About Thermostats

Have you ever heard of the thermostat?
The thermostat is the part that controls the temperature as the name suggests: ‘thermo’ means ‘heat’ and ‘stat’ comes from ‘statos’ meaning ‘to stay the same.’ Both words are from ancient Greek.
In our daily lives, the thermostat is used for items such as electric stoves, showers, and toasters.

This time I am going to talk about the bimetal thermostat.
The bimetal thermostat uses two different kinds of metals.
These two metals expand at different temperature rates when they are heated. The two metals create an arc that opens and closes the contact when it reacts to the temperature.

Bimetal thermostat

Most types of lighting equipment generate high heat, so it is necessary to use a thermostat to control the temperature.
When the light bulb on the lamp or heater on a fog machine generates heat and the temperature exceeds a certain level, the cooling fan starts running or the power supply to the heater stops. The thermostat plays this important role.

Fog machine heater and thermostat

A characteristic of thermostats is that they are often attached directly to or close to the source of the heat for more accurate temperature sensing.

These thermostats are sometimes equipped with an automatic ON/OFF switch.
In order to turn the equipment ON back from the state where the contact is OFF due to exceeding a certain temperature, it needs to be manually switched ON again unlike with thermostats that automatically turn back ON when the temperature drops.
The reason why for this type of thermostat is because it can also have a breaker function for temperature.
These two functions are performed individually: the power supply is controlled by the temperature sensor on the circuit board, and the breaker trips when the temperature rises more than necessary.

What happens when the temperature exceeds the specified value and the breaker trips?
There are several possibilities.
First, there is a problem with the temperature sensor on the circuit board. In this case, if the breaker works properly, it will protect the heat source and its parts.
Another case is that the area around the heat source is hot due to air conditioning of the room or the temperature of the place where the equipment is used. We often get repair requests due to this reason, but it mostly happens due to the equipment being used with the air conditioning not working well or at all in the hot summer season. The situation can be improved by changing the location when using the equipment, moving away the surrounding objects, or cleaning the dust off.
It can also be because the thermostat itself has deteriorated.

Thermostat with a manual switch

As a circuit breaker, the role of the thermostat with a manual switch is reliable, but for the thermostat without the switch, a thermal fuse is often used together.
As the name suggests, the thermal fuse is designed to break when it senses a temperature that reaches above the specified value. This protects other parts in the event of overheating.

Thermal fuse

I hope you can understand that the thermostat is an important part for equipment that can generate heat.
The role of the breaker is just to protect the equipment and the parts.
The longer the equipment heats up, the shorter the life of the parts.
When not in use, turn off the equipment regularly to cool it down to extend the life of the equipment longer.

I hope that you’ll find this article helpful and I’ll be happy if it helps you to maintain your equipment for a long time.