Ceramic tubular heaters, where to get (bidet)

[Gazz]

I have one of those japanese style bidet toilet seats, had it a year and a half, and you can guess how long the warrenty was for,

Last night the Gf was using it to... erm. pressure wash her mud flaps, and suddenly she screamed,

I thought she'd been electrocuted or a rat had climbed up the U bend and bitten her arse, but nope, the heater had suddenly failed, and the water had gone from a nice +35 degrees to ambient temp of the water main... probably 2 or 3 degrees, but feels like minus 25 on your delicate bits,

No fault codes flashed on the display, so i kind of knew it would be the heater unit and not one of the many safety cut outs which have fault codes.

Sure enough, the bi-metalic overheat trip was fine, flow sensor working, the thermal fuse was fine, the current transformer around the heaters cables was fine and so on (tho why it didnt register no current was suddenly flowing and flash a code i don't know, it does everything else except make a cup of tea... and i bet there is a version in japan that does that too) i was getting 243 volts at the heater terminals, So powered off, and measured about 9 megaohms across the heater.... i did notice the reading would go up if i left the meter connected, to about 17 meg after 10 minutes, so not a total open circuit, but deffo too high for a

240 volt 1500 watt heater unit me thinks.

So i took it all apart and the little heater unit is deffo blown, i can see where the coil of wire has broken, thing is there are no markings on this thing at all, it is a Hyundai HDBR

550ni bidet seat, and i have contacted the bidet part of hyundai, and also the place i bought the unit from but i am not expecting much help as the user manual and all websites are full of warning that you will kill yourself if you take the cover off. (understandable i guess as it is mains pressure water and mains electricity all crammed into a small space.

So i was wondering, anyone in the trades know where i might be able to get a new heater? obviously the full unit is pretty specialised, but the actual heater is just a (ceramic i guess) tube about 11cm long (4 and a bit inches) about 10mm diamiter, about a centimeter down from the tops are solder joints to the coil, and it is just a coil of wire coated in something to insulate it, it's just a push fit down the main heater unit's tube, sealed with silicone seals top and bottom, pic here:

[Tim+]

Tell her to "man up" and get used to cold water. ;-). Ours only uses cold water and it's not that bad.

Tim

[Nick]

The mind boggles at the thought that some oriental chappie has dreamed this up and is able to flog it to unsuspecting occidental punters. A dodgy 1500w heater applied to ones sensitive parts makes me cringe. So do most electric showers. Is this thing supposed to maintain a supply of water @ 35deg? In answer to Q I have no idea where a replacement heater might be found. Try the original suppliers. Otherwise a candle might do the job. Good luck, and no slight meant or intended.

[John Rumm]

A work around would be to feed the whole unit from an inline electric water heater...

[Tim Watts]

One with electronic power regulation would be happy with variable flows too.

[Dave W]

Can you slide off the cover to expose the heater coil, then twist the two broken ends together with pliers? One or two turns unwound wouldn't reduce the total resistance noticeably. It might even be just a break at one of the terminals. -- Dave W

[Gazz]

It seems like the cover over the element is solidly fixed, but i could be wrong, it's broken anyway, so i may as well try to fix it destructively :)

the bloke i bought the thing from has retired, but he did tell me how to go about getting a complete heater unit direct from the hyundai bidet factory in korea, a sort of crptically worded email to a certain person and a certain shipping method to persuade them i am 'worthy' of buying one,

Now to see how much the entire heater unit costs, if too much then i will look into fitting an external heater unit, there are even proper ones sold to convert cold water bidet's into warm water bidet's, i'd just have to hope the electronics in this unit dosent complain that the inlet and outlet temps from the built in heater unit are the same... tho i guess i could re-position the inlet temp sender to the cold pipe into the external heater... if it comes to that.

[John Rumm]

Are they currently complaining that the inlet and outlet are the same temp? If not, then it seems likely the situation would not change with warmer but still not different temperatures.

[Anatolia]

Hello Gazz, I came across your article online as I was desperately googling the hyundai hdbr-550ni bidet seat which I owe. After 4 years of perfect functioning (bought it in 2011) it has failed. Same problem as yours...cold water. Anything else works perfectly, ie, the seats still gets warm, I still get warm air, ect. My husband and I have opened it up and took photos of the bidet with all its wires and tubes and as we don't know anything about electrical things, we sent the pictures to my brother in Italy,, an electrician. Although not 100% sure, his first analysis would be that the "electrical resistance" has burned due to the fact that it's of blackish colour all around it in the green mother board. But you seem to talk about something different. If my brother is right can this resistance be replaced despite is embedded in silicone plate which I would need to cut through to get to it....but would this not break the water seal?? Wouldn't want to take the risk to remain electrocuted when using it Tell me please, did you manage to fix the bidet...you posted your question 1 and 1/2 years ago. I bought mine through Ebay from a company called Comforting waters (if I remember well, located in Scotland) which are not in ebay anymore....Is it them where you also bought it from. At that time it costed approx £400. Please could you give me some advise.? With much appreciation,

Anatolia

[Anatolia]

I have just uploaded the photos with the burnt resistance

Thanks Anatoli

[IMG]

[Tim+]

Cor! Makes me glad that mine is cold water only and no electrics involved at all!

Tim

[tabbypurr]

+1!

Anatolia really needs someone that can see if it's faulty & replace it safely. But having seen that picture I wouldn't want to use it.

NT