LOL this HT looks funny
I'm worried about that circ, it seems it could break off really easily. That doesn't look like a perc I would pay such premium price for.
It doesn't look at all as sturdy as mine where thin glass is nowhere to be found:
Thank god the glass was good back then, seems like their prices are going up and the glass quality down.
I've already seen some breaks where the glass looked really thin at the female joint attachment - that should be the thickest part as well as perc base!
Ah. I assumed any glow was an indication of a problem. Or a future problem that'll come too soon. I'll stay watchful. Thanks.
Glow can be normal under some circumstances.
When you dial the max, then immediately after turn off, it can be possible to see faint red glow from the heater. It doesn't glow when the dial is lower and the green has been on for a while.
When the unit is heat-soaked like that, the heat is already there so the heater doesn't (and shouldn't) need to heat a lot to maintain that.
Hovewer when you turn on the unit from cold start, the heater will build up a very intense yellow glow withing a minute so it heats up as fast as it can. Then about 30 seconds before the temp is reached, the smart heater goes off. This is when the glow is most intense. The heater knows exactly when to stop so at the time when that glowing heat disperses into the glass it also reaches the temperature precisely and the LED goes green (yes sometimes it can overshoot a little because of this - then the heater just waits a bit more so the temp backs down).
This behaviour can drive someone who doesn't know what's going on into paranioa over overheating. I think it could be mentioned in the manual that on startup or max setting it is normal to see a glow from the heater.
I think it's also possible to "abuse" this behaviour to make the unit overshoot a lot:
1) You set the dial to max knowing how long it would take to go green from cold start.
2) You turn it on and count until about 30 secs remain to green and then back the dial down until you reach green.
3) Well, this was the point, where the unit would stop heating so the temp reaches that max dial after that 30 secs, now you've told it you want the temp to stay where it is now, but the heater is already boosted and the unit can't do anything about that, it can just overshoot and wait. It would need to stop another 30 seconds ago to stabilize there without overshooting.