triton t90si - Burning smell

brightkane

Hey Folks,
Another triton problem.

First the orange on light on the unit itself stopped wrking 6 months agoi, no biggie.

then it started tripping out the fuse for it, but if u turned it to cold it didnt. I thought i might have something to do with limescale int he showerhead and descaled it and it worked fine. (2 weeks ago)
Other day it went from nornal, to scalding, to very cold, i turned down the pump power and put the temp up and it seemed to work ok. tried it normally afterwards and it was working fine.
Today it smells of burning plastic. still working fine.
turned off electric and opened it up and took pics, black soot type substance over the inside of the cover and seemily over the pump/motor assebbly and solenoid.

Pics attached. Is it something that might be fixable or needs replaceing in anyones experience.
Cheers

ART6

Going by the symptoms and the pics I would guess that the pump motor brush gear is worn out. That would cause the pump to operate intermittently and would cause arcing, giving you a burning smell, and the higher pump power you try to use the more likely it would be to blow a fuse. You could check with

http://www.irishfire.com/Triton Spares - Triton Shower Spares - Triton Spare or Part.htm

for spares.

brightkane

does that mean the whole motor has to be replaced do you think?
agree with the highes power it might have been tripping the fuse along with the limescale not helping

ART6

brightkane wrote: »

does that mean the whole motor has to be replaced do you think?
agree with the highes power it might have been tripping the fuse along with the limescale not helping

On some motors you can dismantle them and renew the brushgear, but you would have to skim and re-cut the commutator. You would also have the problem of where to get the right brushes. I have never tried to recondition a Triton pump so I can't offer more than that. I would think that Triton would simply offer a new pump/motor set complete as that's the way things are nowadays.

If you have a multimeter you could check the motor before getting into too much expense. The way to do that would be to first switch off the mains supply and disconnect the motor, then set the meter to resistance test and connect its prongs to the motor terminals. Then try to turn the motor by hand (I think you can do that on those with a pencil or something but I can't really remember). The meter should show a very low resistance continuously, but if its reading keeps jumping around erratically then the brushgear is cream crackered. If it shows a continuously high resistance then either the brushes or the motor windings are dead. You can confirm if the windings are OK by holding one of the meter prongs against the motor casing. If that gives a low resistance then the motor is beyond repair.