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| Principle of operation - steam mops | |||
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| Posted by: peterlo ® 03/15/2008, 22:15:22 Author Profile eMail author Edit |
Hello evryone,
I'm new here & hope this basic question will appear in the correct forum. I recently had cause to dis-assemble my wifes steam mop which had become faulty. I was surprised to find the principle of operation not exactly obvious so I could not safely effect a quick rapair. It seems there are few "key" components: water tank, heating element, surface mount thermoswitch, power on switch, power on indicator LED, element on indicator LED. I presume the element is capable of quickly bringing a full water tank to the boil & thus creating steam but from that point some regulation is provided by the themoswitch thus ensuring excessive steam is not produced. In my experience this would typically require a close tolerance themoswitch or perhaps an operator adjustable thermostat/regulator. I also expected to see some form of safety device to provide energy cut-off in the event of thermswitch failure & in the event of an empty tank. I could see no such components. In this particular case the problem is that steam is shut off for an unacceptably long period before steam is again available which led me to expect I could make an adjustment or simply replace the suspect theroswitch. I now have some suspicions that I have not grasped fully the method of operation & what safety devices may be there & as yet unseen. I would be most grateful if someone could provide some further detail about exactly how these things work & if there are safety devices generally fitted. Peter Owens
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| : Principle of operation - steam mops -- peterlo | Post Reply | Top of thread | Forum |
Posted by: randykimball ®  03/16/2008, 10:11:17 Author Profile eMail author Edit |
First congrats, you may have just posted the most correctly stated post ever on this forum. I think you are on the right track. Thermostat switches are indead manufactured to very tight tolerances. They generally test all batches and seperate them out into variances. I tend to agree with you that the thermostat is the bad guy. Also, it is very important that the switch be in clean face to face CONTACT with the zone that it is montitoring. So in effect (I've never disasembled one of those)I get the idea it is an instant coffee maker in a different format. Being no expert, I have seen several situations in my lifetime that were contact thermostat disk controled and found it important to get a good matching replacement and make sure it has good thermo conduction. One simple way to test your theory on a two wire thermostat is to simply replace it with a toggle switch (only while you monitor it and in a tempory bases, use all safety rules..yada..yada..). This way YOU can be the thermostat and see if you can make the device produce steam under your control. If it is a three wire, this instantly answers your safety question. One connection is likely an on and the other an off or over range. Also, now that I'm thinking about it, make sure there is not an additional thermo guy somewhere acting as an over heat limit, he could be the bad guy. Some years back I did some intense R&D towards a product which ended up using one of those thermo guys in a production run. After extensive contact with the manufacturers I came away with a deep respect for their ability to produce very high quality thermo selective properties of bi-metal wafers. I had run tests on many versions and brands with amazing results. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that the safety is in the way the thermostat is operated in default mode. ...edited in...
The worst suggestion of your lifetime may be the catalyst to the grandest idea of the century, never let suggestions go unsaid nor fail to listen to them. Modified by randykimball at Sun, Mar 16, 2008, 10:32:59 |
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