Heater failure!

[TwoHedWlf]

Hello; I guess the old style heaters which use contact points are no longer made. I have some from decades ago. Every few years to a decade or so the contact points can deposit a small tit which keeps the heater on or hard to adjust. I do take them apart and file the points.

Do as duanes suggests. Have several lower wattage heaters in place of a big watt one. I like to set a lower wattage heater to come on first and a second or third higher wattage to come on a degree or two higher. The low watt heater will stay on and the others only on when the low watt cannot keep up.

I've taken apart a few failed ones the last couple years, all maybe 5ish years old. Aqua One and Eheim. They still had bimetallic strips and contact points. Failure point was the nichrome wire for the heating element though split on all 3.

 

[benzjamin13]

Not all Chinese products are bad. It's the brands themselves that take shortcuts. Inkbird is made in China and that temperature controller is widely used and trusted.

 

[skjl47]

No reason why that would trip a GFCI, that's not what they are designed for.

Hello; This is my take as well. These do not trip just because of the amount of power running thru them, else how could a 1000 watt heater function.