Repairing spring contact in kettle base

[Robin]

The sprung contact for neutral in our Bosch kettle base has snapped at a right-angle bend where the "springy" bit comes off the rigid. I am struggling to see how to make a strong enough join with just electric soldering irons and hand-held drills. (No welder, high temp gas torch or mini drill available. Soft solder on a copper strip inside the angle seems far too weak. But there's no space in the base to add any thickness to the back of the bend.

I suspect I'm doomed to failure but membership of the mean old git club drives me.

photos:

?e=epbxAL PS I have looked without success for an entire new base connector on eBay, Aliexpress etc.

Bosch only offer as a spare an entire new base with cable ? for c.£40 more than the cost of the whole new replacement kettle I collected from Argos.

[whisky-dave]

Mine was Brita suppose they are all pretty much the same. Now I don;t take the kettle of the base to fill it I use a pint glass to fill it up, in theory this should make it last twice as long. I also think lifting it on and off the base wheile it's on and boiling caused a few problems in my previous but one kettle.

[Andy Burns]

AIUI, many of these connectors are made by STRIX, anything similar?

[Tim+]

Been doing that for years and never had a base fail.

Tim

[GB]

Which kettle is it? I noticed this base:

[Robin]

Good spot. Mine's a similar model (TWK8633)to that TWK8637 so the base might be the same. OTOH £22.99 doesn't feel good VFM when a entire new kettle & base with 2 year warranty was only £60.

[Robin]

Thanks but I couldn't see anything by STRIX that matched.

The only reference number on mine brings up some connectors but nothing that matches. (Might be that Bosch prices let them have such parts made to their spec for their exclusive use?)

[Bob Eager]

I thought I had a base I was keeping for spares, but I've just been up in the loft and it looks as if I dumped it during the clearout 3 months ago! :-(

[Dave W]

The first thing I would try would be to straighten out the right-angle springy bit to give more length, bend up a tab in the end of it by 45 deg and use solder to sweat the tab to the input part. You might have to cut away a bit of the plastic base to allow for the straightened length instead of the original right-angle.

[Robin]

On 09/04/2022 08:39, Bob Eager wrote: <snip>

Thanks for looking.

[Robin]

Thanks but sadly I'm confident that's way beyond my skills. I'm already worried about the geometry needed to bring the electrical contact back in the slot, at the right height, and level. The photos don't show clearly that the only right-angle is at the break. After that there are

3 other angles (including the one that cranks it to the slot). My aim was to keep the original geometry of the cranked connect - save possibly inserting a bit at the break, which I could deal with by not pushing it fully back into the base.

[Richard]

Looking at that base, is this anything like what you need?

[Clive Arthur]

I would solder some wires onto the kettle contacts, wire these to a 13A plug and glue this to the underside of the kettle. You'd probably need three or four feet glued on as well to give sufficient height. Then you can make a base out of a 13A socket on a piece of wood.

[Richard]

:)

[Robin]

I thought at first you'd hit the bullseye as that's the same overall size and shape, and has the same 5 contacts in much the same places. But (after overlaying the images) the contacts don't all go to the same rings and none is the shape I need.

[Robin]

But then I'd lose the multiple temperatures and flashing lights on the kettle base! (This is the kettle 'er indoors pointed me to after reading the review on the John Lewis website which began "I sent him out to buy a kettle and he cam back with the Starship Enterprise".)

[GB]

You could always make them a cheeky offer. I doubt they've had much interest.

There are similar items 'for spares' for very little money. For example,

125242319031.

Maybe best to stick to the exact same model number?

[Animal]

A new kettle's only a few quid.

[GB]

Not if you want it to produce say 70 degree water. Do keep up at the back there!

[Animal]

I don't recall the OP ever mentioning that