I have a problem...
No, not that one.
Not the "mental" one...
I have a waterbed. I've had this stupid thing since 1995. It came with George. Somehow, I retained custody of the damned thing. (Actually, with what a major league pain right in the ASS this thing is, maybe him not wanting it anymore ain't such a mystery...)
Anyway... it came complete, heater and all.
AND, it worked. Now, the control box for the first heater was shit. Nothing left to it except the wires and a little metal spike that the control knob belonged on. It was ugly, but... IT WORKED. So ya couldn't see what it was set on. Who cared? Not me.
I set it on, like, "boil" and just kept the room it was in cool. All was well. Then... we moved. APPARENTLY, in the move, the old heater control up and died. We get here, set up the bed, fill it, plug it in and... nuttin'.
*siigh* So, off I go to get a new one.
Okay. Bring it home, open 'er up and what's this? A thermal fuse? Wtf? Supposed to "trip" in case of "catastrophic heat event" or "consumer misinstallation". Now, are those two ambiguous phrases, or friggin' what? Any-goddamned-way... installed it. Filled it. Again, within a week, it's "cold".
Not at the top temp, where I have it set. Fuck. Call the place I got it and they exchanged it. Bring home the new one... same shit. Now... I have QUESTIONS about this "thermal fuse". I have questions about "ambient room temperature". I have questions about the goddamned stupid sensor.
Boy, do I have QUESTIONS. I have drained this bed FIVE TIMES since we've moved here, fuckin' around, trying to get the bed HOT. I have researched EVERYTHING possible on here, trying to get answers.
Hell, I even called some place called "The Waterbed Doctor" in Fontana, Ca., because "Fontana, Ca." is the only identifying info I can find on who makes this heater. Since he and the anonymous manufacturer of this stupid heater are in the same town, I called him. (He'd heard of them, but didn't have a phone number... yeah, I asked.) It's called a "Performance Master Advantage Plus". (Yeah, and I think that "plus" is that thermal fuse thing, which I'd like to bite in half right about now...) Anyway...
With the second heater, the one that's up there right now, I did everything BY THE BOOK. The control box is mounted on the bed frame. The heater is placed correctly, as is the liner and the mattress itself. Now, about the sensor... some places say to put it 12" from the pad. Some say 8", some say more than 12". It's 12" away right now. And the bed is 85 degrees.
Not good.
BAD, even.
Fucker is COLD. And, I HAVE a cold, so this ain't gonna fly any more.
(However, the whole bed is about to... as in: Fly right out the window... in small, hacked up pieces...) WHAT am I doing wrong? According to the dude in Ca., filling the bed with pure hot water isn't gonna trip the fuse. Something like not unplugging the heater when draining the bed will do that. So, it's when the heater itself becomes too hot from within itself that the thermal fuse blows, not just from hot water being used to fill the bed. (Altho, the dude did say that pure hot could harm the bladder. Whatever...) Also, if this thermal fuse does trip, it's supposed to not work at all, not just get to 85 degrees and stay there.
Which is what it's doing. Same as the last one did... The light on the control box has yet to go off even once and it's been about two weeks... THIS TIME. I do have a mattress pad on it. I also have no less than FIVE heavy blankets on it.
Still only goes to 85 degrees. WHAT, short of setting it on FIRE, will get it where it oughta be? Where does the sensor REALLY belong? What is this thermal fuse thing and am I actually fuckin' things up from the get-go by using pure hot water, which is over 130 degrees? (The "Doctor" said no to that, but, I want a second opinion...) Now, what I'm gonna do is this:
Get dressed and go outside and bed calves.
Then, later, Eric and I are gonna move the sensor farther away than it already is from the heater pad.
This, of course, involves (kill me now) d-r-a-i-n-i-n-g the fuckin' thing again, at least enough to lift a corner and move the sensor. Then, I'm gonna refill whatever we take out with HOT water again, put the mattress pad back on, put the 87 pounds of blankets back on and see what happens. However, before I do alla that, I'm gonna check in here, to see if anyone has seen this post and knows what the hell I'm supposed to be doing. So... if you have any expertise in this area, please say so, so I can pick yer brain before I blow my own out from frustration, okay?
Comments
1
Can you just straight wire the heater, that way it will be on when you plug it in? That sensor must be like a regulator, it makes it heat up and cool down, if you just want it hot, jump it, go to the instructions and see which wire in the power and just use that one. Hope this helps, I threw my old water bed away many years ago, the first one I had was in 1967 and it sucked. The next one I got had all the bells and whistles and it sucked also. Now I have a new Stearns and Foster, 2,000 bed.
Posted by: Catfish at December 07, 2005 01:16 PM (lkkbB)
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