You have an uncanny knack of explaining things so that even a total electronics newbie like me can understand it.

Very enlightening. About 10-15 years ago I filled the house with remote/home automation stuff from a range called HomeEasy, that used to be stocked by B&Q among others. Most of the lighting switches were TRIAC-based dimmers, and so were incompatible with CFL and early LED bulbs that were phased in shortly after. I retried those in favour of old-school mechanical wall switches, but I kept the socket switches for use with desk lamps, aquarium lighting, computer monitors etc. Over time a good 50% of these have failed in the way described here (the relay failure, not the explosion!) but I kept them because I had a gut feeling it was a relatively simple fix. I thought it might be the actual relays, but I shall have a couple of them apart over Christmas to check their capacitors.

I don't recall ever coming across a resistor failing short circuit. I have heard stories told around engineering department campfires, about a guy who knew a guy, who's cousin had a resistor go short circuit once, but most people think it is just an urban legend.

I love these autopsies. The more catastrophic, the better and this is a beautiful example of such an event. My sympathies about your dead knob, Clive, I can imagine it was very difficult at that juncture.

AvE brought me here. 👍

I love how the explosion metal coated the plastic. Real-life vapor deposition.

I like that Wera driver set.

Talk about leaving an epic skid mark, speaks wonders of using the correct enclosure for mains devices lol

Improved my Sunday no end to hear Clive's dulcet tones uttering the magic words *"What's the worst that could happen?"* Anticipatory thoughts of explosions to come in a video not far from you..(tube)

"The Amecal meter... has just done the Amecal thing". Clive, you've made my day.

Look forward to these vids daily. Never thought something so entertaining could be so clear and educational. Thanks for the time Clive! 😁

I think it may be the "glue of death" - that light to dark brown glue that used in consumer electronics like this. EEVBlog had a video about that glue become conductive in his speakers. In blown unit there definitely was that glue under the yellow capacitor, so probably it got onto that resistor and once it becase conductive enough it just arced across the resistor (which was probably also corroded because of that glue).

Not only is this interesting and informative - your video production quality is excellent.

Ashens reviewed that Wera calender in the 2017 specials.

On the next video: Taking apart and fixing the meter!

A fascinating journey with BigClive and well explain as always. Your a joy to listen too and your knowledge and abilities always lift me up to a better understanding. Superb teacher. Thank you Clive👍

That resistor would carry ¼W under normal use at 233V, more at 240V. Yet it looks like ⅛W in size. Even at nominal 240V² / 220K it exceeds ¼W, and at peak 253V² / 209K it would receive 306mW . If it had been for a 230V±10% plug standard nominal would have been 240mW but tolerance margin still 306mW (all assuming 5% resistor).

Hi Clive. Just want to tell you the more I watch your videos the more I love them. You are one of my top 5 favorite you tubers out there. Thanks for all you do.

bigclive is definately the CSI of electronics when it comes to reconstruction of the failure point!

You, Clive, are a genius. See that? Period

If you ever start a merch line I strongly suggest a shirt that says "This is quite interesting..."

I thought I recognised that screwdriver set from somewhere... It's the Ashens & Nerdcubed advent calendar of the year (2017)!

For years I thought I was imagining electric shocks from unplugged power supplies, usually shocked when rolling up the lead, thanks for clearing this up for me

Good a fellow Scot explaining these bloody things they certainly have a limited life. I have gone through many over the years.

I've learnt so much about basic electronics watching these autopsy videos the last couple years.

A good few models of Yamaha AV-receivers / home theater (5.1-7.1) amplifiers / soundbars use a capacitive dropper in series with a small 50Hz transformer, as part of the stand-by power supply, and that dropper capacitor often fails in this exact manner (loses capacity => no more power-on). I revived a sound-bar a couple years back, by replacing just that part.

Thanks bigclivedotcom. I have 2 of these which have been switching themselves at random times. I checked the 220nf capacitor and sure enough, was reading low Have now ordered a couple of replacements and took you advice on changing the resistors to 470k. Thanks again as I was about to dump them .

Im betting you can fix your meter. That being said have ya ever heard the saying, an electrician's house always needs electrical work, a plumbers house always has a leak, and a carpenter's house always needs carpentry work etc, etc.

Thank you Jake! His tools always drive me nuts haha. I wonder if he realizes how much that calendar was worth.

You opened up all the advent calendar at once? You'll go straight to hell for that! ;)

It looks like one of those ones that LGR made a video on recently that you could control from your computer. early implementation of home automation

AvE sent me. And I am glad.

Excellent and I can't wait to see the meter fix.

AvE brought me here. You showed me some interesting stuff. Now I’m here to stay.

I had that meter problem with the ST-9927T. It was easily fixed, and improved, with some epoxy.

I got the same advent calendar a couple of years ago, nice set. :-)

Well, you know what the Borg says; "Resistance is Futile!"... :P

I've seen similar stunts pulled with neon indicators, little 1/10w resistors in series and crammed inside the neon indicators housing.

And great video on the circuitry

im jealous that's a really nice screw driver set

Ave told me about you, awesome channel brother!!! Can wait to view them all.....

