Proving the Obviously Untrue

We have a nice Swan Heated Tray courtesy of my Mum. It's useful for lots of things, heating plates for dinner and then placing serving dishes on it, or for keeping a stack of pancakes warm on Sunday. Unfortunately it stopped working recently. The red power LED still lit when power was applied but no heating. Google produced no answers (which is why I'm writing this for anyone following a similar trail). The helpline couldn't help, and theoretically the tray was under warranty, but with no receipt we couldn't follow their advice to return it to the store. So I had to fix it myself.

You should obviously think twice before messing around with something (a) electrical and (b) which generates large amounts of heat. Please don't kill yourself or burn your house down, that will make us both feel really bad.

The tray is fitted with triangular screws which reinforces my comments above, but not having previously purchased some triangular screwdrivers, these were next to be acquired. I figured they might come in useful for something else in the future.

Taking the device apart shows that basically it's quite simple, there are some blocks through which elements do the heating, a lot of glass fibre (so wear gloves) to protect the underneath from the blocks.

There are also a number of polythene covers to hold the corners of the blocks, though it seems a few were missing. There was no obvious fuse much to my surprise and irritation. A bit of testing with a continuity tester showed that a particular loop of cable was no longer doing its job. I pulled it out, and pulled back some insulated sheathing to reveal the culprit fuse.

Replacement fuses can be obtained here. I teased upon the crimps with a precision screw driver and fitted the replacement, crimping it very firmly back in place. Then it was a matter of putting it all back together and testing it was appropriate safety measures in case of problems. All working again.

Posted by Colin Turner