I've seen some 400W heaters shaped like a teddy bear for around 5 pounds, those might be worth taking a look at too, seems like a cute instrument of death

I was expecting a desk-on-fire-setter but it's actually got safety features.

@3:21 - 'Oh, a slight vibration off this' - that's how it gives infinite pleasure, Clive.

Anyone else end up rooting for the little thing? "It'll overheat and not cut out if I put it down flat." *cuts out* "It won't start up again." *starts up again* "It can't shrink heat-shrink." *shrinks heat-shrink*

"Let's test that... by giving it... the finger test." Excellent content :D

Clive, as long as you keep taking interesting things to bits, I shall be pleasured... Perhaps not infinitely, but pleasured none the less.

When I clicked on the thumbnail I expected this to be a "150 watt" USB-powered heater.

The old electrician's rule: red is black and plus is minus.

7:50 that motor is an RF300, a very good (high efficency) motor. Runs in either direction, can output some torque. Forgot the exact specs, but was somewhere 0.5 to 6V.

1:37 The way I remember it is that an axial fan is the one that moves air along its axis (ie a normal fan), whereas a radial fan moves air along its radius (ie a side blower fan).

I've got two of these living in an outdoor mini-greenhouse with a DIY thermostat controller to keep it above 15 degrees in winter....so far they have lived semi-outdoors for 2 straight years and are still working. Very impressed!

i have one of these. I use to use it in the office because 45 year old women wanted aircon on in winter because they were hot, so the rest of us had to suffer with freezing aircon. this helped keep my fingers warm on my desk for several years.

Love the video, I use these little heaters for small off grid applications and I ended up adding a diode in series with the element which cut the start up current down by 50% and constant output reduced by 5%.

I think that the airflow of such blower can't be reversed (it never pulls air in). With the motor running in reverse, it would still blow, but with a different efficiency.

Thanks for another great tear-down video, Clive. I've got one of these heaters and you've given me a peek inside. It's good that they took the trouble to add a zener to prevent the reservoir cap from exploding if the motor goes open circuit as of course it will do in time being a tiny brush-motor. A pity though that they didn't add a current in-rush limiting resistor to protect the contacts in the switch. I've noticed a sharp crack from the switch on occasions at switch on indicating a surge if it hits the peak of the mains waveform by chance. I don't suppose the switch will survive too long before failure because of that. Perhaps thanks to your disassembly demo I'll add a limiting resistor at some stage!

You take the infinite pleasure heater apart, I’ll have a beer and smoke. Keep up the good work fella

a common thing in the old days of hair dryers is they tapped off the heating element to power the fan, so no caps or bridge, just a diode.

Huh, I honesty though he would jam the thermal switch and power the PTC module alone to see where smoke would come out first

Always a great way to discharge capacitors: the finger test, the tool everyone has at hand. 👌

If you wire the fan to run in reverse, it will still blow out the front, but very much reduced, it's a centrifugal fan.

you talking about the fan and it possibly fouling the housing and making a noise reminded me of something that happened some years ago . My ex used to work for a council in the U.K clearing rubbish and taking things from houses for people when they wanted something disposed of . She went to a house and collected a microwave cooker , quite an upmarket one . Instead of taking it to the tip she brought it home for me to take a look at it . Plugged it in and there was a horrendous screeching noise . Out came the screwdrivers , off came the cover and yes , the fan had moved on its shaft . Eased it out , mixed some Araldite , put back together and bingo , we had a microwave . The thing was like new inside and out , hardly used if at all . She collected it from an affluent area so chances are it was bought , plugged in and made the noise so they just bought a new one and threw this one out . Lucky us

Outstanding! A Big Clive tear down and I just sat down for tea.

Clive, the vibration is the infinite pleasure!

Got one of these based on this video to help dry out my car after a big rain leak and it’s done a great job on one side but the bimetallic strip broke after 3 days of it being turned on before I could dry the other side. Neat little unit though, not too hot to damage anything just not up to constant use.

You're a legend Clive! Always some random item of interest, have a terrific new year.

"And I want infinite pleasure" ... got me a new message alert tone, lol. As ever, great vid Clive.

Clive is the only one I know who would _hotwire_ a heater.

I have no clue what you're talking about 90% of the time but yet i never miss a video!

To be honest, I was surprised by the thermal safety cutout... And then surprised again when I saw it self-resets! I imagined it would be the "unplug-allow unit to cool-plug back in" reset procedure many US heaters have. To have a fuse before the power switch is a nice safety feature that not even Weller soldering stations have.

wow its funny how i found one of these recently brand new at a thrift store for $5, its awesome to see hes taking one apart now lol saves me time

I have one of those only in black and it was marketed as a fingernail polish drier . I used it in my car to defrost the windshield while my heater fan was on the fritz. Greetings from the middle of Minnesota.

