how to repair an electric heater?

Hi Jeff, Need a little more info. What kind of heater? Does it have a fan? Look for a small capsule-like unit near the heating element. This is an over-temperature thermal fuse. If it reads open you need to replace it.

Tom

Fan? Does it blow cold?

My experience with fan Heaters is that there are three Normal states with an Ohm meter across the power plug.

A: High Resistance "OFF" or Fault due to broken lead, open Thermal Fuse or Thermostat "too warm" or dirty, or "TILT SWITCH" activated !

B:Medium resistance ~ 100 ohms ie the DC resistance of the Fan only

C:Low resistance, 100 ohms or less, due to the Heater Load, switch-able with the mechanical Thermostat

Complications, the Heater load is not controllably measured with the Ohm meter if it uses a SCR/Triac Thermostat, should still see the Fan resistance.

Broken or burned-out Heater Elements are RARE.

If all is NORMAL Plug into a wall socket and check that the Wall socket is "Hot"

If there is a"Fault" mode, Now is the time to take off the Covers to search for the "Break", wiring, Thermal Fuse, TILT Switch, Dirty Thermostat, mechanical. or Bypass the SCR/TRIAC Thermostat to troubleshoot. If all else fails, check for an OPEN Heater Element.

If the Heater or Thermostat is not working, consider Scrapping entire assembly as too expensive to fix. Most small stuff, switches, fuses are available from small appliance service dealers.

Yukio YANO

[...]

Try sci.electronics.repair.

--
Rikard.

Hi Tom. It is a Vornado model EH1-0005 EVH with variable temperature control and a fan. As I recall it also shuts itself off if it gets tilted.

--Jeff

Hi Homer. Yes, it has a fan, but nothing works, even the on switch doesn't light up when it is plugged in.

--Jeff

Thanks for the detailed reply, Yukio. As I mentioned in an earlier post, it doesn't do anything now, even the light for the ON switch doesn't light.

--Jeff

I'll take a look at that group. Thanks.

--Jeff

You'll need to take it apart. You'll also need a meter - ohms and volts.

Start by checking the AC volts where it enters the unit.

Electric heaters are basically big resistors, usually with a switch, often with a thermostat and sometimes with a fan. pull it apart and see what makes it tick.

make sure that any repairs you do are as good as new, or better, you don't want them failing and killing someone or burnuing your stuff up.

Bye. Jasen

J Jensen wrote:

1) This REPAIR problem is likely ELECTRICAL. I doubt your gizmo has a single *electronic* device in it. 2) Most questions have been asked many times before. Since you're already at Google to do your Usenet posting, you should learn how to use Google's search tool there: 3) In the 1st response in the thread, Tom Biasi gave you the most likely fault: Blocked air flow == blown overtemp device. . . Homer J Simpson wrote: :Start by checking the AC volts where it enters the unit. : It appears that Homer wants you dead so that he won't have to see any more of your posts.

Using the ohmmeter to do *continuity* checks would be MUCH safer. If you don't know how, your public library probably has some books under 621.19 with some nice pictures to show you how. Using Google's Web search engine (image search) will likely find some related pages as well.

before.http://www.google.com/search?q=inurl:giyf+engine+-uk

there:

Thank you for the information. I'm not clear on how I would find anything useful with google's image search for this. Ideally there would be a web site on electrical appliance repair that would give step by step troubleshooting basics (it doesn't have to be on just heaters...I can break some of my other appliances if need be).

The best book on the subject that I've found to date is "Troubleshooting and repairing consumer electronics without a schematic" by Homer L. Davidson.

--Jeff

Check your local library for books on appliance repair.