Would anyone care to comment on what this contraption might be?.
This pic has been in my computer for some time now and I've forgotten who exactly sent it to me.
Here it is:

PVC with ABS cement. Gawd.

I am not the one who sent you the picture but it appears to be an electric shower head.

I did a quick Google image search and found an expired link on EBay for one that looked close to this. The wires are for a heating element in the head and the small line coming out of the face ring is for a hand held nozzle.

That's the latest in capital punshinment.That way you die clean.

Yeah,
I can see a green wire there, exitting(sp?) the head itself, but there doesn't appear to be a corresponding ground wire with the "supply wiring".
Imagine a thing like this coming to pieces during your morning shower?.

I had a little more time to look into this after dinner and I found one company that makes these in Brazil.

Here is a link to the showerhead with the tech specs. http://www.lorenzetti.com.br/ing/blinducha.htm

There appears to be an optional covered pipe from the wall to the head to route the wires in to keep them from getting exposed.

The tech specs say its compatable with a Residual Current Device which I guess is another name for a GFI.

An electric shower head??? Electric heater in the head???
Those words " electric shower head" should not be in the same sentence! I do not think I would trust one no matter who makes it, let alone one that was installed like that!...
Personally I prefer heat for my shower supplied from a water heater, and if I need a good "lift" in the morning I will stick to a good cup of coffee!!

Thats not ABS cement on fittings, ABS cement is black, might be a " all purpose" PVC and ABS type.

Well then, it gets worse too.
At least it does according to JamesS:




Thanks James.

Just a word to the wise here.
Nasty comments about Mexicans will be deleted.

The "Mexican vacation" picture has something else in it that's even MORE scary. Apparently you're supposed to move that switch with your wet fingers while your naked feet are standing on the wet shower floor. If this was my shower in a motel room, I'd snip the wires, cap them off, take my showers and let someone else fix it.
They'd be unhappy, but at least I'd be alive for them to be unhappy at.

An electric showerhead - what's the big deal????
Hey rewired!!!

Granted the one in the picture is a disaster, but wired correctly, what's the problem???

You jump in a pool with a 120volt luminaire.
You wash your hands at a sink with an electric insta-hot underneath.

And this is a problem??? I fail to see the issue??

I've never seen such an item...but there just doesn't seem to be enough there for it to do much heating.
Perhaps it's a little pump to produce a sharper spray?

I might think that it could be some kind of selonoid controlled from a timer to limit shower time. Designed as an aftermarket unit to control showers. I'm sure the coin deposit is located just outside of the curtain to the shower.

According to the company web page it is an immersion heater putting out 5000W at 127V on a 50 amp breaker.

I agree with Sandsnow that its probably safe if installed properly.

I don't think that it is designed to be marketed in North America as I did not see any CSA or UL approval seals on their web page. The only approval mark I saw was from Inmetro which appears to be a Brazilian standards agency.

Hmmm... does the color coding in the first picture remind you of anything?
Black, red, yellow...

Sandsnow:
Sorry bout that.. The top picture looks like a total disaster I will agree, so does the picture below.. I dunno, I just dont like the idea of conductors such as what you see there, exposed and in a very wet environment.. what happens if one gets knicked or damaged?? Even if it was a proper cord of some kind, I would still be uncomfortable..... I have gotten "lit" but good a few times just from a little moisture and dirt on the outside of undamaged extension cords... A current actually tracked right from one of the ends down the outside of the cord and through me!!
Usually when you are dealing with pool luminaires the method of grounding is different, and those insta hot heaters, the chamber where the water is heated is grounded metal I think? I am not sure I have only seen pictures...
Even if those electric showerheads are grounded internally of which the top one looks like it may be with that 3rd wire, I would not really trust a measly little #16 or #14 grounding conductor.... With the way those ones were " hacked" in, the ground probably is not connected to anything anyway, and if it is, I would not trust trust its connection...

Sorry I may be wrong on all this but I hope you see where I am coming from... It just doesnt look / seem right...

