On Oct 31, 2008, at 8:30 AM, Ed Sutton wrote: > Concern that burning Teflon will kill my budgie. Birds are very > sensitive to teflon fumes. Well, the "experts" seem to say that hazardous teflon fumes come at pretty high temperatures, as in leaving a pan on a hot burner with nothing in it. I guess I kind of believe them, with a pinch of salt. In any case, I do try to keep the cauls within a fairly low temperature range, somewhere above boiling water but not too far above. I check with the tried and true "lick a finger and touch" test, with the varying degrees of hiss telling me what I want to know. If the iron is too hot, I dip it in a bottle cap full of water to cool it. Which brings me to a question: what do those supposed temperature controllers do and how? I'm talking about the Dial a Temp black boxes. I also purchased a set of cauls and iron and temp control (I forget from which supply house) which provided a light dimmer to add to the cord instead of the Dial a Temp. So I use one of those as well. Now the light dimmer I mostly understand: it's a rheostat, and only "lets so much electricity through" depending where you set the dial, having to do with contact area within the switch. But the Dial a Temp box is different. It clicks on and off like a thermostat. But it has no temperature probe. All it can be doing is sensing electricity flow as far as I can see. Does anyone on the list have a sense of the mechanism? I have basically come to terms with using both the box and the rheostat successfully enough, but the curiosity eats at me a wee bit. (In either case, the cauls can get fairly hot (too hot) if just left on over a period of time at what has been determined to be the "right setting"; and can be not hot enough if used "too fast" as in inserting into too many cold bushings in a row too fast. So I try to hit a happy medium, and always check the caul if it's been sitting a while). Regards, Fred Sturm University of New Mexico fssturm at unm.edu
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