Hi Guys, I'm new here. First I want to thanks you, reading this thread helped me fixing my brewie. Since your post have been helpfull for me, I want to share my experience with you and probably helping others to fix this issue, that is to me a major design flaw and might occure on every 120V Brewie+. I am an electrionic and electrical designer living in Quebec City, Canada (yep a french Canadian). I use to design and bultd power unit, drives, robotic stuff for industrial, so I know pretty well all those components and I'll be willing to help everyone of you if asked for. here is my story with the Brewie+.
I get my brewie (B+) end of september, brew 5 5gallons batchs, with the impression the boilling was less and less powerfull from batch to batch. Sunday, I setup the machine then start the brewing of a belgina white I already brewed with this machine. the tank fillup then, when the element turn on, POW, the breaker in the electrical pannel not far trip violently... OK, that's not normal, isn't a standard trip of a breaker, something have shorted to the ground badly.
At that point I was wondering if I can or not open the brewie seal at the bottom without voiding the warenty.. it's at this moment that I read your posts and realise that in any case of pump clog we have to open the machine anyway. I fill a ticket on Brewie website but it's been 2 days and no news from them.
here is how it look inside, few of you had and have the same issue but without the BANG. 3 of the 4 therminals are coocked and unlucky as always in my existance, the element tabs was so close to the thermal switch posts that it finaly made direct contact to the ground.
I know exactly what happen and sadly most 120V machine might need an upgrade. the main issue is our 120Vac. the original machine was made in europe, the 220Vac kingdom, so in there roughly half the current pass thru those therminals, genrating less heat by contact resistance. Looking at those therminals, they look not crimped so good (maybe not the right tool used) and they are quite loose on the tabs. Here it's important to understand that every connection offer a tiny resistance, over a certain current limit heat buildup and then problems occur, that's why a contact is rated in his capacity in current (A) pass a certain curent it overheat and is not able to dissipate this energy, and it's a death circle. Also it's not a normal thing to use glue to hold the tabs during shipping, a good match of tabs and terminal should hold without any compond.
So, I cleaned every tabs on the thermal switch and element with a fiberglass contact cleaner. I replaced the 4 terminal with panduit terminals and crimped them with the panduit tool (take care to cut an other 1/4in of the wire to reach the wire unaffected area, it give a better contact. So then I placed a good quality heatshrink over the tabs (will inspect the machine after a brew and see). when pluging back the therminals, it's important to feel a good resistance, cheap tabs are olften too lose and you might need to close them a little with a plyer before connecting em. In my case the SSR burned, the current from the short toast it, luckly I had one in my stuff. i will continue monitor the situation and look regulary at the connection. My point of view on the situation is that Brewie have a major problem in their hands and they know it. Not everybody have time and tools to do this job but sadly, if every 120Vac machine have the same terminals crimped with the same tool... there is a good chance everybody have this issue.
Thanks
![Craft A Brew - Safale BE-256 Yeast - Fermentis - Belgian Ale Dry Yeast - For Belgian & Strong Ales - Ingredients for Home Brewing - Beer Making Supplies - [3 Pack]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51bcKEwQmWL._SL500_.jpg)
