Historical Perspective

[drewl]

That's one of the bad things about Radio Shack going out of business.
They carried the thermal fuses used in alot of transformers.
Fixed the boss' coffee maker that needed a thermal fuse.

They were great for parts needed right away for rush jobs. Sure it cost more but you could expedite repairs.

[Enzo]

Look in your local phone directory for "appliance parts" stores. This is where guys buy parts for home appliances like stoves, refrigerators, washers and driers, etc. Many of those things use thermal fuses.

[Gnobuddy]

I never did replace the thermal fuse but then again I haven't played that amp for 15+ years...

I haven't replaced the missing one in the fan yet, I just make sure that the fan is only on when there is someone around and awake, in case anything bad happens.

If you wanna go halfsies I can mail you 5 for $3.39 (PayPal)

Thank you for the kind offer! The catch is that sometimes weird things happen when mail crosses that two-inch-wide white line painted on the ground that demarcates the USA from Canada. More than a few Canadians have bought something that cost five bucks in the USA, and then discovered they had to pay $25 in duties and fees and postage charges once it crossed the border.

I have escaped that so far, largely by buying things from reputable vendors on this side of the border. It looks like Digikey Canada has thermal fuses that should be able to replace the item we're talking about:
https://www.digikey.ca/products/en/c...=0&pageSize=25

*** So how exactly would a SINGLE lead thermal fuse work...

Heh, in a world where red teflon-insulated wire supposedly sounds different from blue PVC-insulated wire, why wouldn't a single-lead thermal fuse work? It's very Zen - what is the sound of a single-lead thermal fuse burning?

-Gnobuddy

[Tom Phillips]

You can also find thermal fuses at the usual electronics supply houses such as Digikey where they list them as "thermal cutoffs"
See the search results page at https://www.digikey.com/products/en/...hermal%20fuses
Tom

[Tom Phillips]

...The catch is that sometimes weird things happen when mail crosses that two-inch-wide white line painted on the ground that demarcates the USA from Canada. More than a few Canadians have bought something that cost five bucks in the USA, and then discovered they had to pay $25 in duties and fees and postage charges once it crossed the border...

It would help us to know where you are located. If you don't wish to be too specific then you could just add "Canada" in your profile.

I see you already posted that you know about the Digikey source. I got distracted and took a long time to send my previous reply.

Tom

[Chuck H]

I'm not old enough to compete with knowing Civil War veterans, But I CAN remember growing up in San Jose, Ca. when only about a quarter of the neighborhoods were there. There were still huge swaths of land where orchard trees like plums, oranges and lemons grew. Free for the picking to all. I remember talking with Mrs. Howes. Last living member of the family that donated the property for the elementary school I attended. She was 102 at the time living in a house assembled with square, forged nails and wooden pegs instead of anything resembling a pneumatic nail gun. She told stories about the pastoral life of farming in the area and picking fruit as piece work by the load.

This is in the "Bay Area" region of the state. And I remember when it was just a nice place to live and no one knew this was coming.

Riding my bike out of town to get to the mountains I would pass the city division into Los Gatos and the population was 249,000. We shot guns in the hills and got into normal boy trouble on motor bikes, etc. all the time with nothing more than warnings from any authorities. Now there's 1,000,000. But worse is that all the surrounding areas like Campbell, Sunnyvale, Milpitas, Santa Clara, etc. have all grown as well and all the cities run one into another in a 3.5 million population metropolis. Home to several tech companies including *bay and *oogle. This is really the reason I moved from the area to a smaller community. But I was there for a few months after my ten year absence recently and even in that time so much has changed. The entire population there is now east Asian and Indian tech pros and Hispanic service workers. Most of the gringos you see are part of the huge population of homeless. Not being racist at all!!! In truth, east Asian's and Indian's are typically more polite than most whites. So the pleasantries of shopping for groceries or sharing a line for stamps has actually improved As has the quality of the restaurants I just noticed it because I felt like the minority. I knew the landscape and had childhood memories there and still felt like a stranger. It was profound to me.

[Gnobuddy]

It would help us to know where you are located. If you don't wish to be too specific then you could just add "Canada" in your profile.

Fair enough. Done!

I see you already posted that you know about the Digikey source. I got distracted and took a long time to send my previous reply.

Thank you for looking up a source for me (us)!

Mouser and Digikey are my first two go-two sources for electronics components that are likely to still be in production. Both have Canadian operations as well as US ones.

-Gnobuddy

[J M Fahey]

I haven't replaced the missing one in the fan yet, I just make sure that the fan is only on when there is someone around and awake, in case anything bad happens.

Thank you for the kind offer! The catch is that sometimes weird things happen when mail crosses that two-inch-wide white line painted on the ground that demarcates the USA from Canada. More than a few Canadians have bought something that cost five bucks in the USA, and then discovered they had to pay $25 in duties and fees and postage charges once it crossed the border.

I have escaped that so far, largely by buying things from reputable vendors on this side of the border. It looks like Digikey Canada has thermal fuses that should be able to replace the item we're talking about:
https://www.digikey.ca/products/en/c...=0&pageSize=25


Heh, in a world where red teflon-insulated wire supposedly sounds different from blue PVC-insulated wire, why wouldn't a single-lead thermal fuse work? It's very Zen - what is the sound of a single-lead thermal fuse burning?

-Gnobuddy

Oh, that? EASY !!!!

Since itīs single lead, electrons get in but canīt get out, so they accumulate there.

Of course, pressure inside rises on and on until it bursts.

And what about the "thermal" bit?
Easy again: with all those electrons packed shoulder to shoulder inside a closed space, air soon becomes very hot (and sweaty, but thatīs another problem).

Wonīt even imagine what happens if a couple Electrons inside that closed space had one bean burrito too much before getting inside.

[Enzo]

Then it becomes a pintode.

[g1]

I think someone used "double lead" to imply radial style and would probably call an axial type "single lead".
Sorry for such a pedestrian explanation though.