Repairing.... curling tongs?!

[Lobster]

Daughter says her curling tongs are knackered (for the incogniscenti, this is an electrical appliance looking like a large pink soldering iron, which apparently you wind your hair round for some reason).

Had a look at the fuse - OK - then dismantled it to look for obvious problems: none that I could see. Measured the resistance across the L and N pins of the plug - it was 2.5 kohms; ie there was continuity in the heating element. That resistance corresponds to a power of 23W if I remember my O-level physics correctly. There's no power rating on the tongs themselves. AFAICS the things aren't heating up at all.

Does this make any sense to anyone?

Thanks David

[Frank Erskine]

On Thu, 08 Jun 2006 22:11:53 GMT, Lobster had this to say:

Is the mains supply reaching the socket?

Check that the screws are tight in the plug. It may be that as you measure the resistance the circuit is ok, but when you plug it in the wires are coming adrift of the pins, IYSWIM.

[The3rd Earl Of Derby]

Probably a breakdown in that stuff(name escapes me) that insulates the element.

[The Medway Handyman]

Curling tongs don't make any sense whatsoever to any of the male species. Purchase a large garden shed and hide in it, claiming the complete inability to repair anything girlie. Any repair attempt will inevitably fail and cause endless agro which will be your fault. Make her waste even more money on a new set.

I know about these things - I have a wife & two daughters.....................

[EricP]

You can't have!

The proper course of action is to study the tongs for a few days. Then announce he needs a workshop to go further. Nip out and get a decent garden shed. Equip it lavishly with power and heating. Then say he can't do anything with it.

[Lobster]

But surely that would cause a short within the heating area, and presumably therefore localised extra-hot heating of the element and/or blowing a fuse, wouldn't it? Seems very curious to me.

Haven't a clue whether the 2.5kohms I measured is 'normal' or not. That equates to 100mA; the device comes with a pre-fitted 3A fuse which ties in with that.

Anybody able to measure the resistance of their own, working tongs, maybe?!

Thanks David

[Lobster]

That's a 'yes' on both counts! Thanks David

[Mungo "Two Sheds" Toadfoot]

*Nods in agreement and profers an oil-stained hand to a fellow sheddi*

Si

[Owain]

Can't she borrow the wife's heated rollers until she's saved up some pocket-money to buy herself some new ones?

'Course, if she'd eaten her crusts as a child ...

Owain

[Mary Fisher]

Curling tongs don't make sense.

Mary

[Derek ^]

You've got a situation there any service engineer would find familiar.

Everything's OK but it still doesn't bloody work.

Seriously, examine the flex at the point where it enters the appliance. The heat can cause the flex to harden and become brittle. Then the whirly twirling movements can cause it to crack and then it's only held together by the conductors which will fail by work hardening. The contact might still be made in some orientations of the curler / flex. Alternatively your test meter might have been measuring a path through the carbon at the break, which burns away when plugged into the mains.

My daughter had a pair of these :

had an US standard flex which failed in the manner I described above. I reported them to Leeds trading standards who took away the defective straighteners saying only the importers, Jemella, (who were local to us both) could determine whether or not they were counterfeit. They'd be bound to be totally honest and impartial wouldn't they.

Seems trading standards in Gloucestershire were more assertive.

Wonder why?

HTH

DG

[Mary Fisher]

In my experience the West Yorkshire TS were more on the ball than the Leeds ones, who seem to be more interested in second hand cars than anything else.

They might have changed over the years ...

Mary

[Peter Parry]

Common failure mode is for the wire to break inside the sheath, usually within an inch or so of the plug or the appliance. When you put it on the bench to measure resistance the law of Sod says the wire ends will touch giving you the correct reading. When you move them the wires separate. Try holding the test meter on the plug while someone else moves the tongs and lead around.