Travel Heater

"archierob" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I have Googled like mad but still cant find any supplier in the UK of
those small cup immersion coils that plug in nicely into the mains and
can save you a bomb on cups of coffee - which I admit I cant even
start my day without, yes sad I know. They have them in the States so
its crossed my mind that they may be banned here.

Any suggestions.

Apparatus
=======

Piece of wood around 6" x 1 1/2" x 1/4" with two parallel slots in it,
around 2" - 3 " apart

Two metal table knives

Short length of mains flex, 13A plug on one end, bare wires on other.

Method
=====

Table knives through slotsin wood: live wire connected to one knife handle,
neutral wire to other knife handle.

Fill china mug with water.

Use wood across top of mug so both knife blades dangle in water, not
touching each other at any point.

Plug in.

Wait. Don't touch!!!

Watch water boil. Don't touch!!!

Unplug, then remove knife/wooden support assembly

Add coffee, milk, sugar to taste.

(not to be attempted by children ..... )
----
IanH

ian henden said:

Apparatus
=======

Piece of wood around 6" x 1 1/2" x 1/4" with two parallel slots in it,
around 2" - 3 " apart

Two metal table knives

Short length of mains flex, 13A plug on one end, bare wires on other.

Method
=====

Table knives through slotsin wood: live wire connected to one knife handle,
neutral wire to other knife handle.

Fill china mug with water.

Use wood across top of mug so both knife blades dangle in water, not
touching each other at any point.

Plug in.

Wait. Don't touch!!!

Watch water boil. Don't touch!!!

Unplug, then remove knife/wooden support assembly

Add coffee, milk, sugar to taste.

(not to be attempted by children ..... )
----
IanH

(Loud Knocking at door, Health & Safety inspector enters stage right)

--
Best Wishes from Martin

So many questions, so few answers.

PGP Key ID, 0x581E4CE1

ian henden said:

Watch water boil. Don't touch!!!

That's not boiling, thats hydrogen and oxygen being evolved..

Don't get a spark nearby or you'll know about it..

...d

"archierob" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

I have Googled like mad but still cant find any supplier in the UK of
those small cup immersion coils that plug in nicely into the mains and
can save you a bomb on cups of coffee - which I admit I cant even
start my day without, yes sad I know. They have them in the States so
its crossed my mind that they may be banned here.

Any suggestions.

If you really must have these people will ship you one.
www.walkabouttravelgear.com/

Ken

David Martin said:

Quoted message said:

Watch water boil. Don't touch!!!

That's not boiling, thats hydrogen and oxygen being evolved..

That reminds me of something.

I was looking through the box my mum keeps of Grandpa's war stuff the
other day, and came across a carbon copy of a report he wrote from
occupied Germany. The final paragraph read something like, "In
another incident, 15 Russians died during an attempt to distill petrol
into alcohol."

"David Martin" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

ian henden said:

Watch water boil. Don't touch!!!

That's not boiling, thats hydrogen and oxygen being evolved..

Don't get a spark nearby or you'll know about it..

Beg to differ, first hand experience has found that water will boil with
mains electricity passing through it. Have demonstrated it in a lab. As
for explosion from hydrogen and oxygen ...nah.....too well ventilated
however a stoichometric mix confined by soap bubbles in a stailess steel
salad dish makes one hell of a bang when ignited...the kids I first
demonstratd the effect to thought it was snowing in the theatre....the
shockwave had dislodged loads of dust from the rafters.....

Before the H&S Gestapo grab their riding crops for some advisory
discipline......full risk assessments were made and agreed with LEA before
demonstrations.....

Got fed up with the increasing restrictions and risk aversion in science
education and migrated to ICT

vernon said:

Beg to differ, first hand experience has found that water will boil with
mains electricity passing through it. Have demonstrated it in a lab. As
for explosion from hydrogen and oxygen ...nah.....too well ventilated
however a stoichometric mix confined by soap bubbles in a stailess steel
salad dish makes one hell of a bang when ignited...the kids I first
demonstratd the effect to thought it was snowing in the theatre....the
shockwave had dislodged loads of dust from the rafters.....

