Panasonic Bread Maker

[JonathanK]

As promised, a brief report of my bread maker repair, complete with pictures for posterity.

This type SD-2501 is my second one in a little over 11 years. Like its predecessor, we use it at least once a day so it has done an estimated 2.000 cycles, mainly medium to heavy bread (500g dry ingredients) but also things like pizza dough. Lately, I could hear it struggle to knead. The belt seemed fine to me, so I had to try replacing the motor capacitor.

Getting a replacement capacitor was easy enough (3uF, 450V) only I couldn't find a similarly sized one. This one is 25x53mm, not including the thread at the top. Shame this Ducati branded cap wasn't available in bright red.

Getting to the capacitor is easy enough.

Tilt the machine on its side
Remove the three screws that hold the power lead cover in place
Remove the four rubber grommets on the bottom
Gently pull the top part off the bottom housing
You can leave the PCB housing in place, but I found it easier to work on separated from the machine. Remove the four screws indicated in the picture below, and disconnect all the cable connectors circled in red. Be careful not to damage the thin ribbon cable top left.
Replace the capacitor and re-assemble in reverse order

The larger capacitor was a bit too snug a fit under the original cover to leave room for the wires protruding out of the PCB, so I opted for the empty space next to the PCB housing. You might be able to find a slightly smaller cap that fits the original cover.

Soldering was easy enough using a 40W iron. One thing that sent me off into the depths of Google for an hour or so was the polarity of the capacitor. There were no polarity markings on the original capacitor, nor on the PCB. The replacement cap clearly has a negative and a positive lead. Maybe the original is a non-polarised cap, which would explain the markings on the PCB:

----||----

Whereas for a polarised cap, you would expect something like this:

---->|----

In the end, I took a gamble and put the positive on the right and the negative on the left (see picture below). This seems to work fine.

 

[Sausage roll]

Excellent write up, I’ve just done the exact same procedure with the same motor capacitor to transform our machine. I suspect this would work on any breadmaker that is producing flatter than original loaves. (Like many we spent ages tweaking flour, yeast etc).
BTW there is no polarity to worry about on a motor capacitor, so you can wire in either way round.
£5 and 20 minutes we’ll spent thanks to this thread.

 

[PatL]

This forum is so useful & I hope a new capacitor will sort out the flat bread problem of my 2502 machine as I'd given up tweaking the ingredients etc. Thanks to everyone.
One question - do I need a motor starter capacitor or a motor run capacitor? My feeling is a motor run one, but I thought I'd check.

 

[JonathanK]

That’s probably correct. The shop where I bought mine says this one works both as a motor start as well as a motor run cap. For all the other ones they specifically say so if it’s for motor start only.

 

[SFK]

The capacitor name in this case should not matter as the key item is the capacitor rating and the voltage rating.

 

[PatL]

Eureka, it appears that replacing the film capacitor in our 2502 model has done the trick! 2 decent loaves of bread so far.
Getting everything apart was a bit nerve racking. We checked the spindle & belt & they were OK. The PCB position & layout in the 2502 is quite different to that in recent photos but we did find a large 3 microfarad block capacitor. Our soldering iron wasn't hot enough to melt the solder, so son to the rescue with his high wattage soldering iron.
We took the risk of paying the princely sum of £6.60, making a hole in plastic housing to hold capacitor in position & keeping our fingers crossed everything would work after assembly - a risk definitely worth taking as it's now working properly again..
I am so, so pleased. Thanks to you all once again.

 

[SFK]

Great to hear another Bread maker saved.

To highlight to all - you do not have to de-solder and resolder the Capcitor in place.
It is best to use solder as it is a perminant and secure fix.

But you can also cut the old capacitor wires, cutting near the capacitor, leaving a length of wire behind to the circuit board.
And then use a 'Connector Strip' to join the new capacitor to the old wires.
https://www.toolstation.com/connector-strip/p85099

SFK

 

[JonathanK]

But you can also cut the old capacitor wires,

That would probably work for some models, but not the SD-2501/2502, which has a block shaped capacitor with two protruding pins only long enough to pierce the holes in the board. No wires to attach a connector strip to…

 

[SFK]

Thanks for highlighting that.
Was worried that some were not swapping capacitor because of lack of soldering iron.

 

[coopersim]

I’ve just replaced the capacitor in my sd255 and the first loaf is out and it looks loads better. Thanks to all the contributors of this thread.

 

[coopersim]

It’s now banging away in the kitchen making pizza dough! (And the bread maker!)

 

[mikeybikey]

Just fitted a new run capacitor to my sd255
Paddle working a lot better
Fiddly job but ok
First loaf is in
2 hours to go for result but hopeful
Thanks fir solution

 

[motco]

Thank you to everyone who's contributed to this thread, especially JonathanK whose excellent write-up on exactly my model of machine is the icing on the cake! My bread machine's output has been deteriorating for some months - years even - and I was growing more and more fed up with it. I spent a good deal of my life in electronics in the intruder alarm sector and we never encountered failed capacitors except when a 1,000uFd al.cap was cross polarised. You were left in no doubt that your customer had done this as his voice would be shaking with shock!

Obviously these 3uFd film capacitors are rather more secretive in their failures! The quality of capacitors seems to have deteriorated in the two decades that have passed since I last worked on the bench - especially aluminium electrolytics which fail with monotonous regularity.

I'll order a spare on spec and get it fitted as soon as I can and report back. Thanks again chaps!

 

[motco]

Well I fitted the new capacitor along the lines of JonathanK's excellent write-up. The capacitor I removed read 1.3uFd while the new Ducati one read 2.8 on my meter which is as near the +/-5% tolerance of the capacitor that can reasonably be expected when the accuracy of the meter is taken into account.
Having failed to observe any obvious failure of the motor's function in a quick test, I am none too optimistic that this loss of capacitance is indeed my problem. However, a 500g wholemeal loaf such as I've been making for years is in the machine as I type, so we'll see...

 

[motco]

The loaf was excellent! Now I am completely baffled as to what the failing capacitor was actually doing to affect the kneading. The motor ran and runs now making the same (offload) noises, and it was kneading - I looked. However, unarguably this loaf is far better than any of the recent ones even with their increased yeast and added white flour.