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.
Heater failure!
- Thread starter Austin1234
- Start date
This ^ certainly. A simple overcurrent situation, caused either by attempting to feed a device or devices that draws too much current or by a simple short to ground, will quickly trip any standard breaker. The idea is to protect the wiring, which is rated for a certain amount of current capacity. Rather than allowing the current to exceed that, resulting in a dangerous condition where the wire starts to heat up, a standard breaker trips.
A ground fault breaker does that as well, but in addition it detects an imbalance between the hot and neutral wire that indicates some current is leaking at some point. If the discrepancy exceeds some very small amount, the GFCI trips and thus interrupts that current from leaking somewhere...like through your aquarium water or your arm...as it seeks ground. The GFCI is protecting you rather than the wiring.
A ground fault breaker does that as well, but in addition it detects an imbalance between the hot and neutral wire that indicates some current is leaking at some point. If the discrepancy exceeds some very small amount, the GFCI trips and thus interrupts that current from leaking somewhere...like through your aquarium water or your arm...as it seeks ground. The GFCI is protecting you rather than the wiring.
I have one of these exact chinese heaters but my trick is to also use a chinese gfci power strip. Im not sure but I think gfci is some kind of magic fire resistance spell for reality and stuff.
On a related note, anybody got a recommendation for a 400g stock tank heater that wont cause a fire?
On a related note, anybody got a recommendation for a 400g stock tank heater that wont cause a fire?
