I've had exactly the same problem with our Brewtus IV. The element burned out on the brew boiler before the end of the warranty period. Sadly I think Whole Latte Love has gone down hill since the time of this post in terms of customer service - they wanted full retail price for a new element! (even though it was less than a year old and within the warranty period). They seemed more interested in reading me the fine print of the warranty than on backing their product...
On Friday, March 7, 2014 at 8:09:12 PM UTC-8, Len Sherman wrote: > > This is driving me a bit nuts. I mentioned previously a Brewtus ground > fault problem that I traced to the boiler heater leaking current from the > electrical connections to the outer case. I replaced the heater and the > machine worked for a few months, but then failed again with the same > problem (tripping GFCI outlet). The newly installed heater coil again > developed electrical leakage from heater element to the case (about > 30kOhms). Just to be sure I measured this before installing the heater and > the same measurement showed infinite resistance. > > Todd from WLL responded to my query, guessed that the heater might have > been faulty, and sent me a new one gratis (Great service from WLL btw). I > put that in, the machine worked fine for about a month, but amazingly THE > SAME PROBLEM has now reoccurred! - GFCI trip and measurable resistance from > the heater element to the case (with the heater power connections > disconnected of course). > > So now I have had the original heater and two replacements fail in the > exact same way, but only after working OK for month or so in each case. I > am really at a loss here and looking for ANY ideas about this. I can only > come up with two guesses, both of which seem unlikely: > > 1) WLL has got a bad batch of replacement heaters, all of with develop > electrical leakage after some use, or > 2) I am doing something wrong when bringing the machine back up after > reassembling. All I have been doing after refitting the boiler and pipes is > fill the reservoir with water and turn on the machine with the cover off to > check for leaks. If all looks dry I put the covers on and turn it over to > my wife. She sys the machine worked fine maing espresso up until the GFCI > tripped. > > Is there any special procedure for priming a restarted machine? Is there a > way that boiler can run partially full and burn up the heater or something > like that? The reservoir is never allowed to be less than 1/2 full. Also, > the heater element itself is still good (measures about 14 Ohms) except for > the electrical leakage. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Brewtus" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/brewtus. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
