I strongly advise against spring loaded dial timer models. Fire hazard when they stop working if you are not setting up a backup timer to keep yourself aware when it should shut off. You should never trust it. First hand experience. For me it was too late to return or else I would have. Instead we got one with digital timer.
Digital timer is much more likely to fail sooner, but likely (not certain) to shut off when it does.
However it should not be a fire hazard either way. Might your food burn (in the chef's sense) and make foul smoke, yes, but merely failing to shut off shouldn't cause the unit itself to catch fire. There has to be an internal thermal cutoff switch (for temperature regulation if nothing else) and usually thermal fuse too.
Granted the way things are made these days, the thermal fuse might be the first part to fail on one with either type of timer, but a thermal fuse is cheap to DIY replace, just make sure that if it's connected directly to the heating element that you attach it with metal crimps (as would be the original design), not solder.
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However it should not be a fire hazard either way. Might your food burn (in the chef's sense) and make foul smoke, yes, but merely failing to shut off shouldn't cause the unit itself to catch fire. There has to be an internal thermal cutoff switch (for temperature regulation if nothing else) and usually thermal fuse too.
Granted the way things are made these days, the thermal fuse might be the first part to fail on one with either type of timer, but a thermal fuse is cheap to DIY replace, just make sure that if it's connected directly to the heating element that you attach it with metal crimps (as would be the original design), not solder.
Thank you!