Anxious to see a video on your meter repair! 👍 😁 👌

Thanks Sir for this video, Cripes!, I've got 6 of those, only 2 still work properly. I didn't realise they could explode. Don't know whether to repair the ones that dont respond or switch off at random. I'd like to hope newer designs are better.

High quality screw drivers by Wera, I love these tools, I use nothing else anymore.

The omission of the 7mm socket is bordering on criminal.

I am going to get that driver set. If Clive says "very good", I buy.

That advent calendar killed it on Ashens' and Nerd Cubed's Christmas competition.

That screwdriver set is nice

Hey Clive, just a thought, the Wera ratchet screwdriver I gave you at last year's Glasgow meet up should probably fit into that pouch, in case you wanted to swap it out (it would work quite well with the sockets as well as the driver bits).

Quite the stylish wad of soulder there, Clive. So, where's the NEW smoke and fire? OK, good fix.

Great content, directed here by AvE 👍👍👍

Picking a resistor like this and placing it where it was, is big design fail and doesn't instill confidence. The resistor is underrated, both in power and voltage, and placing it under the capacitor also means its operating conditions have to be derated even further. I had the voltage dropper cap fail on an outside montion sensor lamp. I first thought water or at least dew had somehoe leaked into the sensor, because the lamp was switching on and off all the time, but stopped doing that every day an hour after sunset. At some point it didn't stop at all (but it was still staying off during daylight). I replaced the cap and it worked fine again. I cut the cap open and the metallized layer had degraded. It looked like it had been eaten away by something and also had small weblike breaks in the layer.

i didn't expect it to have thermal fuse. but very good. i plan to modify or build some of my stuff with 1-2 thermal cutoffs in strategic place. i mean if you add mov it's a must anyway. sounds very cheap fire protection measure. might actually test some from bag, who knows if they made them correctly...

Ashens and Nerdcubed have a series of them opening the Wera advent calendar and gradually becoming depressingly aware of how boring they are, or how bad the ones designed for kids are. Can be found on the extraashens channel. Worth a look just to see how insane two men can become.

Clive, i have noticed you haven't used your catchphrase lately and I'm missing it..."One moment please" Oh, i didn't watch long enough...YAY you said it!!!

BLACK SOOT = COOL I worked for a fire investigator and learned that the black soot shows the parts that were cool during the fire. The clean parts were the hottest.

That WERA (not i but e like in the word era) looks really cool. I hate all the tip change tools but that looks really good. I have many Wera screwdrivers and I know that the quality is really high.

@8 min,8 sec-"C'mon, get out" reminded me of the Glasgow tram conductress from my youth ("clippie") whose catch phrase was "C'mon, ge'aff"

I think I'll have to take mine a part and check the capacitor !

I have a little screwdriver kit from Wiha that I bought off ebay. Very nice, compact, many, many bits and a lovely sliding metal case. Though I do like your little kit because it doesn't let the bits fall off until you twist them. (Sounds like life, eh?)

Perhaps a video explaining discharge resistors and their voltage ratings and power dissipation would be a worthwhile follow up video.

Oh, it finally got released :D

That system of wireless household controls reminds me of the BSR "X-10" System. RadioShack/Tandy sold them under their trademark "Plug 'n Power". I wonder if their radio codes and frequencies were compatible?

Oh no! Not déjà ju again!?!? Thanks Clive, well reasoned ... perhaps we should we call you “electronic’s Quincy” in future :-)

The switch on my Amecal 9927 failed too, the plastic moulding on the back of the function knob that drives the switch round failed. I carefully reassembled the broken fragments of plastic with epoxy then surrounded the moulding with a small piece of Perspex sheet with a hole drilled to size and again held in place with epoxy. So far so good !

A little late to the party, but a recent discoverer and fan of your channel. Great work, and could listen to you till the coos came hame! So, as it happens I'm also a Scot, of similar age, and a veteran of Maplin catalogues with a Concorde on the cover! I noticed with this little horror, the labelling on the back actually has the classic 'Chinese CE mark', wrongly spaced yet subtly similar! Acquaintance of mine reckons it stands for 'Chinese Excrement'. Its a nasty dodge they pull when in fact the product has been nowhere near a CE certified testing lab, but since the mark isn't correct CE they don't tech infringe, they simply IP infringe!! (CE marking design is specified in detail in terms of the size, shape, geometry, etc. And ultimately marking is also self-certified!) On the flip side- another quick tale- I designed a product needing tested for CE compliance, had it tested by Inter**k in the UK, passed with flying colours. Manufacturing partner in China, with UK management, raised concerns about a TRIAC rating and we had it retested by TuV, Shenzen...marginally failed! Exact same test parameters to CE under EN/BS standard...so, doubled the amp rating and then all good. Moral, however: not everything in China is dodgy, and not everything in UK, it seems, is better... :)

The screwdriver set from Wera is really expensive, we have them here in Spain from a German company called Bauhaus, like B&Q not sure if its their brand, they sell various packs of high quality kits, screwdriver range kits from 40 euros upwards , individual drivers from 5 upwards. lucky and very nice gift, I have a normal set and a high voltage set with the keys for all the electric cabinet locks etc and fuse removers etc, very high quality, I use mine daily and have not damaged them in 10 years of continual use green and black is non electric, red and yellow electric (no metal in the handle)

Wow...talk about a trip down memory lane. My folks used to have the North American version of these wireless controllers about 28 years ago. If memory serves right, I believe one of them shorted as well but not to the extent as the one you examined. Blast from the past!

