Sylvia Else wrote:
: I've worked my way through four rice cookers, two different brands, in
: as many months. The failure mode is consistent - the cooker cooks the
: rice, and then fails when it goes into the mode where it keeps the rice
: warm.

: In each case, it seems that the temperature sensitive fuse has blown.

: I'm in Australia, where the nominal mains voltage is 240V, but I
: actually get more like 250V. I'm trying to figure out whether this can
: really explain these multiple failures. The warming mode involves having
: an extra component in series with the heating element. I speculate that
: it is a capacitor, though if it is, its value is less than my multimeter
: will measure.

: Anyone have any thoughts on whether these things really run so close the
: edge in warming mode that a 4% overvoltage can kill them?

: Sylvia.

The keep warm rice cookers I've seen use a secondary warming coil separate
from the main cooking coil. I would doubt the extra component is a
capacitor, maybe thermal fuse. Is there continuity in the heating circuit?
Its possible the overvoltage could have blown a thermal fuse, it all
depends on how much margin was used when selecting the fuse.