Fixing a heater and an apology to my bro 

Someone should get Ralphy an electric blanket.

Never apologise to your brother, it sets a dangerous precedent! 😂

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 😁❤️

"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.

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.

The designers made the plastic housing look pre-melted, hoping one wouldn't notice it if it did. 😂

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.

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.

Even the simplest repairs are good to watch,you have the ability to captivate an audience Clive.TY.

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.

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 ...

"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

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.

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.

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.

Doubtless the corrosion is from all the whisky vapors!🎉

Reminds me of cleaning the points in a distributor when cars used to have them.

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.

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!

Your brother should be more careful. The blanket could catch fire. Or the unit may if the safety features fail.

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.

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!

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.

Hope Ralphy found you some of his delicious beverages as a thank you.

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.

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.

Ralph here is your heater. Now where is the bottle of Scotland's finest. Ps: those socket prongs looking dark?

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.

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 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 thought whiskey should take care of Ralph's heating problem!

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 seem to have a collection of dead heaters, including wiring burnt out, I hate those dunces cap wire connectors pain to strip and re-join

I see you missed the hidden pcb with the logging software that records all your temperatures & sends them to China

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. 🤣🤣

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!

The condition of the plug says it was all from corrosion from being stored out in a damp garage.

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.

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.

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.

Hey Clive, I took apart a microinverter last year but the insides were way to complicated for me to even look at. Any interest in taking a look at it? I'll send it to you.

Of course you should just never twist the leads of the thermal fuse together! ( wink wink nudge nudge) and I have "never" done this myself.😂😂😂😂☠️

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.

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.

Natural airflow electric convector heaters are SUPER RELIABLE ! ...I have a " chimney " type from the WW2 , 1940's that STILL works ( NO moving parts or ... thermal cutouts ! ! ) ... Oil or water filled radiator types are ( OK ? ) for some degree of covering ( warming night clothes , etc ) , but DO NOT tip them over ( when energised ! ) , but nothing beats a ( 1950's UK ) Belling™ 3 bar radiant heater ( still working ! ) ...( tried - n - tested ) ........................... DAVE™ ............

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!

Moral: do not releave yourself near the fan heater.

No contact cleaner handy? Paper works okay if it's not too bad, but I always like using contact cleaner and/or an actual contact burnisher (which it seems few people have -- they're not abrasive like sandpaper, they just basically scrap oxidation off and gently move the surface coating metal around without removing it). I'm not even sure if they make the real contact burnishing tools anymore. EDIT: Seems both Mouser and Newark/element14 carry Jonard Tools contact burnishers... might have to pick up another set!

If I understand correctly.. Trying to light yourself on fire is a family trait. Who puts one of those under the covers?

I've not had an electric fan heater in a long time, last one I had decided it was fun to blow sparks out the front like it was a welder, this was about 16 years back and the fan was I think a cheapie from Asda, then later a convection radiator dropping hot metal bits out the bottom, right next to a heatsink of a cat sleeping between it and the wall it was by, rather put me off portable electric heating... :S

I had the EXACT same plastic white fan heater! Different brand name, everything else looked the same. Almost burned down my house two weeks ago. Fan didn't turn on, started glowing bright red and within 10 seconds the plastic started melting. The thermal safety did *NOT* work. If that fan failed and I wasn't standing next to it, my house wouldn't be here anymore. Dangerous devices.

No microcontroller, no full wave bridge, no capacitive dropper, what kind of LED flasher is that? As lond as Ralfy doesn't get to cold, it's fine. Good luck! 👍

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 had one of these, Heater still worked but fan had failed. Completely locked up.

Did a similar repair on a turn signal relay many years ago, thanks for sharing, Clive!

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.

Never apologize to your siblings. Tell him it was Stinky-Socks Shmoo Residue that gummed the contacts and he should be ashamed of himself. 🤣

Oh god, THIS heater! It's so incredibly cheap and so fragile. They break all the time yet cost 12$

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 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 acquired a number of relatively new USA "Milk House" type heaters that were being discarded because they stopped working, constantly tripping out, they had run continuously and the fan bearing lubrication dried out and the fan seized up, little machine oil applied to the fan bearings resurrected each one, not as much fun as poking around with the multimeter, but now what do i do with all these heaters?

"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'

Clive, I’ve managed to “acquire” some pretty old bakerlight clad industrial fuses from an abandoned railway weigh station in work if you’re interested in taking a look, tried finding some contact info but can’t find anything

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.

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

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.

" 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. 😁

I doubt that the contacts are made from anything that would corrode, even in salt air. It might be arc pitting, but cleaning with ordinary paper is unlikely to smooth that out (like a burnishing tool would). Could the contact leaves be not pressing together as hard as they should? But again paper won't change that. Soot? in the end, nothing will seem as satisfactory as a rigorous burnishing and readjustment to insure solid contact in a serious application like this. After all, people could freeze to death waiting for a 15 cm log to ignite

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.

