[APD] Re: heaters--any way to tell when they're going bad?

[Bill Wichers <billw at waveform_net>]

> I have a several fairly new heaters that give me no trouble at all, now, 
> but I'm just wondering for the future--is there any symptom of impending 
> failure that one might look out for, so it could be replaced before it 
> gets stuck "on" and fries your fish?
>
> Just looking for something to worry about, since the algae is pretty tame 
> right now.
>
> Diane Brown in St. Louis

Not much, but I have found that they seem to be more likely to fail "off" 
than "on". For me, every time a heater is getting ready to die, it will 
stop going off/on/off, and be more like off/spark a while/on/spark a 
while/off. You see this as sparks in the switch or flickering in the light 
for a few seconds before the heater changes state from off to on or vice 
versa. It's usually just the contacts in the thermostat that die, although 
I had one that had a connection in the heating element go bad (you could 
see it spark for a few months before it stopped working).

The electronic heaters die with no warning that I have found, although I've 
only used a few of them. I've had good luck with the visitherms lasting 
about 7-10 years. I have a lot of the little Hagen thermal compacts which I 
have had zero failures with so far (they're all little 25 watters though).

        -Bill


*****************************
Waveform Technology
UNIX Systems Administrator

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