The original manufacturer of that failed amecal is Extech

Thanks for sharing:-) Nice rebuild :-)

I sure hope the manufacturer of this product finds this video and sends you some money in gratitude. You just showed them how to improve the quality and longevity of their product. That is definitely worth something. Really enjoyed the video as always. :D

Kind of surprised that iFixit hasn't offered you a sponsorship by now :)

I always say that UK plugs are the best engineered piece of technology because they usually each individually have their own copper fuses inside the plug so that if one plug blows, it doesn't trip the entire circuit to the house. Infact it's very rare for houses in the UK to have their circuits trip with a failed fuse, however that said you can still trip the main circuit if things get too overloaded. It's happened with an all electrical cooker before, turned on the grill for the cooker oven and it caused the mains to cut off because it tripped,.which is rather weird because it wasn't like we were overloading the circuit, but it would keep tripping each time we tried to use the grill on the oven. Eventually it did work OK again without tripping after flipping the switch on the fuse box. It's just too weird for something like that to happen. So I wonder if it was a fault in the circuitry for that cooker that kept tripping.

Wera is not only quite prominent but also an expensive, high quality brand. Wera tools are usually used in industrial environment. In Germany at least.

Realy wanted to see that burned one repaired...😱

Hi, I see the trick of resistor hidend under the capacitor in a chinese alim. I don't understand why a capacitor have 4 legs .... after time, I see the resistor under. Sorry for my poor language, I'm french ! J'ai déjà vu le piège de la résistance cachée sous un condensateur dans une alim chinoise à bas coût. Je me demandais pourquoi un condensateur X2 avait 4 pattes.:-)) Your videos are the better for explanations and I love the picture of circuits you make . Bye from France

It looks like that creamy looking glue that has turned brown may well have started the failure as it go's acid over time and starts conducting & corroding parts, I have repaired or written off many items due to this garbage glue that is still used today (first came across it in the 80's) . I was hoping you were going to do an ohms test on the brown bits of glue .

Was there any of that brownish glue around the resistor leads? That stuff is well known to get conductive over time (and heat) when it turns black.

Very good kit Wera they have four different designs of that model

Next video...autopsy on AMECal.

The Wera advent calender, so much yes!

How cool is that, I've got one of these was turning of by itself. Thought always it was the neighbour with his remote :D now I can fix it, thanks !

At Christmas I will send you an advent calendar that I saw last year. It was by Haynes, the Owner's Workshop Manual folks and each window contained an electronic component. Once you'd opened them all, you had all you needed to build an FM radio.

I read autospy and was interested

I have three on order. I hope they last for a while,but if they do fail,I now have a good idea where to look.

I would love to get one of those toolkits as featured by Ashens.

Clive, can you add a full description/link for the tool-set please.

If the fixed one blows up will you revisit it

At first glance and using the SWAG method ... I would hazard that it got "tagged" by lightning ... a near hit to the line that causes a high induced spike or a direct hit somewhere back down the AC distribution supply lines . At least that is what it reminds me of . As a wiser man than myself said to me when I was young and just starting out ... "with a lightning tag , all the bets are off" .

It’s 5:39 am what the hell am I doing? Watching videos on KZfaq.

Ashens & Nerd3 opened the screwdriver advent calendar last year on the ExtraAshens channel.

Congratulations Clive on your Wera screwdriver set. Hopefully you wont go back to lead tipped screwdrivers again :)

I was looking at some of these (for U.S. current). What I really wanted was one that I could wire into my wall switch so it wouldn't need a battery for the remote and so I could use one switch to control it and the one outlet that is already connected to the switch. What I discovered? If there was such a product there didn't seem to be a way to search through all the other options to find what I was looking for, and the things that were the closest to what I wanted were for some reason 5x as expensive as the ones that used batteries.

OMG, my new message tone, 6:56 "there's a big skid mark over here, not where I was expecting it" Don't think of it with your eyes shut...

Interesting, one of the leccy board energy saving guys came around years ago and gave me a load of energy saving bulbs and a set of those exact remote sockets so I guess the ones you have are likely similar provenance. Mine are barely used but I'll be doing some preventative maintenance if I do.

Those look like UK X10 modules. Still have a large collection of the US versions, but never had one blow up. In fact, I fixed a couple of unresponsive 70's-era modules by replacing the leaky 'lytics. :D

I had that advent calendar, such a bizarre thing.

Resistor go POP ! But plasma make it go " B O O M " !! LOL

'Safety resister blew up' - lol

Does the red led still work in the one that exploded 🤔