Hi!, in my previous video about
getting electrocuted in a bathtub, I briefly mentioned suicide showers. Which is what people call them
because you have to bring live wires with you in the
bathroom to heat the water. But then, there were tons of comments,
mostly from my beloved Brazilian viewers that were shocked by my comments. *chuckles* shocked! Saying that millions of people's there
use this showerhead with no problems. There was this outpour of people in the
streets demanding my exile. Just kidding. But seriously, it seems like a majority of
people there, as well as some other countries like Mexico use these shower
heads and people seem to be okay. I didn't want to make this video because
bigclive and DiodeGoneWIld have already made good videos
on the topic, and me being a bigger channel, my video would probably pop first pushing their videos down getting more views. Ok, let's do it, but I'll pick a different title so that our videos won't
show in the same search. So I bought one of these from
Amazon to try and see if I survive. Since you can buy these in Canada, you
would assume that it's tested and safe. I'm starting to doubt our system... Let's see what's inside the suicide
shower and if it is truly suicidal. Okay, so here we have two bare heating
elements for two heat settings that are completely exposed to the
running water without isolation. There is a diaphragm back here that when
there is pressure from running water, it switches the contacts on
to make sure the elements are only powered when there
is running water. Otherwise, the whole thing would melt and burn in fire. The damn thing draws 50 amps max. The ground wire goes in the middle of the diaphragm
to ground the water at the output and also goes straight into the input water to ground the input as well. Now the question is, would this be
enough to ensure the water pouring on your head is not
equivalent to live wire and electrocute your brain cells.
The structure of this shower is kind of smart, I don't know if it's the same
case for all of them, but, the entire water passing over
the live wires must go through this hole first before getting out where the
ground wire is sitting at the middle. So it might be possible for the ground wire to remove all the charges from the water before getting out. Now, I'm not saying it's impossible to have a safe water heater with you in the shower. It's actually simple to make. See if the heating element is isolated from live wires like these oven elements, then there is no problem. If I
turn it on and touch the element, there is no electricity on the surface, just heat. These run on 240 volt AC and are safe to touch. Can't remove it. If I turn it on, I read 204 volts? Oh, right because at my home the voltage,
is made from the difference between 220 volt AC phases 120 degrees apart. Now if I change the volume, the voltage should change. Oh, maybe it's doing some special
way for modulation like PWM or a light dimmer and my
meter is not detecting it well. So I brought my scope here to check
the actual waveform using my differential probe because I don't want to
accidentally short the program to 200 volt AC Oh wait. I just remembered something. CircuitSpecialists sent me a new tool
that could be pretty helpful here. There. Then sent me a handheld oscilloscope. This is a 70MHz-2-channel oscilloscope
with its own 25MHz function generator and a complete digital multimeter. I mean if it works well, it will make life much easier for some measurements. It runs on battery or isolated USB power
so it would be completely isolated from live wires and it's much more portable. I'll
continue using it throughout the video to check its performance. I mean
for around 200V AC, I mean $200, it's pretty affordable and I'll giveaway 10 of them at the end of
the video. Checking the voltage first... Yep, the screen is pretty
adequate for a multimeter. But voltage still doesn't change by the
volume. It comes with one probe... But fortunately, I have more.
Okay, let's check the voltage. There you go! Well, the display is a bit small for a scope, but I mean it's a handheld scope and it is still pretty clear. But the voltage... Still doesn't change by the volume. Well, maybe I have to load it with the elements
so the proper waveform shows up. I tied some wires to the element
terminal so I can probe them. Now if I turn on the voltage-
[Plug pops] SH***T Let me use some electric tape. Damnit! Now the oven doesn't turn off! Have to figure out what's going on. Maybe it's a stuck relay. There is not much going on here. Maybe these switches stuck or something. Okay, so this contact was welded to the one below, but they are disconnected now. You know, probing stuff, you have to be more careful. Well, I did find some leads in... garbage thrown back here. Hey! Back in business. Hopefully nothing gets shorted again. Just note that there is no ground between these two wires. Each one is one phase. Both dangerous! There we go. The hell?! The voltage still doesn't change!
How does it adjust the temperat- Oo, turned off? Oh s*** Such an idiot! Yep. I'm an idiot! You work with fancy PWM control systems
to drive loads and motors so much you forget stupid stuff like
this oven work in simple ways! This thing is just one minute on, one minute
off, one minute on, one minute off and the on/off duration is
controlled by this... knob Was it calling it a volume all this time?
I'm not recording all that s*** again. The point is, this showerhead could also be made of such an isolated heating element with proper electronics to more precisely control the heat Let's go install it. I don't have a power outlet right here, unlike what it shows in the
installation sheet, which is good. I mean, you don't want to live
wire with you in the bathtub, but I guess it's okay in some countries.
