This component is a one-shot thermal fuse. When the body rises above the specified temperature the two leads stop conducting. They’re useful in applications like motors, where you want to make sure power is cut to an overheating piece of hardware before permanent damage happens. They’re pretty simple, but we still enjoyed taking a look inside thanks to [Fatkuh’s] video.
The metal housing is lined with a ceramic insulator, which you can see sticking out one end in the shape of a cone. It surrounds a spring which connects to both leads and is under a bit of tension. The alloy making the connections has a low melting point — in this case it’s about 70 C — which will melt, allowing the spring to pull away and break the connection. In the clip after the break [Fatkuh] uses his soldering iron to heat the housing past the melting point, tripping the fuse. He then cracks the ceramic cone to show what’s inside.
The only problem with using a fuse like this one is you’ll need to solder in a new component if it’s ever tripped. For applications where you need a fuse that protects against over current (rather than heat) a resettable polyfuse is the way to go.
[via Reddit]
Also used in Espresso/Coffee machines to make them not overheat when left on without water for extended periods of time (my uncle found this out the hard way).
I did too, I had to reorder (and tear down for fun) this exact part for that exact reason last month.
A warning though! You cant just solder those ones in. They are rated to pop at 240 degrees, which is within the melting range of solder. You wouldn’t want it to unsolder itself and contact something else. They were spot-welded and crimped on the machine I took apart. I used some 18ga steel wire to create a spring-like tube to re-crimp them with.
Soldering these things is common and easy. There are a couple of methods, both use cooling to keep the fuse cold while soldering.
If the temperature is above 100 degrees but well below 180 (melting point of regular lead solder), such as the overheating protection in regular water heaters (usually around 120 degrees), you can just use a piece of wet paper or cloth to cool it while soldering.
If the temperature is below 100 degrees you could use some kind of alcohol, or even an ice cube to cool the fuse.
If the temperature is near or above the melting point of your solder they obviously need to be crimped.
Bleh, forgot to mention that the second method is a cooling clamp, basically a purpose built metal clip that clips on to the component wire and cools it while you are soldering.
its called a heatsink… or “heatsink clip” for those who want to freak out when they see “heatsink” used out of the context of computer processors or ICs.
Common and easy with bodgy repairs, and wrong. I’ve seen where a bodgy repair of an electric kettle resulted in it burning a hole right through a kitchen bench before finally popping the mains switchboard protection and narrowly avoiding a major house fire. Much more good luck than good practice.
Storage hot water heaters have multiple levels of over-temperature and over-pressure protection, and while it is rare there have been cases of such heaters boiling then exploding and demolishing the house. The Mythbusters did a demo.
These thermal fuses are used in a wide range of electrical appliances, particularly those that heat, as a secondary or tertiary fire protection after lower temperature bimetal self-reseting cutout(s)have failed, and are a very common cause of total appliance failure. If one of these blows then the thermostat/primary protection is suspect and should be checked for correct operation.
They are available in a range of temperatures to suit the application, e.g. 77°C, 133°C, 157°C, 192°C, 216°C, 228°C, etc., which is printed on the side. Like conventional fuses they should always be replaced with the *same* temperature value, and they should *never* be soldered in place but *crimped* (as is standard practice for all connections in heating appliances).
The very good reason for this is that electronic solder has a melting point in the middle of this range at 183°C. If the thermal fuse is for a lower temperature it could be compromised by soldering, and if higher a lead could unsolder itself and the free lead could easily create a dangerous situation, not least that it might bridge the blown thermal fuse.
A secondary reason is that heating appliances often use wire alloys that don’t take solder very well.
These are your last line of fire protection – replace them by all means, but please don’t mess with their value and always replace them properly by crimping.
Thanks, AussieTech for that insight. If anyone did not see the Mythbusters episode go see it: It’s impressive and scary. After that I got even more respect for big pressurized things.
