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Mad Modding on your toes.
Bernd:
Interesting thing about water heaters. I have electrical instant on electrical water heaters for my house. The water is run right through the electrical element to heat the water. Now I believe the electrical hot water tanks, the elements are also surrounded by water. Remember you need to be grounded to get electricuted.
Almost the same thing as a bird sitting on an electrical wire of several hunderd or thousand volts. He dosen't get electricuted because the bird is not grounded. Now touch him with a ground wire and you'd have instand cooked bird, defeathered too, I would assume.
Bernd
Dean W:
Bernd, water can surround the elements because they are not actually the electrical conductor. What we look at as electrical elements are tubes, and inside the tube is a wire surrounded by a medium, kind of like a of clay or some sort of granular insulator. Similar to the elements on a hot plate. They have no current at the surface. The wire inside heats it from the inside out, and is only conductive at the two ends that plug in. Pretty smart, the guy who thought that one up.
Dean
Bernd:
Have to disagree with you on this one Dean. The elements of my instant water heater are nicrome wire I believe and the water surrounds them. No clay or anything between the water and the element.
So as the saying goes :worthless: Here are some pics of my water heater.
Here's what the whole unit looks like. Two elements for heating the water as it flows through the plastic tubes, plus the assorted electronics to make sure the water is at the right temp.
Here's an end view looking down one of the heating tubes (with out the element).
Here are two elements. The one on the left is the old style with a crimp connection. They kept breaking there. The one on the right is the newer style with a screw holding the lelement.
This shows how they are installed. Simply slide them in and fasten the two screws on top.
A bit of a better view showing how they fit.
Upside down, but shows the water connection. Plus shows the tubes were the elements are in plus the water tubes on both side. There are internal holes where the water flows through. Third picture you can see a little white spot in the tube without an element, on the right side of the tube.
And here are the specs of the heater.
So, water can flow over a wire with electric in it. As long as you don't complete the circuit to ground you won't get electicuted. Next time you see a lineman work on a high voltage power line, notice the the bucket he is in is a fiberglass bucket and not sheet metal or aluminum.
Bernd
Dean W:
--- Quote ---Have to disagree with you on this one Dean. The elements of my instant water heater are nicrome wire I believe and the water surrounds them. No clay or anything between the water and the element.
--- End quote ---
Perfectly good reason to disagree, too, Bernd. We're talking about different types of heaters, so we can both be correct. In my previous post, I was referring to the kind of element that Stot shows in his teapot, which is similar to one in a tank type water heater.
--- Quote from: Bernd on May 24, 2010, 04:31:32 PM --- Now I believe the electrical hot water tanks, the elements are also surrounded by water. Remember you need to be grounded to get electricuted.
Bernd
--- End quote ---
In the kind used in a tank or that teapot, there is no current at the surface of the element. It's made differently than your tankless heater. I took one apart years ago because I couldn't figure how it could work. If you put an ohm meter on the two terminals it shows a closed circuit, but if you put the meter on a terminal, and on the outside of the element right next to it, it shows infinite ohms. An open circuit. So I pulled one of the terminals out, and out came a zig-zag piece of thin wire with the clay type stuff.
I didn't take any pictures of the one I pulled apart, but found a shot of a burned out one on the interwebs. You can see the outside tube, which is insulated by the white stuff inside it. About the middle of the picture, you can see the coil of wire that goes through the middle of the insulator from one terminal to the other.
Dean
Photo credit to Country Town Maintenance.
Bernd:
Looks like we've solved another one of those lifes mysteries. :nrocks:
Nice to know that we are both right. Let's see two rights equals a left, right? :lol: :lol:
On to new subjects then.
Bernd
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