A.D

I am not sure that I would trust this eiher. A good friend of mine refers to these as ''Widowmakers''.

Sandsnow's right in my not-very-humble opinion.

When I get up in the morning I take my shower in water that's been heated by a 240V water heater, and circulated by a 120V circ pump. Neither have GFI protection.
They're located behind a wall and you can't see them, but that doesn't inherently make them any safer.

A bad idea on two counts, first of which is you could be charged for damage to property or vandalism, despite the noble purpose. Just take a cold shower or have the management have it disconnected.

Secondly, the wires will be energized. Even with PPE, risky. And how can you be sure that it will be corrected before the next guest uses it? I can see the next guest with no electrical knowledge uncapping the live wires and trying to splice them back together!

Now on to the what if:

What if, this shower head were properly wired in? I see for example, a factory installed flex tail, leading to a weatherproof box mounted into the wall above the water pipe, with proper fitings to exclude moisture. Would you consider it safe to use?

Granted, standards of what is considered safe differ around the world, but I do wonder how many of these are properly installed and in use with no incidents of shocks or fatalities? Maybe I see things in a niave way, but I don't think any company, no matter how "third world" would stay in business long if their product was fatally flawed.

***Note: Trumpy, feel free to delete this comment, but:***

And let's NOT get into the debate over cigarettes, please!!!! This is not the place for it!!

I am sure that, with a determined designer at the helm, that is just might be possible to make one of these things work in a perfectly safe manner, but....

I think we are running up against our cultural bias as to just how things ought to be done. Wires looping through the shower stall are not included in our list of "good things to see." That these shower heads come from places we generally consider to be somewhat behind us (in technology) does not help us to accept them.

Now, this "bias" is not always a bad thing. In the course of learning the trade, we are taught "this is the way things are done." Time and again, the things we're taught have no actual code requirement. Yet, again, we see these practices either survive code cycles unaffected, or actually see how these 'trade practices' prevent problems, and ease service, down the road.

Long ago, in another thread ("Bathroom Electric") I posted a pic of a typical Israeli bathroom....including the full-size water heater hung on the wall INSIDE the shower stall. This practice somehow seems to work for them- but I still wouldn't want it in my bathroom!

Yet, even that 30 gallon, 240 volt, 50 amp Israeli water heater could not handle a long shower, and needed about 20 minutes to heat up a tank of cold water. (The Israeli heaters are not left on, but have a switch outside the bathroom). Therfore, I rally have trouble believing that tiny shower head can really accomplish much heating- and I don't care how 'water saving' the shower head may be!

As mbhydro says, if that sucker goes at 5000 watts, I wonder what happens if the water stops and the heat stays on? Care for a "melted plastic" shower anyone?

The flags of Germany and Belgium?

Some of that wiring is scary. Even at 5kW I have a hard time believing that you could get much of a decent hot shower, unless the water is somehow pre-heated before reaching the shower.

Some of the older "instant" electric showers in use here (heating elements in the box on the wall, not in the showerhead!) are rated 6 to 7kW. It's reckoned that our water is delivered from the supply at a fairly constant temperature of about 50 degrees, and even with 7kW you can really only get a modest flow if you want the water to be anything but lukewarm.

Kind of like the low flow shower heads in a private railcar.

You only get 250 -300 gallons from one service stop to the next, so you can't-don't use a lot.

The showers are more an area of really high humidity than actual running water

TW

5V, 12V, ground
I immediately associate that with computer wiring.

Ah! The light dawns.........

Wires look too small if coming from a 50 amp breaker. I'd have to push the test button on the GFCI and verify that it works.

Paul, do you ever watch 'Tellytubbies' on CBBC? They got one of those doohickies sticking out of the astroturf to brainwash the little ankle-biters!
Take care if watching this programme; it's for under 3 year olds and is highly infectious for the middle aged!

Tellytubbycustard!!! Hooraaaay!!!