Please explain then, if you are never supposed to solder these thermal fuses, why the lower temperatures (120 degrees and below) are pretty much always soldered…
If the regular solder melts at significantly higher temperature than the fuse value, soldering is fine since the component can never reach the point where the regular solder melts.
” I used some 18ga steel wire to create a spring-like tube to re-crimp them with.”
Cool on you!
These are nothing but planned obsolescence designed to fail after a pre-determined time. Just jump it out of the circuit.
Not to be pedantic, but polyfuses operate based on heat as well. Yes, they are quite different both in operation and intended use, but if you heat up a polyfuse from an external source (i.e. not from the current through it) it will still become high impedance…
You often see this inside paper shredders. The polyfuse is glued to the motor, that’s why the shredder appears to stop working when you’ve used it for too long and its over heated. Then they magically work again 10 minutes later.
These kinds of fuses are often crimped in, since it’s cheap and easy.
There are also thermal cutouts, which use a bistable spring to cutout at a given temperature, then reset when the system cools down.
Wow! Until now I thought there was a single tiny leg of a flux capacitor in there, and when enough current flowed and the temperature was right, the internals traveled in time, breaking the circuit! Who would have known???
how about those resettable ones that are found in microwaves touching the microwave gun that will turn off if they get too hot?
Magnatron….
These are also in older lithium ion battery packs such as laptop packs (maybe new ones too) and portable power tool battery packs.
I’ve seen them in small ceramic fan heaters.
I replaced the one in my laminator with a high temp version (they’re cheap on eBay) then put a 50K resistor in series with the thermistor that controls temperature.
Running the laminator at a higher-than-normal temperature is better for toner transfer.
TO OTHERS WHO MAY READ THIS: DO NOT DO THIS IF YOU DON’T KNOW *EXACTLY* WHAT YOU’RE DOING!
The manufacturer specs thermal fuses as a last line of defense (usually implementing thermal switches, polyfuses, etc as the primary protection components), and the temperature is generally specced reasonably above normal operating temperature but below the temperature where other internals might catch fire from excessive heat; subbing in a higher-rated thermal fuse might allow the heating components to exceed safe temperatures for the (housing, wiring, electronics, etc) relative to their proximity to the heating element, especially if the primary component fails; in coffee makers, this is often the thermal switch that regulates the warmer plate’s temperature… the laminator likely has a similar mechanism which you’ve effectively defeated.
I used one of these to fix the fan speed resistor pack in our car’s AC system (the fan worked only on 0 or 100% which was annoying when you had to defog the windows). The dealer quoted $40. The fix was an 80cent part. The original was spot welded in but I managed to get it to stick with solder.
I actually soldered al lot of them. Even for medical applications. :-)
Just with a metall-clip and a not-too-long solder-time. Sounds crazy, as most manufacturers will only crimp them, but it works.
“When the body rises above the specified temperature the two leads stop conducting.”
isn’t it the body that stops conducting?
the leads should still conduct.
The “ceramic” at the end often (always?) follows a color code for the rating.
A “Slo-Blo” fuse works in the same way, if it is in a glass capsule, you can see the tension spring near one end and the metal alloy fuse at the other.
I had one of these go out on my George Forman grill once…. just got rid of it all together to fix :)
Had a bad pair in the Coffee Maker…got rid of them alltogether,Chinese parts go figure;)
What looks like a solder join may be an impulse weld.
What’s most important is that the melting point of the join must be above that of the thermal fuse. SN05Pb95 has a melting range of 301-314C, Sn10Pb88Ag02 has a melting range of 268-299C (figures are from Kester).
A compromise method when crimp tubing isn’t available, is to wrap a bare overlap joint with a tight spiral of solid copper wire, and use Sn40Pb60 solder.
Here’s a new twist on this problem.
I’m wondering if I can bypass the thermal fuse on my little vacuum since I only use it intermittently a little while at a time?
