Alright well, here's what I know.
I still don't know what appliance/machine it's used for. It's likely for something large, like a boiler or large dryer, and some signs pointing towards even an oven. All I do know is that it's some type of thermostat piece. There's a multitude of these things out there, but these are obviously unique by it's triple-dot design AND
it's size. This may also be referred to as a "klixon." While Klixon IS a brand, it's also seemingly used as a generic term- like the use of 'band-aide," so my usual search terms included at least the combination of "thermostat" and "klixon"
The ones I found in South Africa was through a listing on "BidorBuy," which is best described as SA's version of Ebay, with one of the 2 nearly identical listings looking like this.
View attachment 823307
So there were 2 separate listings, with at least 2 of the desired pieces in each lot, totaling 4. These are clearly older or have been through a lot of use. While the metal portion is easy to clean, the rear plastic portions are quite dirty. I am pretty certain that the white portion on the rear is actually a ceramic material. RS Cracked one open and this possible ceramic portion was formed into the inside of the metal disc portion.
View attachment 823303
Here, you can read the markings. It's a 2a 250V part. The portion that is not clear is the "Vebe-SpA-ITALIA." Of course, the "ITALIA" leads me to believe this particular piece was of Italian origin. "Vebe" appears to be an actual company producing some type of testing equipment. "SpA" doesn't give me any results other than resort listings. Of course, there's the patent number- 123946, which has not yielded any significant results when searching patent databases
View attachment 823304
Also something to note, the sequence of stamped letters (from the inside) are different. They are each:
EV1500 NA 40 60 2/73
EV1500 NA 34 60 9/74
While it's just my speculation, I feel the final series of numbers are the actual manufacture date, so the first one being made in February 1973 and the 2nd being September 1974, and if so, would put these at 45 years old!
View attachment 823305
View attachment 823306
I do want to add this, as I did another search, and came across THIS Ebay sale
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Eaton-9160...D&orig_cvip=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557
No, I didn't buy it, but perhaps someone here did
It looks that way as the seller had re-listed this very thing multiple times...and was just sold on June 6th. But what's different here is that this seems to be made much more recently. The company "Eaton" appears to prominently produce electric components in the 80s. I haven't done a deep dive yet, but this at least confirms there's been at least 2 manufacturers of this piece at 2 different points in time, which means it may still be possible to locate more. That one in the ebay listing is clearly unused and in perfect shape. The other thing to note here is that according to the listing, this had a patent number of "123948" where the ones we have are "123946," which again, indicates to me that the ebay one is much newer.
So yea, there it is. Goodluck finding them if you can. I will be molding mine regardless to offer up to the community, and I'll post when I do
-TC
