top | item 34088917

(no title)

Dalrymple | 3 years ago

This high voltage hot chassis was clearly a dangerous design but at least there has been little use of it in the last fifty years. I find dangerous designs in current products fairly frequently.

As an example I was debugging my electric clothes dryer that stopped drying and found the wire to the nichrome heating unit was disattached. It had been attached to the heater with a push-on, pull-off spade connector at the factory. I maintain it should have been attached with a bolt-on connector with a lock washer. Having what is probably a 230 volt wire slip-off its connection due to normal dryer vibration and bounce around the steel chassis is concerning. If the dryer ground had been faulty (it was good) that could have placed a 230 volt potential on the entire metal cabinet of the dryer in a laundry room that may have a little water on the floor and usually has other ground paths like turn-off faucets for the washer as well - a super dangerous situation. This danger is increased because dryers are heavily used by kids, women, and non-technical men, most of whom have no idea of the risks involved.

discuss

order

No comments yet.