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.

Kinda confused at the great condition of this heater, used this exact model in like 2005-2010 as a lil bathroom heater to avoid that sudden cold feel coming out of the shower lol Always had a weird burny smell to it, probably dust inside getting burnt or smth

Interesting. I have exactly the same heater (only working) but it's badged "Daewoo".

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!

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.

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

Cheap heaters are pretty poor quality in some cases, I’ve got a tiny 900w one that the fan is wired to part of the heating coil in order to lower the voltage, and the fan started having issues running properly so the thermal fuse went in it. The solution was to install a thick copper wire fuse instead, and duct tape an usb desktop fan in the back of it - it worked wonders for a few months until I bought a better and bigger one, and always made sure to run it on a timer with intervals of 15-30 minutes. Granted if it ever had started failing due to overheating - then 15 minutes is an eternity… ;)

I have one of these, and used another one at work. The ones with european plug have horrible quality plugs. The pins easily heat up to 50 degrees, while a different plug in the same socket barely heats up. I'm very hesitant to use it at full power for that reason. I don't want it to melt the wall outlet.

Do i see correctly that it doesn't have a tipover protection switch? Usually they have a pin sticking out the bottom to keep it from working while layed down.. that's a hazard lol..

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.

Brave of saying something naive or indeed patronising, we had alot of these in our music studio and learned you just had to give them time to cool down. We always overheated them and we sussed that, but, we always assumed they had a timer switch inside to stop you firing it back up straight after it cut.

Explaining that it's important to put the cables in their right place... All I see is the blue wire on the wrong side of the plastic pin.😳 Luckily you saw it too, it would have bothered me to no end😆

The wires! Oh deary me the wires… it's ridiculous. It honestly would save many companies lots of money to re-engineer products so they use pin-to-pad contact where wires would cross over into multiple enclosure pieces.

I always clean contacts using super fine sandpaper and always get comments how I ruin the device. And I also have a bad habit calling people cretins.

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

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.

My Heater suffered from crimp failure over heat tripping the cut out, so soldered both crimps. Still works after 4 years.

Before digital photography it must've been a pain to fix appliances because you had to take photos of the disassembly and have them developed before continuing.

My electric forced air across aluminum and ceramic panel doesn't use cutouts like that to cycle the coil. It has a thermal safety and anti trip switches but keeps the power on the element full time. Its rated for continuous operation. If it reaches temp i set via manual thermostat the entire unit shuts down until the temperature drops enough to trip the thermostat. Which is wasteful. I think it should cut power to the panel first and wait until the air cools to room temp or very close and then shut the fan down. Or if they wanna stay low cost build just setup a fifteen second delay to give the fan enough time to put the remaining heat I already paid to generate to be pushed into the area. And shutting down the fan should be an option too. Some do these things but the unit I have doesn't. Its only 120volt and i run it typically on low which pulls 350watts for the panel and roughly 30watts if that for the fan motor.

I bought one of these for like 7 bucks at the time (few years ago, now they sell it for 9.90), its metal fan make an extremely annoyng noise, never used. then falled off a table and all the assembly broke that little plastic it was attached to.

Poor Ralphy being cold, nice quick fix Clive thanks

This type heaters and similar ones, has the same problem. I thought you had hacked it and were going to give us a definitive solution.

Could you not attach a yard of dryer exhaust hose to the front of the heater so only the hot air needs to be under the blanket but not the heater thus preventing or at least reducing the possibility of overheating and saving your brother a fiew £ ? If not that then I recommend switching to a electric blanket for cover, removing the need for moving parts and noise at all. Good luck and happy christmas.

Takes me back to my student days. Now I have a wonderful system called "central heating".

I melted the front grill of one of these cheap units drying some mountainbiking shorts too close to the unit. The shorts dried in minutes and the unit still works so success but also will leave them hanging further away next time to avoid potential death haha

I use one to keep my boiler room warm I run used canola oil, it works great. cheap easy. Surprised it does not have a bottom safety switch.

sounds like Ralfy has been sipping too much sauce and sleeping, when he should be stoking and feeding the fire up. 🤣🥳

I hve the same cheap heater that I use as a shed heater which has also succumbed to the damp but in a different way. With mine its that the motor turns slowly due to slight corrosion. Again, easily fixed.

Just had one lose its tip over switch, mains interrupt with a KW1-103 micro switch.

He's got plenty of quality whisky to keep him warm..He keeps a sensational bothy..

I have this same heater, I bought it for 10 € at Lidl - though with current electricity prices it is pretty useless.