Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

jdstillwater.blogspot.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 331 posts

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#101

Post by mikedelfino »

Alupis wrote: post #94
kragen wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

yes, and that reason is mostly the kind of people who were asking the original poster how he made it to adulthood

Right, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the plethora of "shocking" tales regarding these water heaters. I can count on zero hands the number of times my shower has given me a jolt, even a minor one. We mostly see these types of devices in relatively poor countries without the means to install more modern and safer alternatives, such as whole house water heaters.

You're absolutely right that they're common in poor countries and that we can't afford more modern and safer alternatives. Not to mention that the more modern alternatives heat the water much more effectively, providing way more comfort.

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#102

Post by autokad »

Alupis wrote: post #63
raicem wrote: post #60

> These commenters are speaking authoritatively on subjects about which they are completely ignorant, but they are strident in doing so because they are repeating what everybody knows. They are intellectually secure in the center of a vast mob; their wisdom was received, not crafted. This is an important takeaway for me, maybe even more than “electirc devices are washable”. World is filled with conventional wisdom th…

It's not the water that's the issue generally - it's the minerals in the water. The article author got lucky this time - when electronics die from water contact, it's usually the minerals bridging connections and creating shorts. Letting the device dry does not remove those shorts. Some places have such hard water (lots of minerals) that evaporated water leaves calcium, limestone and other deposits on the surface of…

totally agree, I had an electrical device catch on fire because of this exact instance

Once electronics gets wet (like stuff you plug into a wall), it usually should be discarded for safety's sake.

edit: its not just that, the water causes the copper to oxidise and swell, touching places it shouldnt

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#103

Post by kragen »

mikedelfino wrote: post #101
Alupis wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, I'm sure it has nothing to do with the plethora of "shocking" tales regarding these water heaters. I can count on zero hands the number of times my shower has given me a jolt, even a minor one. We mostly see these types of devices in relatively poor countries without the means to install more modern and safer alternatives, such as whole house water heaters.

You're absolutely right that they're common in poor countries and that we can't afford more modern and safer alternatives. Not to mention that the more modern alternatives heat the water much more effectively, providing way more comfort.

no, electric showers heat the water much more effectively, providing way more comfort; here in argentina i have to wait 45 seconds or so for the shower to stop running cold because the hot water has to run all the way from the hot-water tank in the kitchen. and i have to cut the shower short after about 20 minutes because i run out of hot water. i had the same two problems when i lived in the usa, though constant-recirculation systems have become more common there in recent years, solving one of them

electric showerheads, by contrast, provide instant heat, and they provide it for as long as you care to shower. what they don't provide is hot water in the sink for washing dishes, unless you take the dishpan to the shower to fill it. and if they're incorrectly installed they can be deadly, but that's a pretty rare problem both with hot-water tanks and with electric showers. i've never talked to anybody who knew anyone killed by an electric shower, and the nature of electrocution is that it's unlikely to injure you without killing you

(tankless hot-water heaters, called calefones, are common here in argentina, and they also solve one of those two problems—the other one. rooftop evacuated-tube hot-water thermosiphon hot-water heaters are also somewhat popular here)

i think that, aside from dishwashing, the main advantage hot-water tanks have over electric showers is that historically natural gas has been much cheaper than electricity. since chinese solar panel producers have driven the cost of solar panels down by a factor of 20, that's not necessarily true anymore—but the intermittency of solar-energy production favors hot-water tanks, if anything, even more strongly

apparently electric showers are common in the uk, which is not a poor country: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41250251 but with much better safety measures than i'm used to seeing in latin american countries

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#104

Post by a1o »

The big issue is not the water that will dry if you wait but that the hot water will make something that is glued or something that has two materials that expand different when heated break.

There is no amount of letting it dry out or adding rice that will solve if things are apart.

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#105

Post by askvictor »

a1o wrote: post #104

The big issue is not the water that will dry if you wait but that the hot water will make something that is glued or something that has two materials that expand different when heated break. There is no amount of letting it dry out or adding rice that will solve if things are apart.

