Hi David, here's a quick excerpt from Wikipedia about the "Jet d'Eau" The fountain on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. "Five hundred litres (132 gallons) of water per second are jetted to an altitude of 140 metres (459 feet) by two 500 kW pumps, operating at 2,400 V, consuming over one megawatt of electricity. The water leaves the nozzle at a speed of 200 km/h (124 mph). When it is in operation, at any given moment there are about 7,000 litres (1849 gallons) of water in the air."

I think its time for the "Mailbag Marathon" All Dave, All Mailbag, All Day! With the ubiquitous mini-teardowns throughout! Thanks for the blog Dave. More Mailbag! More Mailbag! More Mailbag! More Mailbag! More Mailbag! More Mailbag! More Mailbag! More Mailbag! More Mailbag!

That timer tear-down brought back some good memories from many years ago. We had this timer that was actually well designed. Instead of pins for when it should be on the pins represented events, one pin to turn the the switch on (mechanical latching switch) and another 'event' to turn the switch off. This allowed an override of both on and off. I thought it was quite well designed! Nothing like remembering some tear-downs from childhood. =)

Dave raging about the proprietary connector made my day. :D

That shutter on the socket is part of a requirement on all UK sockets. We're about the only country in the world with decent, safe, and standardized household sockets! :D

In response to the "Amir the Great" letter, the stamp is for the Chinese New Year. It is the year of the snake. Great show by the way. I know very little about electronics but find your show completely fascinating! Thank you!

The live light project is really cool, I think I might take a stab at building this, really love the viewing experience presented in the videos. +1 to Henri

Those "welded" braided wires in the timer plug send a cold shiver down my spine. I've seen those welds fail in so many desastrous ways, I wouldn't touch anything like that without putting a glob of solder over it.

Me also from Swansea in Wales can confirm that all plug sockets in the UK have that red sliding safety thing inside them to stop kids putting their fingers into the live terminals.

The fuses are only required due to our unusual supply circuits. The rectangular pins may be large, but the contact area is actually very small. A good quality, brand new socket and plug combination can handle 13A. Now, give it five years of usage, and 10A is pushing your luck.

Im envious of that calendar =) those images are beautiful.

Lack of pain does not equate to lack of danger. And our plugs are designed the way they are for a very good reason. You might research them a bit.

You never did a teardown on those pacemakers O__o

Dave, those packing peanuts look the biodegradable starch variety. You can give them to Mrs. EEVBlog and she can dissolve them in water and use them as fertilizer for her oasis.

Yeah, All modern UK sockets use that shutter, they are really good - feel very safe and solid to use!

EEVblog What happened to the tear-down of the pacemakers? I'm very interested in it and didn't see it anywhere.

I loled at many things this time. Especially that rage rant about the power connector at the end. Almost felt like it was a rage quit.

In addition to connecting you electrical devices to the mains, they serve as an excellent makeshift blunt weapon in the case of a burglary!

Italian plugs are half-insulated as well, and we have a double 10/16A standard fro them. I consider it a good thing they unplug if pulled. If you trip on the cable, you don't risk destroying the appliance, it just unplugs. UK schuko plugs also are twice as bulky. I like the fact UK plugs have a fixed pin design though, in ours neutral and live can be swapped just by rotating the plug 180 degrees.

Gravity didn't kill your camera, Mr. Z. The extremely high acceleration that occurred at the end of the fall killed it. :D

And you feel you heart beating stronger for a few mins. It's nasty. And if you cut a live 220v cable with a pair of cutter, it's gonna take a chunk out of them !. In NA we don't constantly plug and unplug 220/240V appliances. All the consumer electonics are 110/120V so we are less likely to get shocked on that voltage. We have oven, dryer, heating, hot water tank and AC on 220V/240V, so unless you have a garage with a compressor, welder, plasma cutters and etc you don't get to plug/unplug them

our 120V plugs have such short pins it's impossible to accidently put your fingers on the contact before it's disconnected. You really need to try hard. Plus they are small so it makes hooking things up easier :) But the smallness of the 120 plugs are compensated by the bulk of the 240 plugs. (granted 240 is 30 amp min here)

I also hate proprietary DC connectors, because when they fail, getting a replacement is unlikely and the device often dies with the connector.

Put a small coin between line and neutral on a plug with uninsulated pins. Plug it into a socket on a circuit with 10kA PFC, and switch it on. I suggest standing far, far away.

Thank you for clearing that up. i had no clue what the snake was for when i bought it. Amir the Great.

The LiveLight project looks rather nice! One suggestion I'd have is to consider using something like the ATmega32U2 instead of an ATmega32 + FTDI.

I love Geneva. I want to go back so bad. CERN has a great museum.

Australia ones are much the same as BS1363, minus the fuse, with thinner pins. Yes, they do have insulated sections (since 2004, I guess it took them that long to have a plug blow up in someone's face). You'll note I never called yours dangerous.

It's not a law, it's an optional specification. Apple do not use micro-USB connectors on their devices, but they're still legally compliant because they make an adapter available for sale (at a ridiculous price). It's thus pointless, even if it is the right idea.

