Dangerous VICKS Vaporizer

[FennecTECH]

I have one of these   and i plug them in every whinter   but this time i noticed something     i could touch the damp surface of the vaporizer and i would get belted something serious!      so i put a wire in the water with a LED on the other end of it   touched it to a metal pc case    and what do you know     the led lights up for a moment     and then dies!   turns out the thing toasted the led!  so i put a ground lead into the water that leads to the ground terminal of a power strip i use  to reduce the shock i get when refilling the thing     but seriously  vicks     this thing is DANGEROUS!    need to get a multimeter to see what kind of voltage is on this thing   

[NiHaoMike]

Probably a corroded through heating element. No idea why they don't require GFCI plugs on those things like they do for hair dryers and window A/Cs.

[DrGeoff]

Several of those plug-in smelly-air thingies have caused house fires over here in AU.

[FennecTECH]

im tempted to tear the thing apart    yeah prolly corosion  because they tell you to use salt water too xD     hell they could even make it three pronged  xD   i think anything with a metal chasis or water should automaticly be grounded lol 

[amyk]

need to get a multimeter to see what kind of voltage is on this thing

Better to measure the current it can supply - due to capacitive coupling, you'll probably find a lot of other devices with SMPSs are floating at mains voltage, but can't supply much more than hundred microamps or so  (which is plenty to light an LED, and could be perceptible, but not dangerous).

You could've killed the LED because of reverse polarity and not overcurrent, because it's AC.

Better to measure than jump to conclusions.

[Rerouter]

to test for that, grab a 100K resistor, measure the voltage to ground without it, and measure the voltagge to ground with it in parrellel, if its microamps that should give you the numbers to work out the leakage, if it barely changes its much more serious

[MarkL]

These vaporizers don't have an isolated heating element.  They heat the water with two electrodes dipped into the water that are connected directly to the mains input.  The heating "element" is the resistance of the water.  So, yes, the water is connected to mains.

If you have very pure water it won't conduct very well to generate heat.  That's why the instructions have you add salt to the water a pinch at a time until you reach the right conductivity.  They also note that if you add too much salt you can pop your circuit breaker (in which case, dump out the water and start again).

Surprisingly it's UL listed.  We have several of these units and it's difficult to make contact with the water because of a large shroud around the electrode assembly.  You can't really get your finger in there while it's immersed in the water.  But this design should probably have a GFCI, just in case.

I wouldn't stick a grounded electrode in the water.  It could end up drawing significant current and will probably electrolyze away whatever you put in there.  I don't know what material they're using for electrodes.

[SeanB]

Electrodes are carbon rods, moulded into the plastic case. I have an old clothes steamer that uses the same techique.

Only issue is that there is absolutely no protection, though there is inherent boil dry protection. Seems like a PTC fuse or such would be a good idea to have in there.

[xygor]

Your added ground wire will act as an additional electrode.   There would still be a voltage gradient across the water.  You should remove your addition.

[rsjsouza]

These things exist for decades and the construction did not change much over the years, only the material: bakelite on the top heater portion, woven fabric cable mains cable (that was probably what caught fire if the cable was in poor condition). I had one just like the picture below and, as SeanB mentioned, it had the same beefy shroud around the boiling plates. Never had any problems with them.

[NiHaoMike]

These vaporizers don't have an isolated heating element.  They heat the water with two electrodes dipped into the water that are connected directly to the mains input.  The heating "element" is the resistance of the water.  So, yes, the water is connected to mains.

If you have very pure water it won't conduct very well to generate heat.  That's why the instructions have you add salt to the water a pinch at a time until you reach the right conductivity.  They also note that if you add too much salt you can pop your circuit breaker (in which case, dump out the water and start again).

Surprisingly it's UL listed.  We have several of these units and it's difficult to make contact with the water because of a large shroud around the electrode assembly.  You can't really get your finger in there while it's immersed in the water.  But this design should probably have a GFCI, just in case.

I wouldn't stick a grounded electrode in the water.  It could end up drawing significant current and will probably electrolyze away whatever you put in there.  I don't know what material they're using for electrodes.

Sounds like Big Clive would have a bit of fun with one of those!

The ones I have encountered just use a metal encased heating element. There are also some that use ultrasonics or are just small evaporative coolers, which are far more energy efficient but need regular cleaning to prevent bacteria/mold growth.

[amyk]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electrode_boiler

BigClive has reviews of a few of this type of device on YouTube.