On 7/12/21 4:26 am, 'Andrey Sychev' via Brewtus wrote:
I finally got around to perform electrical test on my B2. According to
WLL tech support, I needed to perform Continuity and Resistance test
with a digital multimeter on the contacts under the covers on the
bottom of the machine or unplug the wires and when powered on the fuse
would trip.Somehow my multimeter shows 1 whether or not I touch the
contacts, so I unplugged the wires one boiler at a time and neither
time the fuse tripped. Any idea what that means? Thanks
Caution: retired university academic speaking here :)
OK - so take the multimeter; switch to ohms (Greek capital
Omega/R/depends-on-the-maker...). Put the two test leads together and
the reading should fall to zero and it might also beep at you. That's a
short circuit/low-resistance. If the meter does not do that there is a
problem with the meter!
I assume you're 110V, mine is 240V. Both will kill you and it'll be
very unpleasant while it happens - make sure you have the plug visible
on the bench at all times!
If you disconnect the leads to the heaters, and put one meter probe on
one contact and the other meter probe on the BOILER - you should see no
continuity whatsoever. If you see a resistance that the meter measures
at less than say 1 megOhm then there is a fault with that heater - the
electrical circuit is shorting to the boiler and it will trip a domestic
residual current/ground fault circuit breaker. Assuming that's OK, then
move on to putting the leads on the two terminals. You are now
measuring the resistance of the heating element. It should be low
ohms. I don't know what the 'wattage' of your element is, but it'll say
it someplace on the the machine. The (approx) formula is the resistance
is volts-squared/power. In my case I ought to see 32 ohms for my
heater. Your number will be small... If you see a high value or a zero
value the element is toast. Zero means it is dead short and high means
the element is broken internally and is just passing current via the
corrosion present in the assembly!
Now, for your testing scenario. You say the breaker was tripping -
there are over current (too much power) breakers and ground fault
breakers (and ones that combine both functions). You need to use the
meter to determine which defect you have (short to the boiler or
internal short) but it does NOT MATTER. The element is toast if:
1. You get zero ohms between the two contacts (short internal)
2. You get any ohms between the contact and the boiler (short to case)
3. You get high ohms between the contacts
4. Removing one wire stops the breaker tripping...
The two heaters (steam and water) are wired so that ONLY the steam
boiler is active initially. So if you remove wires from the brew boiler
and power it up you're only actually testing the steam boiler. I'd
guess your steam boiler has a failed element. The steam works harder
than the brew, so that one will fail first (assuming usual things
apply....).
Hope this helps. Fault finding just needs to be methodical. And going
back to your original issue - cloudy water. I'd put money on fine scale
or the brew boiler element having failed and let go the white insulating
material from within. That fault will show up clearly with a meter -
you'll see continuity to the boiler.
Cheers
/Kevin
--
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 view this discussion on the web visit
https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/brewtus/d8e9783f-5dbe-fc91-0b20-8b738a1a184a%40gmail.com.