I remember when I took apart a broken camera after I'd been testing it, I thought it wouldn't be that dangerous running on 2 AAs, I bridged the capacitor for the flash and ended up with 2 deep scorches on my finger, its probably the worst shock I've ever had and I've been shocked by a 100kv HT lead on a car. I think the biggest thing was that the capacitor felt like it passed allot of current over a longer period of time which ended up burning my finger pretty badly.

That's why I love your content.. Haha! oh let's see what kind of High voltage is stored in this capacitor key word "high voltage"! With the old finger test.... Lol made my night!

I love your videos. I watch all of them. I would love if you did a more in depth tutorial about switch model and capacitor dropper power supplies. I personally would like to grasp a better concept of these.

I've got one of these. I get cold hands frequently and this device really helps.

I'm still waiting for my chinese automatic house ignitor to arrive that I ordered before christmas, need to get warmed up by dangerous heater products, this one is just too safe with its' thermal cutout safety feature!!! :P

5:33 “we’re screwed”. Well you said you wanted to enjoy the infinite pleasure....

500W With Flaming Sales Information 🔥!!!! I can’t wait 😊 to see what the 2-3 stacked PTC Elements is gonna be like!!!! I’m looking forward to seeing that video!!!!!

That's FAN-tastic, at least it has the thermal cut out. I didnt realise the ptc would get that hot.

I like the way the thermal fuse doesn't cut out the fan.

I’m at the reverse engineering part right now and I’m Really Hoping That You Just Assumed The Fan Polarity Before The Video Is Over!!!! Fingers Crossed 🤞🏻 You Blew It Up 💥!!!!

Lol,"its not doing anything to the heat shrink!" Then it shrinks slowly! Had a good laugh at that timing!

@bigclivedotcom - At 14:55, when run in "reverse" by your apparent definition, less air is flung out at a given RPM, but the fan also stops having the annoying habit of pulling more power when the inlet is blocked/less when the outlet is blocked. In the case of this little heater, a polarity-reversing switch on the fan power will give the unit 2 different heat outputs, because at low airflow, the PTC resistance element will run at lower power. By the way... At a higher RPM, those centrifugal/radial fans still move plenty of air when run "backwards", and create significant pressure if necessary to achieve that flow. I've seen them used to drive a minor hurricane of air through rather restrictive HEPA filters, for a once-through air supply to hospital operating rooms. (No recycling of germy air!) The same principles apply to centrifugal pumps for various liquids, and vanes all pointed straight out radially from the shaft also work, with characteristics somewhere in between those of forward-swept and reverse-swept blades.

Now that Clive has had the infinite pleasure, will he continue to take things to bits?

I absolutely need a t-shirt with 10:35's "mumble mumble, ramble ramble. poke. fumble, fumble" on it.

I accidentally did the finger test on a faulty 4K monitor last week that had been switched off and unplugged for a month. I had 2 tiny marks on the surface of my skin and a dark line between them about 5-7mm deep under the skin. I learned some new words that day.

i brought one of these on amazon, it arrived today and works fine actually

Nice little heater. Thanks for the year down. Could actually be useful for something, can't beat the price if it is!

Fan-heater Minor, never leave minor's unattended. Speaking of minor's, no F-sharp's were struck when a finger touched the hot surface. Good control there, good review as always.

I just bought one of these and since I had to take it apart to bring the heating element wires out separately (I'm hacking a little temperature control system for the tent of my 3D printer) I was looking at the power supply and thought, "Big Clive should have a look at one of these... if he hasn't already". Went looking and here it was. :)

I like your way of walking us through various "automatic house fire" contraptions, small armpit heaters like this one and hackable led lights. Have you put together a video of your bench tools, safety measures (like your fire tin), what is the connector you use to hook up mains voltage with? I've looked on your channel for one but I wasn't comprehensive. I really liked your video about your mom. Thanks for sharing.

😂 the information I get from these videos is immense, but the comedy is sometimes just too much. 😂😂😂

The best "small~ish" heater I have is my Core 2 Duo laptop with a Dedicated Nvidia GPU, that's how you get nice and toasty on the go

I believe these are typically used more for drying your nails. Cold Hands Club where you at

The power lead appears to actually be to US plug standards. The holes in the blades are the US/North American standard whereas the straight/plain blades with no holes is the Chinese version.

Actually that build quality is pretty top of the line for gadgets, wire routing as you pointed out, tab on the lid to hold the mains socket steady, thermal disconnect, everything screwed in, and minimal parts to reduce failure. The only issue with cheap Chinese stuff is you never really know unless you take it apart as you did but they did a nice job on that I think.

I use one of these for camping where electricity is available. If you have a small separate sleeping area (like a Japanese sleeping compartment) it will prove useful!

