Petrolhead
Regular.
Firstly, just to make clear this near miss had nothing to do with equipment failure or malfunction but purely operator error and if I had read the manual I am sure I would have been fine.
My HLT is controlled by an PID and when I finished my brew last week I switched it off using the off button on the front of the PID. After brewing I would always disconnect the HLT from the power supply but on this occasion, and for whatever reason, I did not do so.
This morning I was in the engineering department of my 10' x 8' shed repairing my bandsaw when the isolator tripped. This is located in my kitchen. I went to the kitchen switched it on and returned to my bandsaw. Almost immediately I heard a hissing noise and smelt burning and when I turned around I saw steam/smoke coming out of the HLT and the display on the PID lit up. Immediately realising the problem I dived at the power and switched it off. The HLT was almost too hot to touch, some of the plastic fittings had melted and the immersion heater was glowing like an old fashioned electric heater. I am letting it cool but apart from cleaning I think there is no serious damage but I may need to replace the insulated pad under the HLT.
What had happened was that when the power cut out and was reset for some reason the PID reset itself to ON and attempted to heat the air to 67 deg. Relatively all good as I was in the shed but I shiver to think what would have happened if my main consumer unit had completely tripped out, maybe at night, and me or one of the family had reset it. The same thing would have happened but I can't see any good ending apart from a big pile of ashes.
So lets all make sure we power down the kit when we stop brewing.
My HLT is controlled by an PID and when I finished my brew last week I switched it off using the off button on the front of the PID. After brewing I would always disconnect the HLT from the power supply but on this occasion, and for whatever reason, I did not do so.
This morning I was in the engineering department of my 10' x 8' shed repairing my bandsaw when the isolator tripped. This is located in my kitchen. I went to the kitchen switched it on and returned to my bandsaw. Almost immediately I heard a hissing noise and smelt burning and when I turned around I saw steam/smoke coming out of the HLT and the display on the PID lit up. Immediately realising the problem I dived at the power and switched it off. The HLT was almost too hot to touch, some of the plastic fittings had melted and the immersion heater was glowing like an old fashioned electric heater. I am letting it cool but apart from cleaning I think there is no serious damage but I may need to replace the insulated pad under the HLT.
What had happened was that when the power cut out and was reset for some reason the PID reset itself to ON and attempted to heat the air to 67 deg. Relatively all good as I was in the shed but I shiver to think what would have happened if my main consumer unit had completely tripped out, maybe at night, and me or one of the family had reset it. The same thing would have happened but I can't see any good ending apart from a big pile of ashes.
So lets all make sure we power down the kit when we stop brewing.
