boiler pooped itself

[maddogpearse]

I tipped about 18l of low wines into my boiler the other day. I flicked it on, it ran for about 30 seconds then tripped the circuit breaker. I turned every thing else running on said circuit (10A) and tried again but it tripped straight away. Thought it might have some moisture in the kettle plug connection so gave it 24 hours to have a think about its attitude, but it only ran about 30 seconds again. Tested the continuity across the element with and without the lead. 71 ohms. No idea what wattage it's supposed to be a there's no markings. Resistance is high enough that it shouldn’t be drawing too much for the circuit. I've used the boiler in the same plug plenty of times with no dramas. The boiler is just a HBS 30(ish)l exposed element no controller basket rig. Am I missing anything? Keg boiler won't be far away at this rate. :angry-banghead:

[Mcatac]

71 ohms seems a bit high. If it was a 2Kw element it should be down around 30 ohms.

[maddogpearse]

71 ohms seems a bit high. If it was a 2Kw element it should be down around 30 ohms.

Higher resistance Should mean less heat = less current draw? Should just heat slower not trip the breaker! Wanker bloody boiler l

[Undertaker]

check the resistance to earth, (ground pin on your plug) from either of the other 2 pins.
Is it just a "circuit breaker" or is it an ELCB (earth leakage breaker)?

Cheers Phil

[maddogpearse]

I was using the diode testing function on my multimeter (bit of a trap for young players) it's actually 43 ohms across the terminals. Yes the breaker is an RCD type. I'd checked earth leakage before, but again with diode test function which had zero reading. I adjusted my multimeter to kilo ohms and something really weird (in my limited experience) happened. It read 36Kohm but was slowly increasing. In the next few minutes, it steadily climed to 140Kohm then I got bored of watching it!
What the flaming hecks going on there? Cut the earth pin off and don't touch the boiler? :laughing-rolling:

[punchy21]

You may have a breakdown in insulation resistance which you can't test with a standard multimeter. Got any sparky mates with an insulation resistance meter.

Does it have the exposed element? If so, check the condition of it for any cracks or holes or weird spots...

[maddogpearse]

Does it have the exposed element? If so, check the condition of it for any cracks or holes or weird spots...

yes it has the exposed element! and yes it has a few holes and weird spots....where i hit it with the grinder taking it out this morning!! :laughing-rolling:
i took it into the local HBS to see if they had any replacements but no such luck. So i dove onto the google machine and have worked out it's a 1380W hoop element, and plenty of HBS's have them online.
My first thought was to just wack in a FSD weldless 2400w element, as this would be a bit faster in pot mode, but then i thought, when i put the pure distilling reflux rig back on, the condenser might not be up to knocking down the vapor? any experience?

My plan is to build a keg boiler, and make my pot into a bubbler, then sell off the HBS reflux rig.