The Ceramic Thermal Fuse blew on my 10yr+ old Dirt Devil Breeze Canister Vacuum. We only use it on-and-off for about a half-hour or so a week to clean a one bedroom apartment. (The fuse is a white ceramic cylinder with metal caps about an 1 1/4″ with soldered leads). The motor smells perfectly fine and I tested it by bypassing the fuse momentarily. It works fine. (FYI, I did buy a new dirt filter recently, so maybe the air suck is drawing a little harder on the motor, but it was the correct replacement filter according to Amazon and it fit perfectly…???)
Anyway … the fuse was charred on one end and kaput. But hell, it was 10 years old with soldered contacts.
So… since I only use the vacuum for a little while **while I am with it** cleaning the apartment, is it safe to bypass the Thermal Fuse if I don’t care about killing the motor?
Is there another fuse (or whatever) inside the motor that will send it to heaven when it’s time has come?
FWIW, I did look for a replacement Thermal Fuse, but it’s difficult to figure out which one I need b/c it seems to say “LF .25/250VP” on one end and the other has 324 with a Diamond that has the letters PSE in it, and a backward italics UR). (My understanding is vacuums are 12A, not 1/4A???) Regardless, the dead fuse has soldered caps with crimped wire leads on them and was contained inside a clear plastic insulating tube, so I’ll need a housing for the new fuse as well.
I understand these things happen, and the guy at the repair shop said, “We don’t fix Dirt Devils. Chuck it and get a new one.” But I wasn’t brought up that way, I hate to throw out a perfectly good motor that’s served me for so many years. We’ve spent a lot of time together, and I just bought her a new filter and all! Heck, she’s like an old friend, and it just doesn’t seem right to me to treat her like trash.
Any thoughts?
BTW, her name is Norma.
I’m probably way late on this, but NEVER bypass a thermal fuse, nor replace with a higher-rated fuse. Even if you’re with it, by the time you smell something it may already be too late, something inside may have caught fire.
Either find the exact specs for it (try searching the model number of your vacuum and the phrase “thermal fuse” or “thermal cutoff”), or do as the repair guy said and chuck it. I know it sucks to have to do that, but unfortunately some manufacturers intentionally use obscure parts to enforce planned obsolescence — Dirt Devil’s not making any more money off you if you just replace your thermal fuse, now are they? Now if you went and bought a new Dirt Devil (because you loved it so much!), that’s much better — for them!
P.S.: There are several possibilities…
1. It’s possible it’s low-amperage; there may be something screwy going on like the thermal cutoff killing the supply power to a controller or something instead of the motor directly, but I find that somewhat unlikely.
2. 324 may be a reference in Fahrenheit — 324˚F = 162˚C.
3. LF = Littelfuse; they do have a 324 series of ceramic cartridge fuses — is it possible this is an actual electrical fuse and not a thermal cutoff? If it’s a metal canister with a colored conical bit at one end, it’s a thermal cutoff. If it’s a white cylinder with two metallic caps, it’s a ceramic cartridge fuse.
If your only choice & if it was me. I’d choose to keep on w/out it so that you gave her a farewell like a true champ, cause we no need no water let the motha#!:la burn. No just pull cord if & pour your liquor on her if need be. But I would look through other junked equipment for that thermal cutoff fuse.
I’ve rescued 3 appliances from the trash bin by bypassing the thermal fuse. My experience and opinion is they have one use only … to make you buy a new appliance. They ALL break down with time and they are ALL hidden from the ordinary consumer. Why not use a thermal overload switch that’s resettable? Easy answer, they cost a fraction more and manufacturers all want us to consume MORE stuff. I rescued an expensive battery charger 5 years ago by bypassing a thermal fuse and it’s been used every day since with no problem. Also a vacuum cleaner 2 years ago and a convector heater 16 months ago. None of these appliances was actually faulty, or overheated. They were simply a few years old. The thermal fuses eventually breakdown and become O/C and because they are hidden away most people assume it’s time to buy a new shiny bit of stuff. Whatever you say, I’m convinced of their true purpose. Experience and observation is always better than theory.