B3ta had a post a few weeks ago where someone was attempting to fry
sausages by passing 240V through them. It didn't work especially well,
but there was a lot of smoke.

archierob said:

I have Googled like mad but still cant find any supplier in the UK of
those small cup immersion coils that plug in nicely into the mains and
can save you a bomb on cups of coffee - which I admit I cant even
start my day without, yes sad I know. They have them in the States so
its crossed my mind that they may be banned here.

Quoted message said:

Any suggestions.

I have one I bought in the NL before I moved here - as far as I can
remember it was a very common thing to buy. So maybe you can get one
somewhere on the continent, may be easier than from the US. You will need
an adapter though.
Quick Googling only came up with ones that plug into the 12V thingy in the
car on uk websites.

And this, uk website, us store, price in £?
http://www.magellans.co.uk/store/Appliances___Food___BeverageEF226?Partner_ID=AW

Roos

Bertie Wiggins said:

David Martin said:

Quoted message said:

Watch water boil. Don't touch!!!

That's not boiling, thats hydrogen and oxygen being evolved..

Nope. You used to be able to buy electric kettles in Austalia
that did just that - there were two discs about 2" in diameter
about 1/4" apart, connected directly to the mains. We had one
when I were a lad. They worked. Life was, apparently, cheap.

The more modern replacement had a coil of resistance wire
connected between live and neutral, on a ceramic former in
the water. You used to be able to buy replacement elements in
little buff coloured envelopes that you had to wind onto the
former and fix to the screw terminals on either end. Until we
moved here to the UK in 1984 we used one - in fact we bought it
with us but once the element blew we had no way of getting
a replacement in the UK. They blew relatively frequently,
either from not putting enough water in (They'd glow briefly red
if uncovored) or by leaving them boiling for too long. The
only thing that stopped you electrocuting yourself was the fact that
the lid had to be closed to plug the mains cord into the kettle.
The kettle I had as a student had a broken lid, and the element was
well exposed. But then, in Australia, men are men, and sheep
are nervous.

--
Nobby

vernon said:

"David Martin" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

ian henden said:

Watch water boil. Don't touch!!!

That's not boiling, thats hydrogen and oxygen being evolved..

Don't get a spark nearby or you'll know about it..

Beg to differ, first hand experience has found that water will boil with
mains electricity passing through it.

Didn't say it wouldn't.. just adding to the flavour of the discussion.

Quoted message said:

Have demonstrated it in a lab. As
for explosion from hydrogen and oxygen ...nah.....too well ventilated

Maybe. depends how big a cup of water you boil and in what space..

Quoted message said:

however a stoichometric mix confined by soap bubbles in a stailess steel
salad dish makes one hell of a bang when ignited...the kids I first
demonstratd the effect to thought it was snowing in the theatre....the
shockwave had dislodged loads of dust from the rafters.....

;-)

Quoted message said:

Before the H&S Gestapo grab their riding crops for some advisory
discipline......full risk assessments were made and agreed with LEA before
demonstrations.....

We used to do the custard powder tin, clay pipe and candle trick but
couldn't get it to go effectively. Filling the tin with neat oxygen was
a good way to improve the result. I wonder if the dents are still there
in the lab ceiling.

Quoted message said:

Got fed up with the increasing restrictions and risk aversion in science
education and migrated to ICT

And that could start another rant about stimulating kids interest in
Science. It's far more fun if you can make things go bang, and seeing
bits of pot fly across teh room/things go bang/ things catch fire in a
very 'do not hold this in your hand when you do this if you want a hand
left' way is great for stimulating interest. Otherwise it becomes yet
another plastic wrapped sanitised boring [censored] lesson that teachers
don't like teaching and kids don't like learning.

H&S are all screwed up. It should be about teaching people to do
dangerous things safely. Instead we take things that have been made
'safe' and let people do dangerous things with them.

...d

Roos Eisma said:

And this, uk website, us store, price in £?

I expect they are not British Standard compliant.

"Bertie Wiggins" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Roos Eisma said:

And this, uk website, us store, price in £?

I expect they are not British Standard compliant.

I think you will find it hard to obtain a UK 240v one (for the obvious
safety reasons with the power of the electricity) - you'll find them for
110v in the US as the electricity is so pathetic that it only gives you a
bit of a tingle. I'm sure I've seen them in Wal-Mart in the US (down near
the hunting, shooting and fishing, guns and ammo section) Getting a 110v
one would of course work in a multi-volt shaver socket in the UK

RG

Bertie Wiggins said:

Roos Eisma said:

And this, uk website, us store, price in £?

