"default" wrote in message
...
I was at the hardware store shelling out $20 for an "infinite range
control." It is a proportioning control for an electric range burner.
It is primitive. A small 3 W heating element warms a bimetallic
leaf which moves a set of contacts, which opens the connection to the
range element and modulates the power.

I'm thinking it is stupid to keep replacing these things . . . I go
through one a year and its a hassle to change out or repair a broken
one.

What's the consensus on getting an ordinary $3 lamp dimmer and putting
a 40 amp triac on it and using that for element control? Anyone see
why it shouldn't work or what to look, look out for?

I've got a half dozen 40A 600 V triacs already mounted to heat sinks
that I got for free. Plan A: would be to just open the lamp dimmer
and wire the Triac in place of the one inside, and mount it outboard
on its heatsink. Perhaps changing the size of the phase shift
resistor to accommodate 240 instead of 120.

Plan B: But how about using the 120V lamp dimmer as-is? I would just
use it to trigger the heatsink mounted triac. Any idea if that
could/should work?

Any downside to using a phase control element instead of
proportioning? Would it cause my power bill to go up?

I figure I could do it safely.
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Try it, see what happens, most range burners are 240V which may or may not
be ok for the dimmer, but so long as you keep an eye on it I don't think
anything too bad will happen.