Snake/Serpent: Year of the Snake stamp set from Canada Post. That one is the internation letter stamp. They're doing a 12-year run for every chinese zodiac sign.

Up to $1000 is free, but after $1000 we need to pay fees which can get quite expensive (I think it starts at around $100-150 and gets higher depending on the item's value). If you don't pay the fees, customs confiscate the items.

That longer ground pin mechanism is the standard here in the UK. I have never seen a socket without it.

All BS 1363 Type G sockets have to have a shutter protecting the pins to be legal in the UK. You tend to get one of 2 shutter designs. The one you saw there, where the longer earth opens the gate, or ones which have a ramp on each gate, and this ramp twists the gates open as the plug is inserted.

The plugs here in the US don't fall out too easily (at least if you get the better designed 3 pin ones with those springs that help hold them in) (the old 2 pin ones will often fall out at the slightest breeze (or more commonly, fall out half way but still work, leaving 2 fully exposed 15 amp metal prongs (just enough space to get a finger in there and give your self a good amount of energy), fun ) (Why drink energy drinks when you can use 15 amp wall outlet which has tons of energy :) )

6:10 - 9:45 the LED live light is better then three quarters of the stuff I saw in CES this year.

Noobs sending mail priority service haha. Another great episode Dave thanks

Microswitch is rated at 16A resistive, 2A inductive load, so 3kW of heater but 480W of motor load

Heeeyyyyy Dave, Don't call our beautiful plugs "weirdass"... AFAIK no plugs beat them for electrical safety... keep up the good work!

Why would I know about UK sockets? I live in Australia.

People who complain about the american plugs being unsafe fail to realize that they are 110v, and our 220's are all 3 pin massive things, actually, some of the 220 plug variants look almost identical to the UK plug shown here. Also, only the low amp devices only use two pins, and they are polarized, and it is near impossible to short the mains with your hands while unplugging, due to the short prongs.

*sees beautiful water sculpture* asks "Wonder how much energy and flow rate that takes" Engineers ftw!

When you do mailbags episodes again, please include the links you get from senders in the description. Thank you! Great episode btw.

We love the mailbag!

Those "sausages" are the typical "Alheira de Mirandela". Very good actually!

The plastic shutter thing is a legal requirement in the UK.

And the water of the Geneva fountain are jetted to an altitude of 140 meters. That you see in that stamp is an Alheira

Re: paper dust : it's to blame on your half ass Swiss letter opener. Just carefully wield a small razor knife or box opener as the razor blade would surely disrupt less fibers.

yeah so if you ever took a shock of 220V/240V and it doesnt hurt you, imagine a 110v shock. It's nothing to warrant the use of super safe plugs. IMHO safety is mostly how you use things, not the things themselves :)

I for one like the Austria/Australia joke. Keep up the good work.

FUDA seems to be a german company. i haven't heard of them either, but the VDE symbol next to it is a good indicator. VDE is a german comission for electrical saftey

Totally. Dave needs to catch up on RF in a bad way. This is an obvious area of deficiency for him. That's part of the reason that "The Signal Path" is such a great video blog.

That stamp on the Canadian letter is a Snake to celebrate the year of the snake.

Our plugs are great, draw 15A at 240V out the wall with no problem. Their only failing is the bulk when trying to shove your telly plug down the back of a TV cabinet and it won't fit, or when you stand on the bastards. And don't forget the mis-rated 13A fuse in everything ;-)

Here in Portugal the mainland is called "Portugal Continental". The fellow countryman probably used google translate.

The stamp in the Portuguese letter is a "alheira", traditionally is made of birds. Because of the Jews prossecussion in Portugal (a long time ago) they were kind of obliged to eat pork and some smoked pork derivatives (like "chouriços") so they wouldn't atract suspects they invented the alheira wich was their substitutes so other people wouldn't know they were jews. Thnx for the great video :) PS: srry for my english I actually am Portuguese

No hatred. And it doesn't hurt. It's low voltage AC, not lightning.

Apparently leaving solder mask off larger tracks decreases resistance ... slightly

"As quickly as posible"...next: oh look, it's a postcard!

I like the old Powerboard Industrial Timeswitches better!!, interesting stuff!!

Serra da Estrela, Portugal. Another David here next time i send you a post card. And that dome isn't anything especial is just a cover to protect the tower from the snow

yeah it friken hertz more and to tell you the truth in england on building sites we uses transformers to reduce it from 240v at 50 hertz to 110v at either 50-60 hertz because if you cut a 110v wire you are less likely to get an electric shock or at least hurt as much from 110v

The custom connector designers want castrating mate. Simple DC plug is all you need. Tear down a battery from a modern consumer grade camera and they have a chip in them that handshakes with the main unit preventing cheaper spare batteries being made. Pro grade stuff has really simple locator spikes and power in to the body. Really frustrates me.

