Fail Of The Week: Toilets And High Voltage Do Not Mix

August 2, 2019 by Dan Maloney 23 Comments

Imagine if you will that you are enthroned upon the porcelain, minding your own business while doing your business. You’re catching up on Hackaday on your phone – c’mon, admit it – when a whir and a buzz comes from behind you. You sit up in alarm, whereupon your lower back suddenly feels as if someone is scrubbing it with a steel wool pad. Then the real pain sets in as super-hot plasma lances into your skin, the smell of burning flesh fills the bathroom, and you crack your head on the towel bar trying to escape this torture chamber in a panic.

Sound good? Then [Vije Miller]’s plasma-powered toilet air freshener is a must-build for you. We’re not entirely sure where this was going, but the name of the project seems to indicate a desire to, ahem, clear the air near your derrière with the power of ions. While that might work – we’ve recently seen an electrostatic precipitator for 3D-printer fumes – the implementation here is a bit sketchy. The ball of steel wool? It was possibly intended as a way to disperse the ions, but it served as nothing more than fuel when touched by the plasma. The Contact-esque gimballed rings? Not a clue what they’re for, but they look cool. And hats off to [Vije] for the intricate 3D-printed parts, the geartrain and linkages, and the DIY slip rings.

It may be a head-scratcher of a build, but the video below is entertaining. Check out some of [Vije]’s other projects of dubious value, like his licorice launcher or the smartphone back scratcher.

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Pain Machine Brings Pleasure, Too

September 30, 2014 by Kristina Panos 8 Comments

Pain is a good thing. It tell us to pull our hand away from the stove and to stay off a turned ankle. But we all have different experiences of pain, and chronic pain degrades our quality of life. A person’s reports of pain will vary from one day to the next based on many factors, so the 1-10 scale isn’t universally effective in determining a person’s pain level. [Scott]’s entry into The Hackaday Prize is based on the classic cold pressor testing device, which measures changes in heart rate and blood pressure in a patient while their hand is immersed in ice water for one minute.

[Scott] has tentatively dubbed his device The Pain Machine, but it does more than the typical cold pressor apparatus; it also delivers simulated pain relief in the form of warm water when the valves are reversed. In addition, the subject under testing can push a button when they’ve had enough. While his original plan used external sources of hot and cold water, [Scott] pulled a couple of Peltier coolers from some wine chillers for a more contained design.

The Pain Machine uses an Arduino ATMega 2560 to control gravity flow solenoids, collect temperature data, and send the data cloudward. A couple of 110V pumps circulate the water. [Scott] will open up the code once he has finished commenting it and fleshed it out with use cases. For now, you can check out his two-minute entry video after the break.

This project is an official entry to The Hackaday Prize that sadly didn’t make the quarterfinal selection. It’s still a great project, and worthy of a Hackaday post on its own.

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AC Vs DC Human Pain Test

March 16, 2013 by Ryan Fitzpatrick 62 Comments

AC-vs-DC-human-pain-test

Ever wondered just how much being zapped by electricity hurts? Curious if AC is worse than DC? Want to know just how many volts a human body can take? Although many people might cringe at the shear thought of it, [Mehdi Sadaghdar] is an electrical engineer who decided to turn himself into a human guinea pig and find out.

[Mehdi] measured the electrical resistance of his dry skin, his wet skin, and finally his tongue. He found that his tongue had the least resistance, so it would feel the electricity at much lower levels. Using a bench power supply, he then used his tongue as a testing ground – slowly turning the voltage up and up until he could no longer take the pain. He tested the levels at which: he could first feel the electricity, when it began to get annoying, when it felt like torture, and when he could no longer stand the pain. He tried both AC and DC, and reports that AC is much worse.

Check out the informative, yet admittedly hilarious at times, video after the break. [Mehdi] seems like one awesome engineer! Remember – don’t try this at home.

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