Inline Heater Experience?

[Mastiffman/ Duramax7Man7]

How long have you had the fluval?

[gturmindright]

The longest about a year so far. I have 5. One has a temperature adjustment issue. It wont adjust downward.

[...]

I acquired a few of the Fluval 300W in the guard last yr that were already a yr old. They work great but like you I had trouble with the temp adjustment on one of them. The spring in the adjustment lever seems to weaken and not return it to dead center after a while. I discovered if you hold it in one hand and manually bring it back dead center that it would adjust in both directions.

[Mastiffman/ Duramax7Man7]

I have taken quite a few "dead" heater apart and there are two things that seem to go the most.

There is a resistor at the bottom of a lot of them that melts a wire and disconnects and then the thermal metal that has the contacts on it will get carbon build up and lose connection. That's the easiest as all you have to do is clean it up with some fine sand paper and it makes contact again and works fine. I have fixed the ones inwhich the resistor goes bad by jumping the connection with a thick wire or piece of a paperclip.