I expect they are not British Standard compliant.

Found one:

http://www.magellans.co.uk/store/Appliances___Food___BeverageEF226?Partner_ID=AW

or

http://tinyurl.com/e35ss

ú12.85

--
Nobby

RG said:

"Bertie Wiggins" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
news:[email hidden]...

Quoted message said:

Roos Eisma said:

And this, uk website, us store, price in £?

I expect they are not British Standard compliant.

I think you will find it hard to obtain a UK 240v one (for the obvious
safety reasons with the power of the electricity) - you'll find them for
110v in the US as the electricity is so pathetic that it only gives you a
bit of a tingle. I'm sure I've seen them in Wal-Mart in the US (down near
the hunting, shooting and fishing, guns and ammo section) Getting a 110v
one would of course work in a multi-volt shaver socket in the UK

No it wouldn't because it would draw way over the shaver socket rating.
OTOH for something that is a resistive heater like that a suitably
beefy diode in the live wire works well enough at reducing 240V to 120V
(quasi AC with a 60V offset!)

--
Tony

"I did make a mistake once - I thought I'd made a mistake but I hadn't"
Anon

David Martin said:

We used to do the custard powder tin, clay pipe and candle trick but
couldn't get it to go effectively.

My chemistry teacher used to do that one and seemed to have no trouble
making it work - but then he was a pyromaniac and probably practised
lots.

Quoted message said:

And that could start another rant about stimulating kids interest in
Science. It's far more fun if you can make things go bang, and seeing
bits of pot fly across teh room/things go bang/ things catch fire in a
very 'do not hold this in your hand when you do this if you want a hand
left' way is great for stimulating interest.

Oh yes. Same chemistry teacher once made me hold a piece of burning
cordite and promised it would burn out before it reached my fingers...
that was fun!

Quoted message said:

H&S are all screwed up. It should be about teaching people to do
dangerous things safely. Instead we take things that have been made
'safe' and let people do dangerous things with them.

Hear, hear.

d.

Can you run one from a Shimano NX30 hub, or would you need a Schmidt?
-rory

archierob said:

I have Googled like mad but still cant find any supplier in the UK of
those small cup immersion coils that plug in nicely into the mains and
can save you a bomb on cups of coffee - which I admit I cant even
start my day without, yes sad I know. They have them in the States so
its crossed my mind that they may be banned here.

Any suggestions.

Cheers.

I had trouble finding these on the web as well but they are available
in the small independant electical or village hardware store. I
suspect their suppliers catalogue is no longer on the web. There is at
least one in my local store labelled LYVIA cup heater. They seem to
have overcome the HSE by having a non resetting overtrip, so if it
overheats it's dead. £9.99.
Mike.

David Martin said:

H&S are all screwed up. It should be about teaching people to do
dangerous things safely. Instead we take things that have been made
'safe' and let people do dangerous things with them.

I vaguely remember a snippet from a radio comedy in which a character
played by Stephen Fry was being questioned about whether he understood
some Health & Safety issue: "Do you know anything about Health and
Safety?"

The reply was pure Fry: "As luck would have it I am Lucasian Professor
of Health and Safety at Trinity College, Cambridge."

I was just googling for the details when I discovered to my shock and
horror that there really are professors of Health and Safety.

--
Dave...

Zog The Undeniable said:

vernon said:

Beg to differ, first hand experience has found that water will boil
with mains electricity passing through it. Have demonstrated it in
a lab. As for explosion from hydrogen and oxygen ...nah.....too
well ventilated however a stoichometric mix confined by soap bubbles
in a stailess steel salad dish makes one hell of a bang when
ignited...the kids I first demonstratd the effect to thought it was
snowing in the theatre....the shockwave had dislodged loads of dust
from the rafters.....

B3ta had a post a few weeks ago where someone was attempting to fry
sausages by passing 240V through them. It didn't work especially
well, but there was a lot of smoke.

240V through a gherkin is a party trick of mine. Glows orange. Sodium ions
getting excited, I presume. I imagine there's a bit of chlorine given off
too, though, which is a worry.

--
Ambrose