Vesuvius - No Power

jgf

Hi all -

After a bit of guidance.

I have a ~6 year old Vesuvius that won’t power on - came down one morning and totally dead.

From initial investigations, the cable has melted around one pin and looking at the inside of the power connector at least one of the plastic connectors looks burnt out > photos below:

Can I just replace the cable and connector? If so, any advice on what I should be buying?

Any help much appreciated!

DavecUK

jgf Can I just replace the cable and connector? If so, any advice on what I should be buying?

Remove the panel mount socket, press in the clips at the sides and it will pop out. Then check the dimensions. Something like this will fit fine and should work fine. you will need to buy some 10A fuses.

P.S. Check the black spade connector has a good electrical connection inside…it’s probably fine as the bad contact appears to be with the spade of the socket.

or if you want more power handling, not sure you will need it, this is a lot more expensive (15A version).

Gagaryn

Both boilers on at the same time likely draw more than 10 amp. I would probably err on the side of caution and buy a 15A - and also not buy unbranded Chinese stuff from third parties on Amazon that may or may not even be properly rated for the given current. You would be safer to buy a Bulgin or similar quality IEC- they also cost less than those prices - think they are £7 ish from RS, Digikey etc.

DavecUK

Gagaryn Just remember they have to fit in the panel cut out, unless he is into drilling very hard 304 stainless.

Gagaryn

DavecUK Just remember they have to fit in the panel cut out, unless he is into drilling very hard 304 stainless.

I hadn’t forgotten. :-)

https://www.bulgin.com/pdf/pdf.php?sku=PF0011/15/63/GY

John_Yossarian

This story made me think that one needs to check the plug regularly. The issue is that it is in a very inconvenient place - underneath the machine. Is there anything one can do to prevent this from happening? If it were poor contact, is resetting enough to solve the problem or is it necessary to replace the current plug?
EDIT: I have just looked into the plug and the copper inside looked “healthy” with no signs of arcing. I cannot see the inside and I hope that the outside socket should be indicative of potential arcing. I found puzzling the fact that the plug in the pictures look melted and yet the socket doesn’t have (at least visible in the picture) signs of arcing.

jgf

Thanks all for the replies. Noted re the peak power draw and thanks for the links - I will get a 15A and report back.

John_Yossarian

jgf I hope you sort it out quickly.

John_Yossarian

I decided to have a look at the socket so I removed the side panel and the innards are slightly different (newer?). You can see that ACS have upgraded the mains. My machine is from February 2020.

jgf

Thanks for following up John - that is interesting to see. From other, older threads it looks like there were some issues with early machines that led to the change.

Pleased to say I am back up and running, although I could only find 10A rated units that fitted in stock, so have gone with that for now and changed the config on the machine to enable sequential heating which hopefully means that is completely safe.

I will follow up with ACS to see if it is simple to retrofit the new design in place of the old.

Thanks again everyone for your help and advice - much appreciated.