Another splendid piece of pink danger-ware for exploration.
This ticks every box including melting paint and the smell of hot plastic when left on for a while.
Extra points for the inappropriate LED resistor and flimsy copper coated aluminium flex.
On a plus note this one will probably keep your cup of coffee quite hot. Probably best to remember to switch it off afterwards though.
If you enjoy these videos you can help support the channel with a dollar for coffee, cookies and random gadgets for disassembly at:-
http://www.bigclive.com/coffee.htm
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#ElectronicsCreators

It's a while, since we've had an episode of unboxed tragedy, but here it is: let's unbox this glorious uh, constant temperature coaster that is self-regulating. Apparently it's not self-regulated. I've tested it. I've just suddenly realized.

I didn't print off that picture, oh not to worry! I can. I can do that so here it is the reason there's a big scuff mark in the middle of it is because uh i've tested this. Let me plug this into the hobby, then i shall actually go and get that picture printed off. So we can take a look at the thumb readout, but in the meantime i plug it in and it shows about 19.4 watts and the little flickery lip red indicator goes on.

I'm guessing, that's an led and resistor might be a new. I think it's an led and this starts getting hot and it gets hot and it gets hot. It went up to approximately 155 degrees celsius uh and that's when i put a thermocouple on it and the all the paint started coming off. Also, when you put your back your fingers on, you can feel it's like off it that's interesting, so i was originally expecting this power rating 19 watt or so to actually progressively drop.

I thought it was going to be a ptc heater. It's not it's just a fixed heater, so is that just resistors taped to the back of this panel or are glued, let's find out, let's take it apart, but before i do that, i'm going to go and grab that picture that i mentioned one moment. Please, okay got the picture a very distinct hot spot. There 156 degrees celsius, it's toasty hot.

It does come with warnings about heating. To be fair, is designed to keep your drink warm. So that makes sense, i suppose the hot plastic smell wasn't so comfortable. This was the original listing um.

They have put the price up since i purchased it. They put the price off of everything like that: uh, more than 10 available ones sold. Yet it was me that bought it, don't really recommend buying them uh, but at 220 volt cup mug warmer automatic, constant temperature heating coaster heater, let's open it up, i should get the hoppy out the way and we shall explore its marvelous circuitry. There is a sense of foreboding at what's going to be in here.

I should be used to this now. Oh, it's good air vents on the back. Well, smoke vents really, there's a wee hole here. I'm not sure, that's for it uh.

It has a wires visible through it. I did, of course, buy it in pink, because, while i was expecting it to be less than safe and well, it's got to be pink if it's dangerous just for extra drama, the anticipation, oh, is it clipped together? I may need to spudge, i may need to spudge it open i'll put it next to this. Rather big plastic sprue. There we go.

What do we have? Okay, let's get closer to this, shall we let's get closer, so we can see things better. I shall focus on this convenient big divot out the paint we have tin, foil, oh tin, father looks as though it may have shriveled. Oh okay. It is just heating tape that they've stuck onto tape to stick it in place and then they've put the foil over it.
Um there is a modest attempt at guiding the cable. There is a strain relief here, they've just not used uh. I can see what looks like a tiny little resistor and series with the uh the led. This will help.

This will be just across the mains. Oh all the little warning things have popped off: oh they, the murets, and what we call them water nuts. In the uk, don't really use them, they're, not they're, available here, but not standard. It does have the rewire spring.

I'm just going to try this for springing this right. Now, let's bring it no uh, not springy. So what value is that resistor in there it's an 8 smart resistor, which is only rated for oh 150, volts tops, so it's going to be seeing so pretty much means voltage peak 350, volts dc since they're. Reading that, let's pair this back and see if we can get the meter in and measure that resistor - oh, that is quite tight sleeve.

What's the value going to be, i'm going to estimate it's going to be in the region in the 200k range, so i want to get a connection onto here, let's just pair this away with a knife in fact, and we'll work out the dissipation, these leds, the Red leds, if there's no diode, they will actually they conduct in reverse as well they're, just basically avalanche. They don't light, it's not ideal for the led, but it's what they do. It's cheap. It's an led in series with a resistor slapped across the mains.

You find out a lot in some of the industrial indicators. Well, not the proper industrial indicators, the cheap chinese industrial indicators. Let me see if we get onto this copper, well copper-esque material and keep my fingers away from those terminals, so it doesn't skew the result. If i manage to connect 160k okay, so assuming the led avalanches, let's work out the dissipation that resistor, um and avalanches are low voltage, there's only about two volts.

The forward direction 240 volts as it is divided by 160 k, is a current of just 1.5 milliamps. Through the through the led times, the 240, the dissipation of that little resistor is 0.36, which is about twice its rating. It's actually not too bad compared to what they usually are, but there is a chance that, after a while that little resistor will bake in there and then go pop and then blow something. But that's what we have it's a very thin aluminium tray with uh.

This heater tape stuck onto what's the resistance of the heater tape just out of interest. This is where i just slap on these. I can slap it in the pins. It doesn't really matter the led, isn't even going to get involved in this.

