You're right, dimmers and proportional controllers that use triacs or SSRs can fail ON. I've only seen it happen when one guy short-circuited his Flexwatt, but I have heard of cases when a dimmer failed ON for no good reason.



I've done the dimmer ON/OFF thing. Yeah, the ON/OFF does protect against high temps, but that d@mn dimmer needs to be adjusted all the time every time the room temp changes. I gave up on it, bought 3 proportional controllers and never looked back. I still use the ON/OFFs as a fail-safe. So much wiring, so many probes, but worth the peace of mind when I'm away.



I've also done the stupid trick of forgetting to put the probe back where it should be...
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Mark G

[ Hide Replies ]

• Any thoughts on this heat control Idea? - Frazenhiemer, Wed Mar 23 17:23:10 2005
• RE: Any thoughts on this heat control Idea? - chris_harper2, Wed Mar 23 17:34:49 2005
• RE: Any thoughts on this heat control Idea? - bighurt, Wed Mar 23 18:20:17 2005
• Do you have a sketch or picture you could provide.... - BobS, Wed Mar 23 19:39:38 2005
• RE: Do you have a sketch or picture you could provide.... - bighurt, Wed Mar 23 20:36:19 2005
• thanks. N/P - bobS, Wed Mar 23 20:54:27 2005
• Is this possible?.... - bobs, Thu Mar 24 12:15:45 2005
• Here's another possible thought - Chris_Toon, Thu Mar 24 14:04:32 2005
• RE: Any thoughts on this heat control Idea? - Chris_Toon, Thu Mar 24 00:12:06 2005
• RE: Your theory on heat element wear is incorrect, here's why - markg, Thu Mar 24 18:59:37 2005
• RE: Your theory on heat element wear is incorrect, here's why - frazenhiemer, Thu Mar 24 20:03:44 2005
• RE: You are right about the cost. More - markg, Thu Mar 24 21:47:11 2005
• RE: You are right about the cost. More - Frazenhiemer, Sun Mar 27 19:26:48 2005
• RE: Can be done - markg, Mon Mar 28 19:46:24 2005