this post was submitted on 27 Aug 2023
168 points (88.9% liked)
Asklemmy
43380 readers
1711 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy ๐
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- !lemmy411@lemmy.ca: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Not American. What's a thermostat?
The electronic thing on the wall that controls the temperature of your heater or air conditioner.
older ones are often electrical, but not really electronic. they use a bimetal strip that bends due to changing temperatures, to complete a circuit at the point you set the slider. it's actually a really fascinatingly simple bit of tech.
Mine growing up used a bit of mercury in a sealed vial mounted to that bimetallic strip.
any idea what the mercury was for? something about getting the heat in and out of the strip faster maybe?
The Mercury is in a glass tube with two wires and the tube is attached to the bimetallic strip in such a way that the motion of the Mercury due to gravity as the strip moves will close the circuit between the two wires. The Mercury is just being used a liquid conductor.
Yeah, sorry. It was the switch! Two wires on one side. When the capsule tilts from the strip/coil it makes the electrical connection.
that is fascinating, thank you and @metheos@feddit.de for the elaboration. quite clever.
Only God knows
It controls your furnace and air conditioner in your house
Thermostat isn't an American term.
Google search would have answered that.
It's what controls the furnace or air conditioner in your house. That way you can control how hot or cold your house is.
That depends. For example in a lot of Europe there aren't any air conditioners in houses, so it only controls heating.