But what would happen if you Microwaved a Toaster?!
This kills the microwave
I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
121–130 of 331 posts
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#122R&D electrical engineer here! I have to do this sort of thing all the time and can confidently tell you it's pretty normal. The real risk isn't really to the toaster (who cares, it's just a toaster, and even if it starts on fire when you plug it in, you're probably watching it pretty closely). No, it's that you leach lead or other such nasties (sealing rubbers, PCB epoxies, what-have-you) into your dishwasher and sta…
>You, uh, don't want to do that with a toaster.
Maybe I'm slow, but what goes wrong if you rinse a toaster with alcohol?
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#123Earlier quoted context omitted.
New homeowners: Know where your GFCI reset switches are located. I just had a fun time debugging why some of my outlets weren't working. Turns out there was a GFCI tripped in the garage, a few rooms down from the outlet.
I have never seen a GFCI reset switch in a different room from the outlet. I’m not surprised it exists, but it would make me unhappy.
GFCI outlets have two sets of terminals, line and load. Line is meant to take hot & neutral from the mains panel. For load, you can run wire from there to downstream regular outlets, and it will give them GFCI protection too.
This is annoying when the outlets are in different rooms and it's not clear what's connected to what, but can save money when wiring up a bunch of outlets in a kitchen, for example, since a GFCI outlet can be $20 or more, while regular outlets usually only cost a couple bucks.
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#124Earlier quoted context omitted.
I still wonder how electrocution is not a big issue. My local electricity codes say absolutely no electricity within zone 0. I get a bit nervous about hooking up IP 65 rated lights to a IP X4 rated switchbox a meter away from the shower head
Electric showers are very common in the UK - although the heater is in a wall-mounted unit, with the head on a hose, rather than the heater being in the head itself. The heating element has three layers - innermost, a wire that gets hot. Around that, a ceramic insulator. And outermost, a metal cover to protect the ceramic insulator. Then the heating element is mounted in a small water tank. And that, along with some…
A lot of things involving electricity in places with type-G plugs seem more dangerous if you don't know/assume that almost everything is grounded. Took me a while to realize that hairdrier he mentioned in the blogpost likely didn't have a ground connection in the plug.
In the case of a toaster with a grounded frame, the most likely route for a short is straight to earth which will trip the RCD on that set of plugs.
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#125Your GFCI outlet may not always trigger:
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#126(2012) I did this in 1994 personally. It was fine. I am not a scientist and did not overanalyze it. It seemed obvious to me it would be fine. For whatever reason, since that one time I have never had the need to run any other toaster through the dishwasher again. This was a super simple basic toaster. I wouldn't do it with a modern one with all the various encoders and soft buttons and microelectroncs. Not for any sc…
I dunno why one would want to put the toaster into the dishwasher in any case.
Any caked-on grease would still be there.
The outside is easy to clean in any case, and the inside doesn't need to be sparkling (it won't be if you ever actually use the toaster in any case).
There's a door on the bottom of the toaster to get the crumbs out; that's necessary maintenance, and it's far easier done if the toaster is dry. Adding water to crumbs will cause them to stick, so the dishwasher shouldn't be the first thing in any case.
Parts of my BBQ grill would fit into the dishwasher too, but that's not how I clean them either - dishwasher isn't a replacement for scrubbing.
Oh, and there's absolutely a higher risk of getting rust on metals in a dishwasher. And cheap-ass toasters aren't made to be rust-proof throughout.
The conventional ignorance of "don't put the toaster into the dishwasher" is based on at least some truth... and the toaster's instruction manual :)
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#127Earlier 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.
no? i mean it's the same reason most people in the usa don't have a bidet in their house; it's not because they're too poor to afford one. technology adoption is path-dependent and mostly random, and fear makes people conservative. yes, there are a few people who are familiar with the actual risks and rewards of the different technologies, but they're vastly outnumbered by the pre-galilean minds who are entirely guid…
This assumes a bidet is objectively better than a regular toilet. That is debatable.
It's not debatable these electric showerheads are objectively better, just because some poorer communities around the world use them.
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#128Today I learnt that pure water is not conductive and than tap water is a poor conductor at 120V which I believe is the american standard... What about Europe's 230V ? Would he still have gone in the water to unplug the piano if he was in Europe ?
Luckily we have equations for this!
Assume that the water has a fixed resistance of R. You have increased the Voltage V about double.
As a result of V=IR, the I, or current flow, will be doubled. Which in this case is probably a moderate tingle since R is so high.
For reference, the heart muscles start getting involuntary twitches around 100mA, and at 200mA causes cardiac arrest. And the standard units of Voltage, Amp, and Ohm will serve you well here for any conversions.
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#129R&D electrical engineer here! I have to do this sort of thing all the time and can confidently tell you it's pretty normal. The real risk isn't really to the toaster (who cares, it's just a toaster, and even if it starts on fire when you plug it in, you're probably watching it pretty closely). No, it's that you leach lead or other such nasties (sealing rubbers, PCB epoxies, what-have-you) into your dishwasher and sta…
I may be too used to RoHS2. I had completely forgotten that electronics could have more than a trace amount of lead in them.
Re: I put a toaster in the dishwasher (2012)
#130Earlier 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…
> 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.
Spoken like someone who has never maintained any electronic devices. Skepticism should err on the side of risk management.