Hi folks. To start with i know jack about electricity. Could someone tell me what would cause rsc's to melt down. Third one just died. 26 amp controlling 1 2000 watt internal element.

Hi Scotty, How you doing? I am not using 220 volts. It is just plugged into a regular receptacle in my garage. It had a meltdown at the end of a run last night and would only work on "full".

I'm going to buy one more RSC. Same as before. Should I make sure the circuit breaker is of a certain size for that outlet? I have a Multi-meter that I bought so my daughters boyfriend could fix something or other. It is not a clamp on. It has a dial and black and red probes. Will that tell me anything?

Thanks Scotty .(Hey that's my name too). I tested all the outlets and all read 120 volts. I tested the resistance of the element on all three ohm settings of the multi-meter and the highest reading is 1 OHM. Am I correct in assuming that this is probably the issue.

It is only a 15 amp breaker. I say that because it has a "15" on the end of the toggle. lol If the problem is solved it was only because of a little help from a friend. New element and controller on the way. Thanks again.

Scotty your correct on your last post I'm not an AC electrical guy I work on high DC circuits but I know enough AC stuff to get by. Another thing to consider is hot plates and internal heaters work by resistance with such devices the heat generated can leach into the power cord the use of extension cords and the like will cause heat to further build in the circuit due to the conductor being longer creating a higher resistance in the conductor caring the load. for your new RSC try coming off your hot plate or element and add the RSC unit in the wiring supplied, basically your gonna splice your RSC unit without its cordage into the cord attached to your heater. This will shorten the conductor lenth and should run cooler. I have melted many wall sockets and cords due to heat build up this way and never once did it trip the breaker I have an electric foundry furnace and learned the hard way with the draw on the circuit you need to run the shortest cordage possible. Damn near burned down my garage lucky for me I forgot me cell phone and went back in to get it just as flames erupted from the power outlet.

I wish you the best getting it figured out, for sure having things melt down is NO GOOD with what we are doing. A few years ago I saw some extension cords that said they were rated for air conditioner units they were beefy so my guess is they had large wires inside to carry the load. I ended up removing my cord and rewiring the hot plate with my RSC spliced in I used very heavy cord cut from an old freezer unit I made the total cord lenth 4 foot and moved my operation close to the receptacle. My garage is set up with a large mill and lathe and my foundry so I had the garage ran on a new 200amp service. The receptacle I use for heavy tools that aren't hardwired is the one that is rite next to the circuit box that's the shortest run of wire in the system. I never liked extension cords even heavy duty ones I just don't trust them. Anything that requires high amp draw get plugged in as close to the breaker as I can get it.
Anyhow Good luck brother let us know how things work out and if I can be of help in any way just shoot me a PM


Semper Fi

"I purchased a couple of the AC voltage controllers from E bay and tried to get the them to control voltage with no luck. It says it a AC 220v 10000W voltage regulator speed control. It has a little digital panel and two white buttons to control the output. When hooked up the panel will go from 0 to 100 but the voltage
at 1 to about 23 will read 135 and from 24 to 100 it is 220VAC has anyone made one of these work? It has Four screw connections for input and output and
I noticed on the circuit board the two middle ones are connected to each other. It says it will do 80 amps so my 5500 watt element should be a little over half
capacity. seller has no info or drawings just this label (电源输入 input, 调压输出 output)"