New to me S1 Vivaldi power on problems
Posted: Sat Nov 11, 2017 6:27 pm
Hi,
Firstly I'd like to say thanks for a great and friendly forum packed with great information. I have been reading for a while and have taken the plunge on buying a S1 Vivaldi that is in need of some TLC. I purchased it described as needing a heating element but on investigation I'm not sure that's the case as yet.
When I plug in the S1 it immediately trips our RCD (GFDI in the U.S. I believe). Thanks to other comments on the forum I disconnected the main circuits (motor, group and steam heaters) none of which seemed to fix it. It was only when I spotted another small circuit board behind the steam boiler that things changed. I haven't seen this circuit board referenced in any other posts and will try and attach a photo. It's got 3 terminals : live, neutral and earth with 3 components; 1 blue capacitor I believe and 2 white components with no markings as reference. The terminals where fairly oxidised so I cleaned them as best I can. When I disconnect the earth lead from this board the RCD no longer trips, I can measure 120v ac between ground and this earth tab (we're running on 230vac mains here in Ireland).
With this earth lead disconnected from this small PCB the green light on the front of the S1 flashes, but no buttons appear to respond, therefore no current is getting to the motor or the heaters. I'm wondering if anyone had any ideas on next steps please, and if others have this PCB also? I've tried connecting the motor directly to the live feed and that does seem to run, I'm hesitant to try the same with the boilers until I can get water into them
Any help would be gratefully appreciated.
Regards,
Paul
=================================
Update:
I've continued investigation this evening with the earth lead off of the unknown PCB. The buttons seemed unresponsive so I tried checking continuity between pins 1 and 6 on the ribbon cable that I found from another thread regarding timer hacks for the S1 where related to the power switch. These didn't appear to close when pressing the power button. So as recommended from another thread with similar unresponsive buttons I removed the front panel. Sure enough there was a ton of muck between the pads and the front panel circuit. Cleaning this off and reassembling now let's me turn on the S1 for the first time.
The pump kicks in and the brew boiler starts to heat up, then the after a while the RCD trips again. I've put this down to the original thought of a brew boiler heating element (removing the terminals from the brew boiler allows it to continue running without tripping the RCD) So further investigation another day, as I'm yet to prove the steam boiler functions. I can see this will be a journey but I'm looking forward to learning more about the S1.
Any ideas about that small PCB behind the boiler would be great though. It seems to run in parallel to the Phase that runs to the main controller. I'm wondering if this is some sort of current smoother of sorts?
Regards, Paul
Firstly I'd like to say thanks for a great and friendly forum packed with great information. I have been reading for a while and have taken the plunge on buying a S1 Vivaldi that is in need of some TLC. I purchased it described as needing a heating element but on investigation I'm not sure that's the case as yet.
When I plug in the S1 it immediately trips our RCD (GFDI in the U.S. I believe). Thanks to other comments on the forum I disconnected the main circuits (motor, group and steam heaters) none of which seemed to fix it. It was only when I spotted another small circuit board behind the steam boiler that things changed. I haven't seen this circuit board referenced in any other posts and will try and attach a photo. It's got 3 terminals : live, neutral and earth with 3 components; 1 blue capacitor I believe and 2 white components with no markings as reference. The terminals where fairly oxidised so I cleaned them as best I can. When I disconnect the earth lead from this board the RCD no longer trips, I can measure 120v ac between ground and this earth tab (we're running on 230vac mains here in Ireland).
With this earth lead disconnected from this small PCB the green light on the front of the S1 flashes, but no buttons appear to respond, therefore no current is getting to the motor or the heaters. I'm wondering if anyone had any ideas on next steps please, and if others have this PCB also? I've tried connecting the motor directly to the live feed and that does seem to run, I'm hesitant to try the same with the boilers until I can get water into them
Any help would be gratefully appreciated.
Regards,
Paul
=================================
Update:
I've continued investigation this evening with the earth lead off of the unknown PCB. The buttons seemed unresponsive so I tried checking continuity between pins 1 and 6 on the ribbon cable that I found from another thread regarding timer hacks for the S1 where related to the power switch. These didn't appear to close when pressing the power button. So as recommended from another thread with similar unresponsive buttons I removed the front panel. Sure enough there was a ton of muck between the pads and the front panel circuit. Cleaning this off and reassembling now let's me turn on the S1 for the first time.
The pump kicks in and the brew boiler starts to heat up, then the after a while the RCD trips again. I've put this down to the original thought of a brew boiler heating element (removing the terminals from the brew boiler allows it to continue running without tripping the RCD) So further investigation another day, as I'm yet to prove the steam boiler functions. I can see this will be a journey but I'm looking forward to learning more about the S1.
Any ideas about that small PCB behind the boiler would be great though. It seems to run in parallel to the Phase that runs to the main controller. I'm wondering if this is some sort of current smoother of sorts?
Regards, Paul