Ceci n'est pas une pipe bomb

Oops. Now that I've drawn the attention of the FBI and CSIS, I should make clear, "Um, this has nothing to do with pipe bombs--it's just a piece of equipment that I built that looks kinda dangerous. The title is meant as an homage to the surreal artist Rene Magritt..uh wha?... body cavity search? Um..."

Anyway, I continued my search for an immersion heater through this past weekend; I am now up to nine stores (list below) while still failing to find it (US analog to Canadian stores in parentheses):

Home Hardware (=local Ace Hardware store)
Zeller's (=K-Mart, maybe?)
Gizmos (=Lechters, Kitchen Etc.)
The Bay (=JC Penny's, Macy's)
Canadian Tire (=Sui Generis--it's a pretty cool Canadian thing)
KW Surplus (=a local overstock, military surplus, and nasty crap store)
Adventure Guide (=local outdoor sports store)
Staples (=duh, yeah)
Home Depot (=Big Orange 0wwwwnz j0000!)

However, while wandering the aisles of KW Surplus, between the racks of the worst-of-made-in-China tools and Israeli gas masks, I saw a bin of 85 watt curling irons. $2.95 CAD each, eh? Hmm.

Of course, the label clearly states SHOCK HAZARD DO NOT IMMERSE. So, a dismantling and a length of soldered copper pipe later, we had:



Plugged it in, and it got hot (drawing 150 W, according to my watt meter). Put it into the reservoir, it started drawing power, and then... nothing. Removed and tested it, and the heater coil had fried itself (infinite resistance). Crap. Must have had some type of thermal protection fusible link.

It just frustrates me that this is NOT THAT FUCKING HARD of a problem. All I want to do is get 100-200 W of electrical resistance heat from a plug directly into some water.

Well, next step is trying to break the fishtank heater.