I would not rule out element failure. I had a GFCI trip last year that only occurred after hitting a certain temp a few minutes into warmup. There may be a point when rising temp causes movement within the element, just a copper tube containing a wire surrounded by insulation. If the insulation within the element is faulty, the trip may occur. My element tested normal both in and out of the machine, but when replaced, all was cured.
bg From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Graeme Burton Sent: Tuesday, August 27, 2013 4:23 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Brewtus 3R Tripping GFCI... Advice? Hi Mike, Could be that you have a small leak when parts are cold but not when hot. Parts are expanded and leaks close up also small leaks may be evaporated quickly when the machine is hot. I would look very carefully for moisture around electrical connections when the machine is cold. Turn on as usual wait for it to trip and then isolate power and examine. Graeme On 27/08/2013, at 10:26 AM, Mike PDX <[email protected]> wrote: Quick update. Tried disconnecting the brew boiler entirely before cycling the machine when I got home this evening, and it still tripped the GFCI during the hand off from the steam boiler to the brew boiler, so looks like the heating element isn't the problem. Then wondering if I could see anything short during warm up, I re-connected the brew boiler and plugged into a non-GFCI outlet and watched and waited. Long story short... nothing happened. The Brewtus completed it's warm up with no visible drama and hit it's steady brew state of 201F. But here's the odd part, I then plugged the Brewtus back into the GFCI and it didn't trip (scratch head). I then proceeded to cycle both the brew and steam boiler (by drawing steam and water respectively) to see if I could cause the GFCI trip, and I never could, even though the power flowed from one boiler to the other many times. And when I think about it, the GFCI has never tripped when the machine was fully warmed up and maintaining temperature... seems to only occur during warm up first thing in the morning. Anyone have any insight as to how the power would be routed differently during a cold hand off between boilers, as opposed to a hot one? I guess I'm back to being fully confused. All thoughts welcome! Mike On Monday, August 26, 2013 11:18:26 AM UTC-7, Mike PDX wrote: Hi all, hoping I can get some help with my Brewtus 3R. It's been great for for 2.5 years with minimal maintenance but I just hit a rough patch. By way of a quick background, the only issues the machine has had before this are needing to replace a steam pressure gage (failed and filled up with water) and a very slow leak from the top of the brew boiler. The leak generally just keeps the top of the boiler damp, but from time to time it gets worse and causes 1/8 to 1/4 cup of water to leak from the top of the boiler, soak the tank insulation, and then drip through the bottom of the main housing onto the countertop (the machine is plumbed into our water line, which is typically 70psi, or RIGHT at the top of the acceptable line pressure). I've never determined what fitting was leaking due to it's intermittent nature, but the problem usually appeared when the machine had not been used for several days, and resolved itself when it was in steady use again. Here's what's going on now... About 2 months ago the Brewtus began tripping the GFCI protection on it's power circuit. Initially it was very infrequent, happening just 2 times in the first month. This lead me to replace the GFCI receptacle since I though that might be the culprit (it was fairly old). However the problem continued and the frequency increased to once a week in the second month, and now after being out of town for a week (and having the boiler leak go through one of it's dripping cycles) it's a become a constant issue, preventing the Brewtus from being used at all. As the frequency started to increase I spent some time observing exactly when the GFCI tripped, and it seems to be during the hand off from heating the steam boiler, to heating the brew boiler. So as an experiment today I disconnected the heating element of the brew boiler after the GFCI tripped (pulled red wire that leads to heating element) to see if that could be the issue... but the GFCI still continued to trip. This leads me to believe that the problem might be in one of the relays (there appears to be one directly below the brew boiler) and possibly due to water infiltration from the leak I mentioned above. One thing I haven't tried yet is disconnecting the brew boiler BEFORE powering on and seeing if that changes anything (I'll give it a shot tonight after everything cools off) but wanted to get this post up sooner than later. And last but not least I have a multi-meter I could use to check for grounding issues, but without a deeper idea of how the Bretus is wired I'd be working at random. Any advice or thoughts would be most welcome! Thanks, Mike -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. 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