Deep-fryer thermostat

Jan 17, 2009

- hkarameh,
Now I know the problem. I ordered that thermostat in a great rush, and that was my mistake. Let me rephrase that. My messing with it was the mistake. I'm a damn bee-keeper, not an electrician.
Anyway, after I took it out and replaced it with a used one that my son-in-law had found, I took it apart to see if I could tell what the hell had happened to it.
Aha!
I saw a very small fuse/capacitor/thermocouple, whatever, located between the prongs that close/open the circuit to the heat element. The fuse thingy appeared to be still good, but the wire that connected it to the prongs was blackened, and about 1/8" was gone.
After that, my curiosity really got riled up, and I kept web-searching until I found a clue. It seems that the American Range thermostat model E289 that I tried to install is designed for a "millivolt system" only. Whatever the hell that is.
My next mission is to try and find some literature about how this type of TS works, because I could see nothing connecting the power to the contacts that tell the element to switch on/off.
Interesting stuff.