Survival of the fittest. But this length of wire is
not enough anyway. Okay, so I wired everything up and
plugged in my power into the GFCI outlet to prevent me
from death. Let's turn it on [Water sprinkling] Well, I was expecting the GFCI to pop So I connected my amp meter in series with the
ground wire to see how much current is going through the ground and it's a little bit less than point 8 milliamps - which is not a lot. It is still good enough to give
you a little bit of shock but it's much less than the
5 milliamp limit that the GFCI trips at. This amount of current depends
on the quality of water and the voltage. So if you're in a country with 240 volt AC and more impure water, this current might be too much
that will trip (the) GFCI. For example, the tap hot water is more
conductive and if I make it more, you see that the ground wire current is
rising. I've heard in some countries, they disconnect the ground wire to make this work
and that makes *this* much more dangerous. Sh**, the room breaker popped. How much current is it drawing? I set it to minimum and the breaker still
popped. Let's measure the current. Another tool from circuit specialists. It's 19 amps! So if you want to fully use this, not only
you have to make sure you have at least a 50 amp breaker, you have
to make sure the house wiring is rated for 50 amps. Otherwise, you'll
set the whole thing on fire. Now I'm going to measure the
AC voltage between the water, which I'll probe with a spoon,
to the faucet which is my ground. And if I probe from far, you see that there is no AC voltage because the water droplets are disconnected. But if I get close, I read as high as 7V AC. [SNIFFING] I can smell wires burning now. So the voltage is not high enough to give you a shock over your skin. But if it goes into your eyes or mouth, it
could really hurt. Okay, let's try it I put one foot on the drain as ground and
bring my tongue as close as possible. Yeah, I feel nothing! Okay, so although there is voltage, there
might be a very high resistance series with it so that when you get in the way,
that voltage drops to zero. Okay, let's measure the AC voltage again but this time, I'll put my body
parallel to it to see what happens to the voltage. See? From
around 5 volts when I touch it, It drops to like, 0.7 volts So this confirms that, in my
setup, this water cannot supply high voltage or current to
shock you. So, I hate to say it, But beside these loose
wires and the fact that it may set your house on fire, It
seems pretty safe. But I mean, this is left to
people to install and you know people they may not
connect the ground properly. Let's see what happens in that case. Now, it is connected the ground
wire and if I probe the water, I get Close to 45 volts! Now if I touch the spoon,
the voltage drops to around 2 volts. Still hurt if it gets into your mouth. Still nothing. Which is good I guess... So if this is installed absolutely correctly
by a professional and it never fails considering its questionable quality, Then you might be safe. Knowing that there is a little bit of current constantly running through you when you are taking a shower. That tiny current draw would be
double or more in countries with 240 volt AC which might still
be safe on the other hand, the current draw from the
power lines would be half. So it's safer that way. Maybe
it won't give you a shock, maybe you won't accidentally
touch the hanging loose wires, or set your home on fire
or get cancer over time. All I know is that, this
thing actually proved itself to be quite useful and I'll give
away 10 of these. ♪ GIVEAWAY TIME!!! ♪ Well, I already said it. Thanks to
CircuitSpecialists, I'll give away 5 of these
to my patrons at patreon.com Who are always in the draw
and 5 more to the viewers who can register for free
from the link in the description. Sometimes things I give away
are too expensive, but this thing at around $200 is all the essential
things you need for electronics. Except it's not a soldering iron. Is it? No. Disappointed. And circuit specialist is like a treasure
box of all these good equipment. I have tons of things from them
here, and if you use the promo called "ElectroBOOM" at checkout, you get 10% off. So, do electronics. *Unibrow dance*
Finally a proper, unbiased analysis of electric showers. I wouldn't expect anything less from my favorite electrical engineering channel!
Hi Mehdi. For the shower we have a specific circuit available only for the shower, starting from the circuit breaker to the shower, using a correct dimensioned wire and terminals designed for such current. Ok, probably not all the houses :) . Still, as you tested, the water droplets "cuts" the circuit, avoiding the electrical shock.
I can remember a "mythbusters" video when they try to do a shock water gun and they suffer a lot trying to keep the circuit connected, but the water keeps cutting the circuit.
Sorry about the rusty english. I'm from Brasil :)
(edit)
I found the video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UOwH18YdN7s
I would recommend you to try, but it's not so dangerous for you :D
Love your videos! GIMME DAH METAH! :D
Shouldn't there also be some calcium buildup on the "ground" wire after a while?
I can imagine someone small using this shower head for some years, not noticing the ground wire gets a crust of calcium deposits. And then a tall dude like me visits for some days and asks to take a shower and gets a shock.
I have some questions:
If someone use a Bridge Rectifier to feed it DC:
Thanks for this video - and thank you for all you do!
I don't have anything important to add to the conversation but I think that you're totally awesome.
I love the rabbit hole he went down because he forgot how cheap cookers regulate heat
Funny that the hot water is more conductive than the cold water. It's probably due to slight sediment build-up in your water heater. I wonder if would be worse in regions with "hard" water (higher iron content).
I have nothing to say :)