BEWARE of these thermostaticly controlled switches

[jakell2010]

I had one of those Thermocubes that are supposed to come on at 35degrees and go off at 45,,,,well I went out to feed yesterday, and the water was frozen solid??,,,I think what's going on , and the complete switch had caught fire, tripped the breaker and fused the terminals on my extension cord.

If you'd like to see it go to my uploaded images,,,,,if it had been inside the coop, there would be no coop, this thing caught fire and the plastic melted

click on my BYC page then view uploaded images

This is what I found,,,and no it was not overloaded, it had one ceramic 18"X18" ceramic heater plugged into it, there was a standard aluminum water defroster that was on the same line but not plugged into this thermo cube,,,,It has it's own thermo switch built in, and the extension cord was 10guage wire, that I use to use to run the block heaters on my diesel

 

[fuzziecreatures]

woah! call the company! it may have been defective and you may be letting them know about a problem with their product

 

[Ksane]

I've got everything plugged into GFCI breakers (not the same as surge protectors as some think). If they detect any sort of overload at all it shuts all the power off. That picture is scary!

 

[happyhensny]

Scary-glad everyone is ok.

 

[ADozenGirlz]

Quote:
x2 That's insane. I bought one of those once and never felt it worked. Glad there wasn't a tragic ending to this story. Definitely call the manufacturer and file a report.

 

[peterlund]

How many amps does a thermo-cube say it can handle?.. Looks like this plug took 50 amps or so.... What did you have plugged into it if I might ask?? At least the metal melted so the current stopped... Otherwise you would be having broiled chicken tonight!

 

[Eznet2u]

GFCI breakers detect an interruption of current, but do not detect current overloads.

I had an Aquarium heater do basically the same thing. Melted the outlet and wires.
Fused the plug to the outlet. GFCI's will only trip if there is an imbalance. With an
overload, there is no imbalance, just an excess of current.

 

[Dirty Farmer]

Sheesh....I just bought one of these too.

Now I'm not so confindent to use it.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Sheesh....I just bought one of these too.

Now I'm not so confindent to use it

I have several that I have been using for years and never had any problems.​

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

How many amps does a thermo-cube say it can handle?.

They are rated for 15 amps​