Also, corrosion/oxidation and any chemical interactions with Dish powder (if that was used) that might not be noticeable at first

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#106

Post by fnord77 »

> “Sorry #5, but a toaster is an electrical device, not an electronic one, and I’ve already soaked an electrical device in a fish tank for several hours, while it was running.”

Not entirely true. Most modern toasters have some sort of electronics in them

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#107

Post by throwway120385 »

Renaud wrote: post #93
Alupis wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not the water that's the issue generally - it's the minerals in the water. The article author got lucky this time - when electronics die from water contact, it's usually the minerals bridging connections and creating shorts. Letting the device dry does not remove those shorts. Some places have such hard water (lots of minerals) that evaporated water leaves calcium, limestone and other deposits on the surface of…

Would mineral deposits be sufficiently large and conductive that they would cause an actual issue between components? They would probably represent nothing more than minor stray resistance/capacitance. Assuming it was conductive enough, a scales bridge between higher voltage parts would just represent a path of material a few microns thick that would vaporize as soon as the toaster would be plugged in. For other elec…

A lot of household appliances use potted relays and conformal coatings. If you pull the control board out of your clothes washer you'll see what I mean. It's particularly important because the control board is often within spitting distance of a solenoid that's holding back 60-80 psi of water.

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#108

Post by YeGoblynQueenne »

bornfreddy wrote: post #89
YeGoblynQueenne wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have one of those at home in the UK, in fact I only recently changed the older unit that was getting long in the tooth. The house is old and an electric shower the only way to have a proper shower. I also have a shower extension, a rubber tube with two inputs you connect to the hot and cold taps in the bath tub and which outputs cold water if you hold it lower than the taps and hot water if you keep it above the ta…

> It's just soap, it's good for you. Sorry, but I really can't tell - was that sarcasm?

Yes. The point is that it's not just soap but soapy water that has just washed off all kinds of gunk and dirt off your hands or dishes. It's a good idea to rinse it off. But, apparently, that's not the done thing in certain sectors of British society, e.g. see:

I wash up like a normal person: I fill a sink with hot water and washing-up liquid, and scrub the dishes in order of what needs the least attention. Glasses need a quick wipe and then they’re put aside, while the cutlery has a nice little soak at the bottom. You finish with the pans. If at any point the bubbles are not sparkling white, the water is dirty and needs to be refilled. I then move the dishes to the drying rack, without rinsing them off. In my opinion, this is the cleanest, most hygienic way of doing things, because everything has a little bath in the sink.

https://amp.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/may/06/you-be-...

To be fair, dish washing turns out to be a very controversial thing. When I was doing my degree I lived in a shared student house with a British girl who was muslim, a Chinese girl and a British girl of unknown religion. The Chinese girl and I always insisted on re-doing the dishes after the second British girl did them the "normal" way as above. Then the muslim girl did them all over again with her own sponge to make sure they hadn't touched pork. But nobody picked up the used loo roll tubes from the bathroom. They piled up like abstract art :D

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#109

Post by advisedwang »

nashashmi wrote: post #46

I used to ask electrical engineers who design building utilities if they ever touched a live wire with voltage running. If not, "how do you know it is really dangerous? How do you know it will electrocute you?" They don't. EVER. Want to talk to me again if they don't have to. #ConventionalIgnorance For reference, I touched 10k volts with microcurrents. It hurts! I touched 240 volts wire and felt the vibrations run up…

> how do you know it is really dangerous? How do you know it will electrocute you?

It is possible to learn from others. In fact, our society's entire foundation of knowledge comes from building on the knowledge of past generations and others in our current generation. Not everything needs to be verified from scratch by every user of the knowledge, and if it did we'd never make it past roman tech levels.

Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)

#110

Post by throwway120385 »

mikedelfino wrote: post #88
hooverd wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd hope they're grounded correctly.

Next, you'd hope that houses have proper ground wires instead of empty holes for the third pin. :)

In the US you're also allowed to use an ungrounded GFCI if you need to retrofit an existing electrical circuit and the ground wire wasn't provided originally.
Post reply on HN