Mixer Repair

Bypass Thermal Protector

Our electric hand mixer quit the other day. We suspected that it had gotten overheated but that when it cooled down it would come back to life. It didn't, so I opened it up to see what I could see. I didn't see anything wrong, and it didn't smell burnt. I did notice a little lump under the yellow tape covering the windings on the stator. I cut the tape and checked the continuity on the little white part and, as I suspected, there was none. Twisting the leads together circumvented that problem. If this was a real repair, I would have soldered the wires together. Scratch that, if this was a real repair, I would have replaced the part. I sort of made an attempt in that direction. In order to secure a replacement, I need to identify it. Being as it is so tiny that even with my glasses the numbers were hard to read I decided to take a picture. As you can see from the photo that didn't really help. The macro function on my camera wasn't up to the task so all I got was some indecipherable squiggles.

I secured the yellow tape back in place with a piece of duck tape. I had electrical tape, but the adhesive on electrical tape doesn't seem to adhere as well, or as long, as duct tape. For some situations, electrical tape works fine, but I've had too many places where the sticky gave up the ghost. So duck tape.

The mixer runs, though it sounds a little growly on the slow speed settings. I looked for a replacement, but I couldn't find one that had a bigger than 250 Watt motor. That seems to be the upper limit for hand mixers. Yes, I could have gotten a big stand mounted mixer, but it would have just sat in the cupboard because no one wants to go to the effort to pull it out, and after it's set in there for a couple of years we would have forgotten that we even have it. We already have a good selection of kitchen appliances we don't use. We don't need another one.

Maybe we just need more counter space in the kitchen. I suspect that wouldn't really help because it would just be consumed by a bunch of new appliances that we bought because we had room for them. I still cut pizza with a chef's knife, I don't need to steenking pizza cutter.