ADETOLA THE CURIOUS ENGINEER

Right now I am sitting down in my room waiting on the Ibadan electrical distribution company to connect the power supply. It's a Sunday, the new week is around and I just need to press my cloth to look decent for the week. I could not bear the thought of folding my cloth and placing under my pillow as our old method of pressing cloth nor picking up a stove iron to press my cloth it could easily stain my cloth or burn it off completely. I wouldn't want to have rags in my wardrobe. To build a solar electricity to power a pressing iron is of a huge cost especially or a full time student like me it’s not feasible. Then I asked myself the question how does this pressing iron work? What makes it unique and different from just applying any hot surface to my cloth? So I decided to make a deep research, I picked up my mobile phone and gathered some books basically to cure my curiosity.

A pressing iron

A pressing iron basically consists of a;

1. Thermostat

2. A smooth metallic surface

3. A heating element

4. A cord.

Thermostat as the name implies thermo meaning “heat” and statis meaning “constant”. Thermostat which simply means “constant heat”. This device enables the heating element which is laced on the surface of the smooth metallic surface supply to the flattened surface of the pressing iron constant heat. Basically it prevents the iron from being too hot or becoming an electric stove, it i's the major component that saves power and prevent your cloth from being burnt. The thermostat uses a bimetallic strip to regulate the temperature as the name implies “bi which means two it consists of two dissimilar metals of different coefficient of expansion coupled together”. The presence of heat from the heating element makes them expand differently, breaking the circuit when one gets to a heating point. When it cools the metal regains its original shape and connects back to the circuit.

schematic diagram of an iron
This basically makes the iron hot and cold after a period of time. The smooth surface of the pressing iron is to flatten the cloth and for easy pressure application and heat dissipation. And the cord is for connection to the power suppy. I was able to cure my curiosity about how my pressing iron works. After waiting few hours the power supply came on and I gladly picked up my pressing iron and used it to iron up my cloth. Nigerians can testify you can't just trust them to leave the power supply on for too long. Lol

A detailed picture showing the parts of an iron

All thanks to @steemgraven29, @limabeing, @beanz, @greenrun for their full support and guidance in making my post awesome. Thank you for reading