Crock Pot Surgery!

[Chuck H]

Bi metal thermostat? Bend, test, repeat until the wax stays at the right temp.

Don't make me post this again.

[big_teee]

Bi metal thermostat? Bend, test, repeat until the wax stays at the right temp.

Don't make me post this again.

Oh Come On, So If I want less Temp which way would I bend it.
It Doesn't Sound very Scientific.
T

[Chuck H]

It's not. Admitedly. I did it with a burner plate I use for my smoker. The mechanism makes itself obvious when you look at it. There's a button switch or contact point and a bimetal element that triggers it by physical contact. Whether the bimetal element is arranged to turn things off or on for any given unit I can't say. On my burner plate it triggered off. That is, when the ambient temp in the space around the bimetal element reached a certain point the bimetal element would flex and turn off the AC to the burner until the space cooled and the element would flex the other way and trigger the burner again. I'm pretty sure, looking at the simplicity of the system, that hand bending is probably how they're adjusted before shipping.

[J M Fahey]

I had suggested one of these, which you will find inside a lot of amps, attached to the heatsink

but on any old pressing iron you will find these, which are adjustable
They are open frame and mounting requires some ingenuity (I would pop rivet a 1/8" thick strip of aluminum to the crock pot bottom as a thermal probe and mount the adjustable thermostat on it *or* mount it straight to the bottom and fashion some legs to elevate the crockpot somewhat.)

As I said before, insulate all electrically "hot" parts.

[Steve A.]

How come no one has opened up the thermostat on the crock pot yet? It's probably a bi metal thingy. If so you could probably bend, test, repeat until it holds the wax at the correct temperature.

The Mini Crock Pot is not designed to be opened for repairs- the metal casing appears to have been crimped together at the factory. For ~$10-15 it really isn't cost-effective to repair- just give the customer a new one if it is under warranty.

I was an appliance and HVAC service tech for 25+ years and bending a bi-metal element is at best a temporary repair until you can obtain an acceptable repair part. The temperature control for my electric skillet got way out of whack, and I did bend the bi-metal until it worked- but the on-off differential isn't right (the temperature gets too high and then it gets too low.)

The dimmer switch idea sounds good and could be used with a wide range of crock pots, but I really don't like them in my house because they raise hell with my single coil guitars.

If using a diode will keep a Mini Crock Pot full of wax at the proper temperature you could wire the diode into a 6 outlet power strip so it doesn't look like something out of Dr. Frankenstein's lab. So what amp rating would you need for, say, a 300 watt crock pot. There are absolutely no current and wattage ratings on the box, in the manual, or on the device, which I had thought was against all regulations. I have a line splitter for my clamp-on AC ammeters... somewhere!

Steve Ahola

[Steve A.]

The mechanism makes itself obvious

Yes it is if you are a born repairman. If you study a mechanical device long enough you can probably figure out how it works and how to fix it. My latest project was learning how to adjust my new dentures because the dentist is a butcher and should not be allowed anywhere near a grinder. (One trick is to use an indelible pencil to mark the sore spots on your gums and when you put the dentures in and bite down the markings will be transferred to the denture. I use a tiny globe bit on a Dremel running at 10-15k RPMs and take off just a little bit at a time and waiting until the next day to decide if I need to remove more. I have never had dentures that fit so well!)

Steve Ahola

EDIT There is a downside to being a born repairman- for me it can become a compulsion where if I find something not working right I feel compelled to fix it, even if the owner doesn't want me to. "Just leave it alone!" And its not like I'm always successful; sometimes the item was better before I started.

[Chuck H]

I could go there. Now, if I needed an appendix out...

I had a scary dentist once when I was a kid. He drooled when he concentrated and his hands shook terribly. So I'd be in the chair and this slack jawed drooler with a steel hooked pick in his shaking hand reaching for my clamped open mouth. Pretty horrifying. He was eventually sued for accidentally cutting off a girls lower lip.

[Steve A.]

I always liked this skit on do-it-yourself dentistry on Mad TV:

BTW my dentist is great working on teeth- he just doesn't do too well with dentures. He had to remake my uppers and lower partials- they looked great but were no good for chewing.

Steve Ahola

[David King]

Hey while we are on the topic of DIY etc. has anyone ever ground their own lenses?

[J M Fahey]

I have ... sort of.
Once I rented a shop in what was called "the optician's mall" for good reason, 30 out of 40 shops there were specialized in that.
It also happened to be 1/2 block from the most important cluster of Music shops in Buenos Aires , so it was fine with me.
All those optician's shops sold , among other related things, any kind of eyeglass frame you can imagine, and any spare lens you could ever need, so you could (with proper Optician's specifications, of course), build and sell *any* eyeglass needed.
The big selling item was a specialized grinder, meant not for the lens surface itself, but to grind away edges as needed for perfect fit in the frame.
If you over did it, (easy to happen), they also sold something that looked like a thin, narrow but very strong ribbon similar to nylon fishing line, which acted as a gasket between the frame and a now too small lens.
Out of curiosity (inveterate tinkerer like us all) I learnt to do it and self made some outrageous eyeglasses.
The bifocals in +2/+4 power were excellent for bench use ...... almost like having young sharp eyes again
I should team up with some of those guys and offer them commercially.
Anyway I dropped that shop and lost contact with those guys almost 20 years ago.

[Chuck H]

Hell JM, I think the list of things you haven't done must be pretty short by now.

The bifocals in +2/+4 power were excellent for bench use ...... almost like having young sharp eyes again
I should team up with some of those guys and offer them commercially.

Still a good idea. Lots and lots of people do bench work of some kind or another. My wife uses cheaters for quilting and wears two different +values on her head so she can swap between them. Bifocal cheaters are a great idea and since it's yours you should market it. I'd like some +1.5/+2.25 please. Your "old guy" +2/+4's would be too much

[J M Fahey]

You gave me an idea.
I'll go chat and have some "mate" with the old guys.

Hope the ones I knew still hang around there, so I can get a couple spare lenses and free use of the grinder rather than buying them commercially..
And the high power does not so much mean "old guy" (not that I'm not one ) but in fact define how much detail you can see or how close you can get to the part.
I use 2.0 for reading but the 4.0 allows me to see incredible detail, specially cold solders, cracked/split tracks, weak inscriptions in tubes/ICs and such.
In fact they are more loupes than glasses.

[JoeM]

Hmmm, 'mate'. My step-mother was raised in Argentina, (Buenos Aires in fact), so I've seen a few of those gourds around.

I could use those glasses. My eyes just don't work as well as they used to!

[Chuck H]

I first noticed my eyes "hardening" (which is what is actually happening) about ten years ago while on a fly fishing stream. It was dusk so the light was low and the trout started rising. I removed my wet fly to tie on a dry. In the low light I couldn't see well enough to get the tiny leader into the tiny fly. So I moved them closer to my face... Instead of getting clearer it became blurry! So there I was coming to terms with my failing eyesight as trout rose all around me and no way to catch them

[big_teee]

Welcome to Old Age!
It don't get any better.
T