Hi all,

I have an old 1970s Vulcan Tangi 3 fan heater (wood-grain casing and all!), which I use as my main heater - it does a fantastic job of heating up my room. I use it on a small cheap powerboard with an in-built breaker. When I run the heater on high for about ten minutes, the breaker trips. It's fine otherwise though. Are there any issues with these heaters, or could it just be that the cheapy power board isn't designed to handle the current draw of such an old heater?

This is the heater:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0sW1NO4bZA.

Thanks,

Chris

The woodgrain sheet metal is Marviplate and was quite common at the time. The intermittent problem is most likely thermal. Have you checked for anything obstructing the airway inside the heater? The element needs to have forced air running past it all the time. There is a thermal cutout on fan heaters though these shouldn't cause a circuit breaker or fuse to trip.

I couldn't see a rating plate on that heater, but I'm guessing that at the high setting it's 2400 watts, in which case assuming a 240 volt supply it's pulling 10 amps.

I'm guessing that powerboard breaker would be rated at 10 amps. Breakers can tend to wear out over time and trip below their rated point. Perhaps this is what you are experiencing.

It's generally recommended that heaters be plugged directly into a power point, rather than via an extension cord.

I would go along with GTC's comments, so long the old Vulcan is cleaned and in safe good order there should be no problems.

Best to plug directly into the power outlet, I have had problems with cheapie Chinese made power boards tripping with heavy loads even within their supposed power ratings.

Switches are not to crash hot either, one board had two switches fail and it was barely a year old.

At something like a packet of four for $9.00, yes powerboards are not the best quality these days and the circuit breakers are fairly rudimentary. To make a powerboard here in Australia the raw materials would cost more than that and certainly did back when Kambrook invented the device about 35 years ago.

Had a look at one of my Kambrook power boards which is not fitted with circuit breakers and is orange coloured.

Cannot tell whether it is Aust made but know it is easily 28 or so years old.

Almost an antique in todays throwaway society.

All of the four switches and sockets are in perfect condition.

The first Kambrook powerboards were made here and were basically a Clipsal four way outlet with power indicator (or exact copy of) fitted with a back plate, with a short lead and Clipsal plugtop.