Tumble Dryer… but no power!? (pictures 2.6MB)

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Sinchen has to do housework. While it is still too warm for end of October, there is much moisture combined with temperatures going down. Only in such situations I use electricity to dry clothes with a tumble dryer. Energy-hungry beast!

Could there be something more boring than somebody describing her housework? Washing and drying clothes? Hardly imaginable.

The point is that the machine was off after coming back 90 minutes after turning it on – one would expect dry stuff inside. But no. Just a lot of warm, damp cotton wool inside. Wanted to turn it on again → Nothing. Tumble dryer dead? No! I've plugged in a switchable adapter for cutting the power to the machine (hard to reach the outlet to plug in the connector – easier to just flip a switch). Pulled it out and got this (already unscrewed it for the picture):
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WTF??

The thing burned away internally. Yes, it was rated for such a strong machine with electric heating elements.

I ripped it apart to see what happened exactly (awful smell coming out).
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Neither the breaker nor the residual current device had cut the power when this happened. I would have expected a short with huge spark, but it seems it just gradually burned away until it lost contact to mains voltage.

I hate my life!
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KleinesSinchen
EpikJimmer said:
F, and i thought I had terrible luck. First the door, now this.
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Jim, please. That rubbish thing is unimportant. I just made a blog entry because it did NOT trigger the breaker or residual current device. We had a top-notch electrician who replaced everything in the whole(!) house. Something slowly charring away is dangerous and could potentially lead to a fire (despite the outlets being flame retardant). A nice short or little current to ground is way better than slowly melting plastic because it triggers the protection right away.

Having a lot of old things – mostly electronics but not only those – fail happens all the time.
  • Wii drive failed during playing original disc from one second to another
  • Old Plextor sold as "new condition" → dead on arrival
  • HDD in Win XP PC dying
  • HDD in other Win XP PC dead
  • My only Plextor Premium is questionable (Power calibration error for CD-RW)
  • One PS2 drive pretty much useless
  • Exhaust electronics monitoring on my year 2000 car sometimes has trouble
  • 80486 based computer AT power supply broken (probably bad caps)
  • MFM drives for IBM-XT and IBM-AT computers from the 1980s all dead for years
  • Plasma TV has two not working HDMI
  • One of my VHS suddenly gave up the ghost some years ago
  • Nice Iiyama 22" CRT failed some years ago
  • USB sticks and SD cards retiring themselves without warning from time to time
  • Plaster work on the attic is waiting because the old plaster decided to identify as sand (built right after World War II – as little cement as possible)
  • Guess my feeling when riding the bicycle down the hill f a s t (>50km/h) and pulling the brake made a sad *ting* ripping the bowden wire apart
I could go on and on and on like this.
Collecting old stuff inevitably lead to such problems. Many of the things will stay in the collection even in defective condition since they have a value as "museum artifacts" just to look at them.
 
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N10A
What size is that wire in the picture?
When a wire heats up it's resistance drops, so the breaker won't notice an overdraw in current. Breakers are rated to protect the wires to the receptacle.
t. am an electrician's apprentice while taking classes on electrical here in the US.
 
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KleinesSinchen
N10A said:
When a wire heats up it's resistance drops
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I have visited a school before Germany became 100% Being-Dumb-Istan. ;)

N10A said:
What size is that wire in the picture?
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You expect the cross-sectional area (no idea if dict.leo.org suggested the correct term). I've not measured this and I don't have a data sheet for it.
This switchable adapter was rated for 3500W of power which would mean a little above 15A current on 230V. My guess would be they went cheap and used 2.5mm² wire which is theoretically enough according to DIN VDE 0298-4

Since the dryer doesn't actually have 3500W (peak should be below 3000W) this should definitely not happen.
If you have 20 minutes to spare, I recommend watching this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20230412040934/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1I3wCcIp2g

This kind of electrical failure is really dangerous.
 
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N10A
KleinesSinchen said:
I have visited a school before Germany became 100% Being-Dumb-Istan. ;)


You expect the cross-sectional area (no idea if dict.leo.org suggested the correct term). I've not measured this and I don't have a data sheet for it.
This switchable adapter was rated for 3500W of power which would mean a little above 15A current on 230V. My guess would be they went cheap and used 2.5mm² wire which is theoretically enough according to DIN VDE 0298-4

Since the dryer doesn't actually have 3500W (peak should be below 3000W) this should definitely not happen.
If you have 20 minutes to spare, I recommend watching this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20230412040934/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1I3wCcIp2g

This kind of electrical failure is really dangerous.
Click to expand...
Not trying to insult your intelligence, I just prefer to put all the information on the table instead of assuming that people know everything that I'm talking about. Probably because I'm used to talking about things that people in my everyday life don't know much about.

According to the chart I looked up on google, that would be equivalent to a 14 gauge wire here in the states, which is about two sizes below what our code allows for most driers. Typically we would put that on a 10 gauge wire (6mm²). Obviously I'm working with the NEC and I don't really understand everything about germany's electrical system, but if you have about 13 amps peak through that wire that's cutting it close, we usually rate those for 15 max.
Trust me, I haven't personally seen any house fires yet but I've seen a couple burnt out plugs and I've caused an arc or two. Electricity can be very dangerous when not handled properly.
 
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