Tellytubbyspelling!

[This message has been edited by Alan Belson (edited 03-15-2006).]

Today I stumbled over a picture of one of these on a German site about travels to Africa!
Believe me, compared with the one there the ones in thsi thread are gold! Why? They used electrical tape! The one in Africa had open choc block connectors along the pipe... the green wire was sticking out in mid air, clearly not being connected to anything.

If I saw either of those contraptions I'd find a garden hose to stick in the shower so I wouldn't need to touck that thing! Those things are just creepy looking, makes me think of taking a shower in a flash suit!

Has anyone ever seen one of these devices installed properly?.
I'd invite someone to send me a pic of one of these things with the proper wiring to the unit.

The heated shower head is a lot more dangerous than a heated storage tank because the supply wires are in the shower cubicle.

I didn't think anyone would feel comfortable taking a shower when there is 240V in the shower head.

In addition to 5/12V wiring in computers, those colors are also common here in the US on car stereo equipment power wiring:

Red--Switched 12V (ignition switch)
Yellow--Constant 12V (battery)
Black--Ground

I just had a real close look at the first picture again. The yellow thing mith very well be a partially hidden yellow-green wire, which would mean there is actually a ground wire there! The hole in the wall loks like conduit too.

Our car has Japanese radio wiring... I remember lots of white wires with colored stripes. Never really tried to hook up a radio to the mess of wires hanging out of the hole in the dash board (my dad bought the car, a 1987 Mitsubishi L300 van used in 89, without the radio).

The simple wire colors are generally used on the aftermarket radio end of things. The wires from the dashboard can be ANY color. Multiple colored stripes, different shades of the same color, you name it.... Just finished installing a new radio in my truck, and the factory wiring colors make no sense at all...

Projects like that are when I'm glad I have a factory shop manual for the truck, with about 200 pages dedicated to the wiring diagrams.

[This message has been edited by NJwirenut (edited 03-24-2006).]

Pretty scary showerhead in the top picture if you ask me.
Also I wonder what is under the black handymans tape.
looks like a choc bloc connector.
Somehow there is no green earth wire going into the wall, must be joint into the Neutral

Same for the mexican shower, the taped ends don't look to safe for me.

Id rather have not a shower and use a bath, which can be filled up and heated with whatever means prior to having it.

Just reading some of the other comments too, re the Red Yel and Blk wires
Perhaps there may be a 12 volts solenoid in the shower head in case someone in that house takes too long showers?
remote shut off via the home computer?
or an hour meter flow switch to check the time its used for??
You see a photo sometimes but you need the full story too.

No, my last assumption was this:
The red and black wires are hot and neutral, British style. The yellow wire is a half-hidden yellow-green with a generous amount of yellow.

I see the possibility. Our modern green/yellow earth wires have a thin longitudinal green stripe along what is predominantly a yellow wire, so when viewed from a certain angle it can appear to be just a plain yellow wire. The proportions are supposed to be no less than 70/30, but I've seen some in which the green stripe is considerably less than 30% of the area.

On the radio color codes, red/yellow/black is also quite common on the radio end of sets here too for switched 12V, permanent 12V, and ground respectively, although sometimes it's red/orange/black, or some other combination. The actual loom wiring on the car can be almost anything, depending upon the manufacturer, although the speaker wires are often coded by left/right and front/rear, e.g.

Rear left: Green & green/white
Rear right: Green & green/red
Front left: Gray & gray/white
Front right: Gray & gray/red

or something along similar lines.

Hmmm.... Red,Yellow ,Black = Coral Snake waiting to strike!

Actually, I think this picture was really smuggled out of the state prison after the budget cut-backs left no money to repair the chair. This is the patented "Kill two birds with one stone" showerhead!

Here's a link to a video featuring one of those funky shower heads:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=9tnW72iSLio

Note the cavalier attitude towards the wires hanging from the galvanized pipe...

Gidday Donnie!.
Good to "see" ya.