So much for fuses

Funny things fault currents...

A while ago SWMBO turned on the light on the cooker hood, and one of the bulbs decided it was time to play lemming. Flash bang, dead cooker hood. So I replaced the bulb, still no joy. Thought, aha, it must have taken out the fuse in the plug... checked it - working fine. At that point I lost interest for months. Anyway today I located the required round tuit needed to permit further investigation. No internal fuses to be found, and volts were getting as far as the input connector. The little circuit diagram sticker in the box showed nothing else between mains and lamp save for a switch. So having extracted the switch box (and removed enough years of cooking goo to make it touchable), I pulled it apart to check the switch. Switch was fine, but the big black stain of vaporised metal inside the case was a bit of a clue! There was also a nice clean bit of PCB with no solder resist on it, and more critically, no copper either! So the bulb short had taken out about a cm of 3mm PCB track leaving the 5A fuse unharmed.

Repair involved de soldering incoming wire attached to a now completely pointless annulus, and tacking it onto the back of the board a bit further along the track. Result, happy SWMBO.

Reply to
John Rumm
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I had the same thing, including the months of hiatus. In my case, after repairing the burnt track the lights cannot be turned off - my guess is that the switch contacts have fused closed.

Luckily they are screw-fitting halogens, so a 1/4 turn does the trick. I think I need a whole new level of motivation to contact Baumatic for a new switch.

Reply to
John Carlyle-Clarke

I've spent many happy hours repairing older out-of warranty high-end audio amps ( Naim, Carver etc ) and have always assumed that power semiconductors were there to protect the fuses...

Reply to
Ron Lowe

In our case the failing bulb just blew the plug fuse, still a PITA as the socket is behind the 'chimney'. In a separate fault I also had to resolder the motor contacts as there was a dry joint.

Reply to
Michael Chare

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