**** under final sconstruction ***********
i haven't used a lot of thermal switches before although i did have a memorable incident on it. Many years ago, my brand new Philips blender stop working after i continuously use it for a minute or so. i thought it is spoilt. to my amazement it turns again after few minutes. i assume that there is some over temperature protection. Of course, there are other non thermal switch component that can serve almost the same purpose. I have also used over current protection to protect circuit, simple fuse and some IC does comes with over temperature and over current protection built in, especially when it comes to motor control.
As i have some motor based projects on hand, my experiment is MAINLY on motor along with some relevant. i have a simple DIY dc motor driven weed cutter. it does have some problem. once it draws so much current until the on/off button melted. i have to change to a higher current ratings switch and thicker cable. it works, but after some time, my motor itself starts to burn (some of the carbon brush i believe). In short, it is interesting to use the experimenter kit along with the thermal measurement device to ramp up the current and experiment it, hopefully i won't kill too many motors
Figure 1 my DIY weed cutter
Figure 2 DC motor
Figure 3 the new switch (which i salvage from power drill) and thicker cable
Equipments that i plan to use
1) thermal camera:
although the experiment kit i receive doesn't contain a thermometer i plan to use a thermal camera for testing
2) battery
3) Keithley Source Measure Unit