171–180 of 331 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A $20 something you are about to throw away is the perfect thing to play games with.
It’s the fire risk that’s the issue not 20$.
It is because people use heuristics to navigate their lives. Instead of doing complicated engineering reasoning all the time to ensure their safety they learn simple “rules of thumb”. These rules are incorrect in as much as they have both false positives (something which the rule prohibits, but is safe) and false negatives (something which the rule lets you do, but is not safe). I’m a hobby jeweler and I use an ordin…
You can also just have a spoon in the microwave too, right? I think It's only from things like crinkles in aluminium foil and the prongs of a fork that produce sparks and arcing inside.
I often run my (PCB) boards through the dishwasher after soldering components to them. To clean off any flux that might be on them.
I'm sure the boards are fine after that. Wouldn't feel so great about the dishes you put into the dishwasher afterwards. Ain't no getting fine metal dust out of porcelain, and idk what else got washed off of those boards.
> 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…
I was once involved in a similar (unintentional) experiment with a multi-billion dollar defence radar. A several metres deep underground bunker, containing several 19" racks full of electrical/electronic gear, filled to ground level with a combination of mineralised surface water and mud during a storm. What we wanted to do was cut the power, pump the water out of the bunker ASAP and immediately clean the whole lot w…
It's quite impressive it kept working for that long, and even more amazing someone was capable of saying "no, let's not cut the power, there might be a problem if we do"
On a related note, I wonder if people around the world are familiar with electric showers. Essentially, it's a resistance similar to the one found in a toaster, placed right inside the showerhead. It heats the water as it flows through. People hearing about it for the first time are usually shocked that we don't die from electrecution.
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
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
> All that day, kids got to see Mr. Stillwater’s hair dryer running under water in a fish tank. I thought I knew about electricity and water, but what I possessed was Conventional Ignorance posing as Conventional Wisdom. Humbling.
Should I put the wifes running hairdryer into our fishtank to entertain our child?
It is because people use heuristics to navigate their lives. Instead of doing complicated engineering reasoning all the time to ensure their safety they learn simple “rules of thumb”. These rules are incorrect in as much as they have both false positives (something which the rule prohibits, but is safe) and false negatives (something which the rule lets you do, but is not safe). I’m a hobby jeweler and I use an ordin…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.