On Feb 14, 2:34 pm, Paul M. Eldridge
wrote:
OK. Brace yourself, because I'm going to confirm what I understand
you to have said and the results could be a tad ugly. :-0

This electronic thermostat is simply cycling power on and off more
frequently than its mechanical counterpart, and any power disturbances
are rather trivial and occur only at the time the load is dropped and
then again as it is subsequently picked back up. It's really no
different from a conventional bimetal thermostat in this regard,
except that these minor transients [insert appropriate terminology
here] happen perhaps every 5 to 10 seconds, as opposed to once every
three to four minutes.

Hmm... no screaming, no gnashing of teeth, no hair pulling... I'm
taking that as a good sign....



Basically true -- only real difference is use of solid state switching
and the zero-crossing switching, but it still is basically "just a
switch". These both have advantages in reliability, but in reality
the frequency of control is probably overkill for the application but
it doesn't cost any more once go to the electronics anyway, so why
not? is one way to look at it. Of course, if they use the fancy words
and "high technology" to justify a high initial cost, that's another
thing, but it didn't seem all that far out of line...