I have a bathroom fan that has the same shaft style (tight plastic, no clamp). Of course, twice now I have had to open it and re-melt the plastic tight and now I have a clamp...but it still sits and stalls from softening over time from the heat generated along the motor shaft.

Thanks for sharing, expertise and British humour, we want more !

I believe these type of heaters are actually for finger nail polish

Cute little device, but I certainly would not take my eyes off it when it’s powered up. Thank you for showing it.

Clive I would love to see you set this on it's vent and run it until it distorts or catches on fire. I'm sure that would be an entertaining thing to watch!

At the 5C inside Clive's apartment he could use that heater to keep his porridge warm while he eats it.

I have one vary similar to this thing but 12V for automotive battery. Works quite well to get the chill out of the cab until the regular heater ever tries to warm up. Defrost the wind shield quite fast too.

I'll order one of these too to add to my "But, Big Clive said so!" collection. :)

Noticed the grille was installed with the rough, holes punched side facing out. Was this as shipped? I'd have the soft face showing.

Thank you Sir, I would definitely buy that for my industrial use

Thank you for taking this apart so I don't have to destroy the one my wife got and then hide it...

Self regulates and makes low level heat... That might be something that could be hackable into heating for pets. Like a reptile enclosure, bird cage, or a small dog house. (At least if it doesn't outgas much after breaking in for a while.) Heater itself would need some weather and/or mess proofing (likely by mounting it high and ducting the output elsewhere), but it wouldn't be too hard to make it circulate into a bigger enclosure that it helps keep warm. And perhaps controlling it with an external thermal switch, if the enclosure that it helps heat isn't too drafty.

Something like this would've been useful for me at our old office. My desk was under the first vent after the air handler, resulting in a freezing cold stream of air blowing on my neck all day. On one of my early morning starts, I grabbed a ladder and shut the vent, the next day someone from building services came and opened it again. I asked why and he said the ladies were complaining about too much cold air. I was basically forced to sit at my desk with the hood of my hoodie up all the time, even in the middle of a hot Australian summer. It might not have kept the back of my neck warm, but at least something like this would've helped to keep my hands from freezing! Anyway, a while later I was speaking to the building services manager, and he was boasting that they'd got the efficiency of the A/C so high that the air coming out of the chiller unit was basically 0°C. So I asked him why our server room was over 25°C in summer, and his response was basically mumbling something about it being on a different system, and how IT continually adds more servers and never retires any old ones.

I have used one of these to stop my hands freezing at my desk over 2 winters and it has been great - but I never leave it unattended

Still infinitely better designed than Broans flagship $450 bathroom heater fan combo. I see Chinese can afford self resetting thermal cutout in their $8 items. Yet a masterpiece of $450 American ingenuity uses only a thermal fuse that forces you to replace the heater pack every year. I finally re-engineered their crappy design so now it works. Manual reset thermal breaker with small piezo buzzer in parallel WITH thermal fuse of slightly higher temp rating. Now when the thermal breaker sets, I hear it and I know it is time to disassemble and clean lint out of the heater. Simple push to reset after vacuuming out the heater assembly and good to go for another year or so until needs cleaning again. The thermal fuse is still there to protect catastrophic failure in the event the thermal breaker fails. I did it for you Broan! Engineered your product correctly for you at no additional charge.

That's a neat little package. There is a 12v one for cars, I always meant to get one as my old banger took ages and miles to get warm enough to defrost the windscreen, alas poor car is at rust now in the scrapyard, thus I no longer need one. Good vid that, very interesting. Your wallet must take a hammering as you keep buying things to break up. I bet your neighbours don't lend you anything 🤣🤣🤣

I use a pair to keep the inside of my resin 3d printer warm. A simple temperature controller for a terrarium and some insulation work wonders.

I wonder how it would look on the Flir camera when it’s powering on

All hail the HOPI. Good idea for a t shirt that.

Those little motors are very common indeed. I replaced the disc drive motor in an XBox 360 with one of these I sourced from the vibration motor in a PS2 controller. You can't replace the optical drives in a 360 because Microsoft decided to match the serial #'s to the console. But nothing to stop you from replacing the motor hehe I got the 360 for free because the owner though it was junk - that was 7 years ago and it's still working.

I have one of the ones that plugs into a outlet with no cord it sits on the outlet it self rated at 400 watts @120 volts us warms a small room that is 8X8 foot with my radio station in it works nice to keep your feet warm under the console desk .

Thorough review as usual! Is the airflow sufficient to blow solder fumes away from about 35cm?

