Tuesday, 12 November 2019

What are Thermistors exactly?

Whoever deals with electronic dartblasters sooner or later comes across the term „thermistor“. However, most people don’t really know what a thermistor is. We have summarized the most important things you should know in our blog post.

The word thermistor is derived from the English words „THERMally-sensitive resISTOR“ and is therefore a temperature-dependent resistor.

This component has the ability to change its resistance depending on its temperature. If, for example, you want to operate a motor with a higher voltage (let’s assume 12 volts instead of 6 volts), the currency heats up the thermistor, increases its resistance and stops any current from flowing through it. After a short time of cooling off the resistance in the thermistor decreases again and the motor will run again.

This is a protective device and makes sense. It is designed to prevent the motor from being damaged by overvoltage. But what if you want to install stronger motors and 6 volts will just don’t make them run properly because they are designed for 12 volts? In this case, the thermistor would still make the motors stop after a few seconds, although they would not be damaged by the applied voltage.

The only thing that helps here is to bypass the thermistor. Take a pair of pliers, or just your fingers, carefully grip the thermistor with them and gently twist it once on its own axis so that its little legs touch. Now the thermistor is bypassed and you can operate the new motors with a higher voltage but the thermistor will no longer fulfill it’s protective function

What are Thermistors exactly?

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