> > Tom Leue said the thermostat failed, so it wasn't an open-flame heat > source but electrical heating. If anything, a rheostat would be > better than a thermostat. Thermostats keep switching the power on and > off to keep the temperature ranging as little as possible either side > of what you're aiming at, which puts a strain on everything > concerned, IMO. A rheostat, once set, won't do that.
Actually, there's no problem with thermostats causing a more dangerous condition than other heaters (I don' t understand why a rheostat would work differently). There are lots of possibilities of equipment failure when you work with electric anything. The solution is ... a thermostat, and doublechecking what you're assuming the automated system will do. My cheapish thermometer is a mechanical automotive-type temp gauge. They come with a variety of adaptors for threadinginto pipe thread fittings- so even if you're weldless, you put a tee in the line before your pump, and when you're ready to check the temp, you run your pump for a minute to get the temperature strata intermixed. Cheap automation is great. I use heavyduty timers a lot, use cheap timers for bubblewashing, and now use thermostats for processors. But I always assume that they're fallable, I doublecheck everything, and I try and have something in place in case it does fail (like containment, closed systems, doublechecking temperature, etc...) UNfortunately I know that Tom took the same Iowa State University course as I and many others here have done-= and that they certainly DID cover all the safety issues that have been raised here by everyone here. The course also included a section on safety which suggested doing a survey of your plant where you try and identify EVERYTHING that could possibly go wrong and come up with a strategy for dealing with it if it does. common-sense stuff that I think most people do anyway. > > >(I'm particularly interested if this would work for > >any rendition of the Foolproof method my Aleks Kac.) > > > > Anyway, the first stage of the acid-base method needs the temp > maintained for an hour, but the second stage for 1.5-2.5 hours, maybe > not so easy just on pre-heating. > > I did fine with ALeks' method in wintertime (well a california winter) working outdoors, with my Michelin Man bubblewrapped processors- the insulation can maintain that temp if there's enough of it. ONe of the things I worried about with this method was that it looked like higher energy use- but it didn't add up to much once I installed loads of ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~--> Rent DVDs from home. Over 14,500 titles. Free Shipping & No Late Fees. Try Netflix for FREE! http://us.click.yahoo.com/ybSovB/hP.FAA/3jkFAA/FGYolB/TM ---------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Biofuels list archives: http://archive.nnytech.net/ Please do NOT send Unsubscribe messages to the list address. To unsubscribe, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
