Eli5: What really happens when you change the temperature in an AC (Cooling) ?
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In older thermostats, there was actually a mercury switch couples to a bimetallic strip. You turned the coil of bimetal a certain amount (gauged on the outside). As the temperature rose, the strip expanded until the mercury switch completed the circuit, thus turning on the A/C. As the room cooled, the switch contracted, re-coiling until the switch opened, thus turning off the A/C. In a heating/cooling combo unit, there was a switch on thermostat that controlled whether the mercury switch was connected to your A/C or your heater and reversed the whole on/off part of the circuit pathway (so heat came on when it was supposed to).
Nowadays, it’s all done with sensors, and there’s *usually* a built-in delay, so that the A/C or heat aren’t constantly cycling every few seconds (that’s bad for the systems). Usually about 5 minutes.
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