Very nice.

Two more words: shrink tubing. Get a nice selection of colors and sizes to cover your connectors. Use a hot hair dryer to shrink it. Ideally you would use two sizes, a smaller size to cover the crimp/solder area and a wider size for the connector itself (or get covered connectors). That may not be possible now so it will probably be ok to put a wider piece over the connector and crimp. This will allow you to reduce the use of electrical tape which will someday (soon) become a sticky mess and then later become very brittle.

Good tune-up. That's one of the reasons I post in detail. Shrink tubing's an easy fix. The thermofuse is tricky for that but I use cool pliers as a heat sink between the termination of the fuse and the wire connectors.

I like that little torch you got! I may have to pick on of those up when I'm in town next.

BTW, instead of using electricians tape, you might want to consider picking up some self vulcanizing tape off ebay or amazon.com or something. It's much nicer. Stretch it a little as you wind it around and it will fuse to itself. No adhesive to gum up later on with age.

Ray

I like your suggestion because there's no need to heat a thermofuse. Searching Amazon the tape they call self-vulcanizing is over $35/roll and is 36 feet long. But there's a product called Rescue Tape that comes in 12 foot rolls. It's a self-fusing silicone tape that insulates 8000 volts/layer and withstands up to 500F and costs about $9. Does that look good to you?

Any of the 3M self splicing tape should be fine. There is no need to spend $35 per roll. As long as it's 3M / Scotch, then you should be fine. It's super handy stuff, but I wouldn't pay more than about $10 per roll for it.

I e-mailed you some links at Amazon just now.

Ray

Thanks, Ray. Before I heard back from you I ordered Rescue Tape. It got good reviews. I'm glad to know about these products.

False Alarm

Hooked up my timer to a different outlet last night and when I came out this morning the machine was cold. First check showed the timer hadn't advanced beyond night hours. Hmmm. I reset the timer, plugged the machine in and it turned on. I left the garage and turned off the light. Upon my return a few minutes later the machine wasn't on and the GFCI had tripped. So I tested the heating element and power switch. They're fine. The connection on one of the heating element terminals seemed a touch loose so I crimped it on. Since the GFCI was working I plugged in, turned the machine and watched it for a few minutes. It powered up and stayed on and there were no leaks. Was it the loose terminal connection? As I was leaving the garage I turned off the light. At that moment I heard the GFCI trip. Then I turned a lamp on connected to the same plug and it worked fine. Turned off the garage light and the lamp went out. Doh! The timer that didn't advance was the giveaway. I didn't know that GFCIs can trip when connected to a functioning appliance and the power to the outlet is shut off. Now I know.

FWIW here's a link to other threads for testing short circuits:

Help! My espresso machine keeps tripping the GFI

drgary wrote:Today I soldered the wire connectors...
After trying the solid soldering head I removed it and found I preferred the focused microflame because I got much better feedback about whether my workpiece was fully heated.

Bernzomatics are great little durable micro torches. I have used them pretty steady over the last 20 years for all my small jewelry work (chain, claw work, small solder jobs).

You may be overloading the GFCI's current capacity - depending on what all is plugged into the branch. Keep in mind, usually when wiring up a home, people will wire a group of plugs and then put one GFCI into the circuit, which serves to monitor the entire group.

Ray

drgary wrote:False Alarm

Hooked up my timer to a different outlet last night and when I came out this morning the machine was cold. First check showed the timer hadn't advanced beyond night hours. Hmmm. I reset the timer, plugged the machine in and it turned on. I left the garage and turned off the light. Upon my return a few minutes later the machine wasn't on and the GFCI had tripped. So I tested the heating element and power switch. They're fine. The connection on one of the heating element terminals seemed a touch loose so I crimped it on. Since the GFCI was working I plugged in, turned the machine and watched it for a few minutes. It powered up and stayed on and there were no leaks. Was it the loose terminal connection? As I was leaving the garage I turned off the light. At that moment I heard the GFCI trip. Then I turned a lamp on connected to the same plug and it worked fine. Turned off the garage light and the lamp went out. Doh! The timer that didn't advance was the giveaway. I didn't know that GFCIs can trip when connected to a functioning appliance and the power to the outlet is shut off. Now I know.

FWIW here's a link to other threads for testing short circuits:

Help! My espresso machine keeps tripping the GFI

This was a portable GFCI connected to a power cord. When I plugged the machine into an in-wall GFCI it didn't trip with turning lights on or off or otherwise. I wonder if there's a sudden change that the GFCI detects when the light is turned off that it interprets as exceeding its threshold? In any case I don't think GFCIs are generally used in a switched circuit.