If you have ever looked at your multimeter and wondered what is a thermal fuse, then this article will give you a simple explanation. A thermal fuse is a safety device that has two terminals: one terminal has a positive value and the other has a negative reading. This is placed in a metal case that is closed so that the device cannot come in contact with any other material.
When an electrical current comes into contact with the multimeter, the thermal switch contacts the terminals. If you are using a thermal cut meter, then you will feel the heat as the current passes through the multimeter. If you do not feel the heat, then the current did not come into contact with the thermal switch and it was not exposed to thermal burn-in. Therefore, you should remove the thermal cut meter from your hands before you touch any surface on the device.
Why is a thermal fuse important? Well, consider that every time you light up a candle with a match you can be burning a fire and causing an electrical overload. Many things cause an overload, such as lighting an electric fire or connecting electric wires that are prone to shorts to an electric current overload. Some other things that can cause an overload are when you bang things against each other and the like. If you are using a multimeter to test the thermal safety of things, then you could be in danger of getting over-loaded. Saftty Thermal protector
Is there a way to prevent overheating? There are many ways to prevent overheating including regulating the temperature that you operate a circuit at. A thermal fuse is very useful because it allows you to set a safe limit to the current that is going to flow into and through a circuit. If the current exceeds the safe limit, the multimeter may give out a sign that you have overheated, which means that you need to shut down the circuit until the current is back down to a safe level.
So, why do we need a thermal limiter anyway? A thermal limiter allows you to cut the power that comes into your circuit simply by cutting off the supply to the thermal fuse. You can find these on some multimeters, but they are quite expensive.
Instead, what you can use is a thermal switch. A thermal switch works basically the same as a thermal fuse. Basically, what happens is that the multimeter senses the voltage that is coming into the circuit. When the multimeter detects a high current, it alerts the thermal switch to cut off the power. If the current is not too high, then the thermal switch will simply disconnect itself from the circuit.
If you want to protect your investment, you can actually install both of these devices in one. The thermal limiter will turn on when there is thermal overload, and then turn off when the current is safe. This will protect your investment as well as preventing your electronics from overheating. Of course, if you just want to cut off the power completely, then you can just turn off the thermal overload switch.
Now, you might be wondering why a multimeter would even need to come into play for this. The reason is because a multimeter only measures one type of temperature: static. In other words, a multimeter can only tell you whether or not a current is flowing, it cannot tell you whether or not the current is at a high enough level to cause a temperature change. However, a thermal protector can do both, meaning it can help you determine the temperature of your electronic equipment, which is useful in preventing overheating.