Oh and the plug , the British standard for plugs is very very strict that's why it has the high rated switch and the live and neutral protector i am surprised that the wires are welded on i would expect screw terminals

@ the beginning you mentioned about the Portuguese blog. with the dongle and SDR. Thats Software Defined Radio. Very very interesting. just a $20 usbstick for watching dvb-t and some special software and you can listen all modes between 40 and +-900 Mhz (incl spectrum analiz)

I think there are laws now that prevent specialized power adapters under environmental waste deduction initiatives. I know all phones have to have to support usb now too.

Need to sharpen that knife, also are you allowed to have larger knives there? Such as a 3 or 4 inch folder?

w00t to St. Kitts ON, I have lived there, but currently live about an hour away. :D

Apple was one of the first, its was Apples initiative to use micro usb on all smart phones. ;) See wiki please: Common External Power Supply And look at the pics on the wiki site, looks likes Apple's power adapter with usb. ;) Is not a real law(EU guideline), but if they have signed the paper en law will prevent that they not going to use usb. ;)

As far as i known its only a law in Europe and only for data-enabled mobile phones, all data-enabled mobile phones must use micro usb as power plug. 14 largest telephone companies have sign the EU memorandum of understanding.

It is interesting to see the fancy fonts/naming on a device that (in all luck) will never to be seen by anyone other than the doctor! If people pick pacemakers by appearance alone then they deserve what they get.

Besides, I totally agree that power connectors should'nt be custom fit for every single item just to sell more accessories, it'a a pain in the a**... let's blame Apple for doing so, and Samsung once was notorious for that as well for that (their ear buds plugged to the same place as usb cable and the charger as well)

I don't know what the rules are like in the UK, but in Malaysia many devices don't have an earth plug, and they use UK sockets. Thus the populous is forced to shove a screwdriver into the earth socket every time we want to plug something in. In this case the shuttered sockets surely degrades safety. Agreed that the US sockets suck.

Livelightproject is down. The domain is available for purchase. Anybody know if there is anywhere to get a kit?

at that time, singapore had a wild flu bug. everyone i knew was sick and it was hard to get rid of, not a pandemic though.

1:57 looks like instructions to modify a Realtek RTL-2832 for use in HDSDR (High Definition Software Defined Radio). You can use them as RF spectrum & sweep analysers & lots of other geeky goofiness. :)

I like the idea here, but I'm sure you know someone whose inflections bother you. That's where I'm standing... Lucky guy somehow gets people to send him free stuff!

I've never seen a power socket that didn't have a safety shroud built in.

Decades in fact. One of my first memories is defeating one of these things with a set of knitting needles and getting electrocuted. (I was 6, and my parents had told me not to do it, so of course, it was obviously awesome and i had to be done). That would be very late 70's.

iPhones have never had a micro-USB port. They have proprietary dock connectors. If you would care to read the wiki for yourself, and perhaps even the document, "if a manufacturer makes available an Adaptor from the Micro-USB connector of a Common EPS to a specific non-Micro-USB socket in the Mobile Phone, it shall constitute compliance to this article". store.apple.com/uk/product/MD820ZM/A/lightning-to-micro-usb-adapter?fnode=45 Thanks for playing.

Why wouldn't you? Any engineer would normally be interested.

Thanks Dave for all your efforts. Tyler From Wisconsin USA. Let me know if you like cheese.

I did not know Portuguese was a Continent? I am sure it is not.... There are only seven Continents and Portugal is not one of them, but part or Europe, one of seven Continents.

Apparently not a lot of experience... haha

I vote the sd camera for the next tear down :o)

epic postcard breakdown. keep it up!

16:25 - I wonder if the "LLOYTRON" timer is a knock-off of the American brand "LUTRON" which does high-end lighting control systems. Their typeface and logos seem very similar.

I should send you one of my 8 digit LED displays, I have one with a tonne of blue LEDs, a few LEDs have died and the panel glue came unstuck but hey it was a prototype and ages ago I mentioned about my small display that reminded you of that clock you showed in an old live stream, it's just a monster version of the small display. I should send it and write up some of the info about it and schematic etc

Thats to get past customs and duty. If you declare it at is true cost he would be charged a small fortune!

i sent you a pakage and in it there is a plasma speaker when you get it make shur the spark gap is about hafe of a inch or more

I think i might have a lens for that everio. I bought one and found out the required battery is only 1 cell and not 2 thus blowing out the main board. Ohwell

Not only that - you can eat them. Tastes like cheesy Wotsits with absolutely no flavouring..

You finally have 5 bucks to go and buy a clue :P

in holland it is 8:30 in the morning

Yeah! Having to sit through nearly 27 minutes of this - awful chore. You'd think KZfaq or the browser people would have some kind of... oh, I don't know, switch or control or something. Maybe one day.

Two 2,4kV/500kW pumps are powering this fountain.

them safety things in the plugs are on more or less evry socket now, and have been for years and years, stops kids shocking themselves

Dont ya just hate those proprietary power cables.

I agree. Especially if you consider this your job! Love the show otherwise! keep it up!!

the PrimeAdvanced is an 8-channel implantable neurostimulator...

Google Nexus 7