On 11/14/20 6:47 AM, wrote:
On Friday, November 13, 2020 at 3:41:19 PM UTC-5, Runner wrote:
On 11/13/20 3:07 PM, Fox's Mercantile wrote:
On 11/13/20 12:57 PM, legg wrote:
I don't recommend electric blankets. For a multitude
of reasons.

I just bought a new one.
I turn it one 20-30 minutes before I go to bed.
I turn it off when I go to bed.
But when I go to bed, the bed is nice and warm.
Beats the **** out of laying there swearing for 15-20
minutes waiting for the bed to finally get warm.


If a Sunbeam, good luck keeping it working. I went through three in
five years before finally going the DIY route. I'm not sure what's
happened to them. I couldn't even get any of the ones I bought to last
out the season. I think it has something to do with the current circuit
they use and the blanket wiring. Growing up, my parents and I had their
blankets and they lasted 15 years before I unfortunately tossed them a
decade ago.

Sunbeam blankets don't flat out quit, they slowly get colder over time. Not sure why that is. It's like they're programmed to do so. Too bad because their controllers are great. I switched to their mattress pads and they get inert over two or three seasons. Looking for another option right now.

Exactly right, don't just quit but lose warmth over time. Out of the
three Sunbeam blankets I owned and two heated throws, they all did this.
This was my main inspiration for my DIY revamping. There's actually a
fair amount of online info on the Sunbeams if you do a patent number
search. A circuit block will come up along with at least one schematic.
I thought the culprit might have been a small SMD voltage sampling
transistor inside the little box where the cord plugs into the blanket,
but replaced that and still no heating. I also swapped out controllers
for a different one to no avail. So, that left the blanket itself. I
suspect the changing of wire resistance from repeated heating is what
does it and of course there's no solution without either a revamping as
I have done, or a new blanket.

Patent numbers show that someone definitely designed their latest
circuitry. IMHO, probably due to lawsuits and other worries from the
past, it was overdesigned and thus now stops working after short order.
There is no easy solution unless one wants to try other brands and take
a chance that you might come across one that actually keeps working.