259.pdf

The resistor of the shower is inox wire and than no electrolysis can occur with ac current.
A made a lot of experiments on electrolysis with inox electrodes and in ac, I never seen any gas production.

I did not tried with aluminium because de + aluminium electrode get oxidated during electrolysis.

Is that not the reason why behaviour is different with alumium in ac ?

"Towards A.C the behavior of the solution depends mainly on the electrodes. For most metallic electrodes namely Cu, Zn the solution behaves much like resistance and the energy is wasted in heating of the solution
Sometimes the solution reaches its boiling point.
Aluminum(very cheap and commonly found) acts in a very different manner. Here liberation of O2 and H2 is possible just like D.C along with liberation of heat"

I read that this depends also on frequency of ac current.

In any case, I know of no industrial electrolyzer operated in ac or any other industrial application of this.

[1xrtt]

How much does power cost in Brasil? 50cents a shower? it adds up fast and dwarfs the cost of those shower heaters.

It seems you are saving on water heaters but you should be saving with Solar?

.
.
I estimate that a 10min shower might cost between .75 to 1 USD.
.
.

My last bill, from this January: With taxes, 1KWh = R$0.7155627 or about USD 0.18.
Solar energy? Not with the current government: http://www.socioambiental.org/pt-br/noticias-socioambientais/dilma-veta-energias-renovaveis-nao-hidraulicas-no-plano-plurianual (in portuguese)
A 2KW solar panel can cost between USD 4K and 9K, currently affordable only by the top 1% of the pyramid.  But prices are going down, despite of all odds. Ask me again in 5 years, I still have hope.

[Cerebus]

If you go through the mortality tables it is obvious that the things people worry about are not the top elements on the list.  While I am sure that the danger list varies around the world, and I am also sure that the worry list also varies around the world, I am quite sure that the correlation between the two lists is low worldwide.

It's a question of familiarity with the risk. Most, if not all of us, will know a friend or relative that was killed in a motor vehicle 'accident'. (I can count two friends who died that way.) None, or hardly any of us, will know someone - even someone they only met once - who was killed in a terrorist incident. Yet, we have little fear of using motor vehicles and often strenuously resist new laws that might make them safer but slightly less convenient or more expensive. On the other hand terrorism is *the* fear of the 21st century and many western democracies have adopted laws that are plain dangerous to civil liberties with hardly a murmur in opposition from the general population. We, as a species, over-react to unfamiliar threats and treat even mild unfamiliar threats as deadly while taking a much more rational risk-reward balancing attitude to familiar threats.

[Cerebus]

Yes, the bear element is unsafe.

I'd think that showering with an ursid, or any large carnivorous mammal, was inherently unsafe.   

[AlxDroidDev]

My last bill, from this January: With taxes, 1KWh = R$0.7155627 or about USD 0.18.

I think you're not in Minas Gerais, are you? Not only we have the most expensive electricity in the country, but last October we had an increase in ICMS (a state tax, which jumpped from 18% to 25%), which was effective on Jan 1st/2016, plus we're running on "bandeira vermelha", which means an added tax of R$ 0.045 for every kWh consumed.

BTW, our state governor is also a corrupt socialist fuck from the same party ("PT") as the president, one of the dumbest persons to ever be born.

[1xrtt]

Yes, I should've provided context about location. I'm in Sao Paulo, capital. I have no idea of energy cost in other parts of the country and I already think what I pay is way too much.

[tszaboo]

Yes, I should've provided context about location. I'm in Sao Paulo, capital. I have no idea of energy cost in other parts of the country and I already think what I pay is way too much.

From online source:

Next month, the addition to the tariff per kilowatt hour consumed will rise to R$0.055 and measures for companies will be discussed in the following weeks.

So you are paying  approximately 1/20th of the EU average. To give some perspective.
Mod: Moooo, Woof, Quack...

[1xrtt]

So you are paying  approximately 1/20th of the EU average. To give some perspective.

The way that is worded, It gives the impression that the KWh costs R$0.055,  but that's non-sensical. The same news states:

A household of two went from an usual monthly R$50 to over R$200 and more. - See more at: http://riotimesonline.com/brazil-news/rio-business/electricity-bills-to-increase-by-70-percent-in-rio-and-sao-paulo/#sthash.9zPyKloj.dpuf

This is my bill: 311 KWh for a total of R$222.54. At an exchange rate 1 USD = R$ 4.07, you can do the math.