I bought this thing just two weeks ago. Very useful when you tend to get cold feet. Also, my heater got a completely different thermal cutoff. It´s like the manufacturer actually watched this video. Now the bimetallic cutoff trips just slightly above working temperature. You block the air intake? *click*, the bimetallic cutoff switches the PTC off within 10 seconds. Even more bizarre, you switch the heater off, you can hear the bimetallic cutoff go "click" because the heater has no airflow anymore, but has residual heat. What else can I say? It´s *tiny*. Size is like four iPhones stacked on top of each other. Weight is like a single iPhone. It is really silent, there is just a faint "whirr" it emits. I could sleep with that. Actually I was falling asleep with the heater within 1 ft next to my head twice. It´s not dead-silent, but it emits the kind of "white noise" some people ( like me ) find immensely useful whilst getting to sleep.

Now I'm going to watch Make trash-wine or moonshine. A bigclive classic

Hello Big Clive, I were doing the "finger test" to drop capacitors with the understanding they were 10,000 to 100,000 pF! A 1 uF polyester capacitor - charged a 1.41x240 V, would have gave you an helluva of a shock between thumb and index finger; genuinely painful. Thank you for the video...

From the image it looked like some kinda 18650 battery bank with some heater feature :-D

Would there be a shock risk if the front metal grill was pushed in at touched the heating element?

I saw one of these at the good will after seeing this video. I had to get it, they branded mine as a jamberry lol. At first I thought it was gonna be a generic raspberry pi , but for $2.99 it was still worth it.

I wonder if a possible safety improvement (at a price of course,) would be to have it set up so the heating element isn't enabled unless the fold out foot is out and providing the necessary airflow? Maybe do-able with a reed switch

I'd like to see you test and tear down a victorian violet wand, they're a big and scary oudin coil usually with super old style wiring. Fascinating units.

I reckon the case needs a little bit more design work to remove the ability to bottom out on the fan and output surfaces.

If it accelerates air outward in a circular motion, it is a centrifugal fan. If the acceleration is relatively linear, i.e. Perpendicular to the rotation, it's an axial fan.

If you had blown that capacitor, you might have been able to do the OG finger test, off Taofledermaus.

I find the finger test usually brings infinite pleasure.

It would not pull the air in. It would still throw it out, but it would have different flow/pressure/speed characteristics. There are in fact radial pumps and blowers that have forward-curved blades. They are typically preferred for low-flow, high-pressure systems whereas backward-curved blowers are favoured in medium-flow, medium-pressure applications. Low, medium, and high here being used in relative terms.

I’ve got one of these heaters. It came in the same box but with both Chinese & English instructions. The lead had a U.K. socket. Rated at 200watts it’s quite a neat little heater for a small room. You barely notice the fan sound. I checked the output temperature with an IR thermometer and it clocked 129°C.

On thermal cut-outs - beware of the possum switch! - I have a heater which has a thermal cut-out that stays "out" once it has been tripped (can make you believe it's a single shot fuse), however, disconnect the power and let it stand for 10~15 minutes, and it will reset itself - It plays possum! - These possum switches have a normal thermal cut-out appearance and operation, but also incorporate a small heating element connected across the contacts such that when the contacts are opened it now sees the current available at the contacts. The heating element now heats up and maintains the heat local to the bi-metal spring, thus keeping it in the "cut out" condition, and will maintain that status indefinitely (until the power is removed). Disconnect the power and let the cut-out cool down, then all is well again. Now then, that fan - It looks like a 'Sirocco' type radial fan, and counter intuitively, they rotate with the concave side of the blades "leading" the way. If you run one backwards (convex side leading) it will still blow air, but is nowhere near as efficient. - Air enters the fan at its hub and is accelerated radially under centrifugal force. This leaves a partial vacuum at the centre of the hub, which draws in more air. As this air is accelerated radially, it forces the air in front of it further out along the blade. Because the blade is curved (concave) the air is forced forward along the curve and is further accelerated as it exits the fan at a massively greater rate (in a sling-shot fashion) than would be possible with a straight bladed fan. All-in-all, this one looks like a halfway decent effort, but even then, I would never leave one unattended. One possible use that comes to my mind would be for heating (baking) old recording tapes to restore their playability.

Looks like a 110/230 version of the 12v car heaters that plug into the cig lighter. I have one of the small 110 heaters that you plug directly into the outlet and it works good in a bathroom and would keep you from freezing in a 12x10 room.

Warning! Do not open, may cause electric shock. He says "Lets test this with my fingers" LOL. I am still laughing. Reminds me of electronics class. We used to charge up 600v caps and put them in the teachers desk. He never learned. Always picked them up and zap.

This might be nice for pre-heating things with a high thermal mass before desoldering/soldering.

These would be good for heating an enclosed 3d printer, I'm sure it would get the air to a nice temp.

I just bought one yesterday from salvos (a thrift shop) for $3 just because it was cheap and I was curious, Mine is a "Jamberry" mini-heater rated at 100w and on the heater grille it has velvet feeling flocking? I don't know what it is but it's nicer than touching a hot grille.

Would this be a handy thing to keep in a tech backpack- for camping and tenting to help heat up a tent with very little room & power consumption?