Let's go for the 20k range here bring the meter where it can be seen three roughly 3k, 3000 ohms, okay, so yeah this is actually you know what let's go further. Let's take the led, led, let's take the resistive tape apart, so i shall slide this sleeve off and see. How is it terminated? Because i would expect this to be a wound um? Is it supposed to be brown and sploogey there, or is that where the adhesive has been burning, it's possibly where the adhesive has been burning, it's not really rated for that temperature. So i would guess that this is this going to be carbon fiber tape, um.
I shall try and open this up. Let's just cut it, it's a different resistance. Now, oh, i see a very, very fine. Oh that's the fiberglassy type stuff.

Let's get the wire stripper in it's mostly silicon with uh. What i'm guessing is a fiberglass core with a little wire wrap around it. Oh, it is the wire. You can't even see the wire, so it's a bunch of strands of fiberglass with a very fine wire wrap around it.

Let's see if i can actually strip this. So it actually shows the coil may not be able to do this. Does it show at all yeah there's a couple of bundles of the fiberglass? One of them has the wire wrap around it. You're not going to see this because it is like fuse grade wire, but it is wrapped around that and i guess that, ultimately, when they get to the end, they fold the wire back across the silicon and then just crimp.

It in hmm messy, not sure reliable. That would be, but the heater wires do seem to be a common thing, so that is it. I don't really recommend this. It's the usual plastic tat.

It makes me think that gets so hot that uh there is a risk of the plastic kind of melting. I really was hoping for a ptc thermistor to be stuck to the back of this something that's going to self-regulate, but it doesn't interesting. It certainly does get hot, i'm just not sure how long it would last, but there we go. It is very typical of what we've come to expect from products like this: the construction that is designed for a high speed output and if the insulation did fail - and they do seem to have taken effort to its silicon sleeve, cable, it's silicon sleeving over that the.

If it did fail, it could potentially make this plate live, and i think your cup's potentially going to remove a lot of this paint over time. But it's not a huge risk so semi-acceptable for use, but not really a good choice in general.

14 thoughts on “Hot pink and dangerous just how we like it”
  1. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars RS says:

    I would have loved a schematic diagram cause this is very complicated stuff to comprehend without !

  2. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Franko Walker says:

    If you left it for too long, you would find your cup dry and stuck down with pink melted plastic. LOL.

    I could see the thin wire for a split second a couple of times, when it caught the light just at the right time.

  3. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars UpLateGeek says:

    Wait, was that a US American plug? And a 220V rating? Something tells me this is designed for 120V, at which voltage it would dissipate around 5W instead of almost 20. It would still get bloody hot, just not as quickly.

    Coincidentally, I think you've also found the best way to fix this. Open it up, cut the wire and throw it in the bin.

  4. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Lumibear says:

    Here kind westerners, place your conductive liquids on this unregulating unprotected unfused mains powered death trap that we made for you, we painted it pink so it canโ€™t hurt you.

    Thanks Clive youโ€™re doing good works.

  5. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars craxd1 says:

    That's one of the cheap ones, and BTW, they don't work worth a crap with any cup other than a single-walled stainless steel one.

    I use the COSORI, which has both an on/off switch, and temperature control that comes with its own cup. It operates from a 24 volt wall wart.

  6. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Quanchy Plimp says:

    More Chintzy crap, manufactured purely for landfill and profit. A cup of tea or coffee never lasts long enough to warrant wasting money on this thing.

  7. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Peter Shipley says:

    hey remind us of a project I never finished decades ago.

    a couple friends and I were going to convert old 486's into coffee mug warmers.

  8. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Counterhitcombo says:

    We appreciate you, Clive. I'm no electrician, more someone who used to take all his toys to bits. I really enjoy your content. I wish I didn't live in an apartment to where I had room to just tear shit down.

  9. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars werxeh says:

    That vibrating feeling when running your hand over a painted surface is concerning. I have a 45W LED grow light panel without a ground and the metal on the back of that has that feeling. Touching it with a wet hand once was not pleasant, I kept meaning to test it with a multimeter but I stopped using it entirely after the wet hand incident. Basically the back is live to some degree though.

  10. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars soundspark says:

    In the USA we have that style of 2-prong plug, but it usually has holes, though not required to.
    Holes are said to be for manufacturing purposes (i.e. for molding jigs or punch press indexing) but are not mandatory.

  11. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Mike Cowen says:

    Clive, we call them wire nuts in the states. If sized properly, and the wire stripped to match, they work great. At least they did use the "better" ones with the gripper spring (which should not stretch).

  12. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars DC Allan says:

    I wonder how long it would run for, before something just gave up. Ithought the hole was for spills to drain but it looks like the sides have moulded in walls. 2x๐Ÿ‘

  13. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars Peter Stimpel says:

    Being a software developer, I can tell this device would kill my few social skills. Whenever my coffee gets cold, I need to stand up, get out of my "tunnel", walk to the coffee machine and grab hot one. I meet other colleagues there, and this is a good thing. This device therefore is splitting societies, right? Conspiracy level 17, why China floods our markets with such devices … ๐Ÿ™‚

  14. Avataaar/Circle Created with python_avatars BRUXXUS says:

    I like to imagine someone using this for the first time, stepping away for a moment, then coming back to their desk to find their mug of coffee literally boiling over. ๐Ÿ˜‚

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