Some other references for comparison, of average KWh prices:
In US,  USD 0.12: https://www.eia.gov/electricity/sales_revenue_price/pdf/table5_a.pdf
In EU, EUR 0.208 (USD 0.22): http://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php/File:Half-yearly_electricity_and_gas_prices,_second_half_of_year,_2012%E2%80%9314_(EUR_per_kWh)_YB15.png
so, that makes US average 33% lower and EU, about 22% higher than what I pay. Keeping in mind that I'm not taking into account the average annual income for any worker on each region, which should probably worsen that difference.

[tszaboo]

Ah, OK. After reading the sentence another five times, it makes sense. My bad.
That is indeed a huge increase. I guess the shower heads have to be replaced with something else.
BTW, I consume about 5-6 times the energy at home as gas, which is about 1/3 of the price for the same KWh. For hot water and heating. Sure, it is not available everywhere, but could be a huge cost reduction.

[CatalinaWOW]

Yet another location where prices are being artificially manipulated. 

This isn't a comment in favor of any policy, just a comment on the clarity of the evidence that such things exist.   Regardless of whether you feel that fossil energy costs are appropriately burdened with their true environmental costs, this change is not in concert with the worldwide decline in fuel prices over the last year.

[Zero999]

How much does power cost in Brasil? 50cents a shower? it adds up fast and dwarfs the cost of those shower heaters.

It seems you are saving on water heaters but you should be saving with Solar?

.
.
I estimate that a 10min shower might cost between .75 to 1 USD.
.
.

My last bill, from this January: With taxes, 1KWh = R$0.7155627 or about USD 0.18.
Solar energy? Not with the current government: http://www.socioambiental.org/pt-br/noticias-socioambientais/dilma-veta-energias-renovaveis-nao-hidraulicas-no-plano-plurianual (in portuguese)
A 2KW solar panel can cost between USD 4K and 9K, currently affordable only by the top 1% of the pyramid.  But prices are going down, despite of all odds. Ask me again in 5 years, I still have hope.

What about thermal solar for hot water? No dangerous electric showers. No flammable/toxic gas. Just panels with pipes in them to heat water for showering.

Thermal solar is much more efficient for heating water, than photovoltaic.

[mikerj]

The resistor of the shower is inox wire and than no electrolysis can occur with ac current.

Sorry but that is also incorrect, you can't prevent electrolysis by changing the electrode metal.  Any conductive electrodes passing current through an ionic solution can cause electrolysis.

[jitter]

Agreed. Too much security gives people excess of confidence, and that's where Darwin's Law steps in. Add to that the fact that people are simply getting dumber - and that's all around the globe. I guess that we, humans, as a race, have already peaked in our collective intelligence, and this was 20 years ago.

That I don't think is true in the long term, but it might be true in the short term. It already happened over here during what we call the "middle ages" (~500-1500).

I can add my 2 cents to this. Showers in Brazil are insecure, but then again, we have very poor - or mostly non existant - building codes. There are regulations (the "NR"s as another Brazilian user pointed out) but nobody follows them. It is a miracle that we don't have more deaths due to house fires, electrocutions and explosions. Nobody here is required to have a certified technician do repairs on their home (or some times of constructions). It's pretty much "anyone can do whatever they want". This entire country is an accident waiting to happen.

Having regulations is no guarantee that they're always followed. Generally, they're followed, but there are a lot of examples that they were not and led to problems or accidents.
I used to work for a firm that installs and maintains electrical installations, and I heard lots of stories of the things they found wrong in installations because of ignorance.

I live in a building that still has some asbestos materials in it, some of it will be taken out soon by specialist company which will probably cost many thousands of euros. When researching asbestos, I was surprised to find that its use was prohibited no earlier than 1993! So much for regulations...

[Zero999]

Asbestos is perfectly safe as long as it's not disturbed. Living in a house which contains asbestos is only a problem when one decides to carry out building work.

[jitter]

That's indeed why asbestos materials may remain in buildings, but in our case it needs to go. It's an old sewer pipe that has gone leaky and must be replaced with PVC.