La Spaziale Mini Vivaldi Tripping GFCI - Solution
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Santi
- Posts: 30
- Joined: 5 years ago
Ran into a little issue with my La Spaziale Mini Vivaldi II, and after some troubleshooting was able to track down the problem. Hoping this will be helpful to someone out there.
After reassembly following some cleaning I plugged the machine in and tripped a GFCI while in Standby mode. Pulling out the multimeter I measured 266 ohms from hot to ground - bad. Measured 11 ohms from neutral to ground - worse. Taking the panels back off I disconnected the power cord connections - measurements were the same. All neutral points to ground were around 11 ohms. Taking measurements at various locations I found a solid ground connection at the positive post of the steam boiler element. If I was smart I could have predicted this given the 1250 W steam boiler element is 120V^2/1250W = 11.52 ohms, but I'm not.
Ground fault:
Wiring runs from the solid state relay to the thermoswitch, then to the element. Disconnecting at the SSR and thermoswitch proved the fault to be in that wire. Thankfully it had gone from intermittent to a constant problem or this would have been more difficult to track down...
Said wire runs from the steam boiler (top right) through the orange sheath, then down along the frame (bottom left) to the SSR located out of sight below the brain (with the switches on top).
The culprit: a frame screw shown here backed out a quarter inch. Upon reassembly this screw went up and wore through the wire's insulation shorting to the grounded frame.
The wire:
I zip tied the wires out of the bite. (Ok, I may have tripped the GFCI several times before I believed there was a problem, hence some arcing):
Given the number of wires right around that screw I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had this happen. Might be worth throwing a preventative zip tie on there even if it hasn't happened yet.
After reassembly following some cleaning I plugged the machine in and tripped a GFCI while in Standby mode. Pulling out the multimeter I measured 266 ohms from hot to ground - bad. Measured 11 ohms from neutral to ground - worse. Taking the panels back off I disconnected the power cord connections - measurements were the same. All neutral points to ground were around 11 ohms. Taking measurements at various locations I found a solid ground connection at the positive post of the steam boiler element. If I was smart I could have predicted this given the 1250 W steam boiler element is 120V^2/1250W = 11.52 ohms, but I'm not.
Ground fault:
Wiring runs from the solid state relay to the thermoswitch, then to the element. Disconnecting at the SSR and thermoswitch proved the fault to be in that wire. Thankfully it had gone from intermittent to a constant problem or this would have been more difficult to track down...
Said wire runs from the steam boiler (top right) through the orange sheath, then down along the frame (bottom left) to the SSR located out of sight below the brain (with the switches on top).
The culprit: a frame screw shown here backed out a quarter inch. Upon reassembly this screw went up and wore through the wire's insulation shorting to the grounded frame.
The wire:
I zip tied the wires out of the bite. (Ok, I may have tripped the GFCI several times before I believed there was a problem, hence some arcing):
Given the number of wires right around that screw I'm sure I'm not the only one who's had this happen. Might be worth throwing a preventative zip tie on there even if it hasn't happened yet.
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downy_ball
- Posts: 114
- Joined: 4 years ago
Nice detective work!
I'll file this in the "Hope This Doesn't Happen to Me" file
I have wondered though if the vibe pump in our machines will eventually work something lose or worse, but it's such a satisfying sound (the pump) I just clean, tighten and polish once a month and continue on. Great 'lil workhorse of a machine.
I'll file this in the "Hope This Doesn't Happen to Me" file
I have wondered though if the vibe pump in our machines will eventually work something lose or worse, but it's such a satisfying sound (the pump) I just clean, tighten and polish once a month and continue on. Great 'lil workhorse of a machine.
Next time someone's teaching, why don't you get taught..."
