View Single Post
  #5   Report Post  
Posted to sci.electronics.repair
Adrian Tuddenham[_2_] Adrian Tuddenham[_2_] is offline
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 200
Default Generic name for old bimetal strip "regulator" ?

N_Cook wrote:

Where self heating of current through the metal of a bimetal strip to a
heater or some other faily current hungry device, switches in and out
some contacts and so gives some sort of an indirect regulator for the
load. They were still to be seen in the dashboards of cars in the 1980s
and just termed regulators in the car repair manuals.


Sometimes incorrectly known as a voltage regulator (particularly
suitable for stabilising the supply to hot-wire petrol guages which had
a thermal lag that avereged out the make-and-break of the regulator).

They were also called "energy regulators" when used with hotplates and
the like. This was an accurate description, because it was the energy
that was measured and stabilised by the bimetal strip, not the voltage.

--
~ Adrian Tuddenham ~
(Remove the ".invalid"s and add ".co.uk" to reply)
www.poppyrecords.co.uk