Emersion heater timer

[Russell griffiths]

So I came home last night to the wife moaning we had no hot water and the timer had stopped working 

 

now this emersion timer has been in use for about 5 years, do things like this only last this long nowadays or I’d there something killing them ??

 

our timer on the heated towel rail is playing up as well and that’s about 3 years old. 

 

I don’t remember it being cheap. 

Any thoughts. 

[SteamyTea]

2 minutes ago, Russell griffiths said:

I don’t remember it being cheap. 

 

I bought some, all about the same price, one sort lasted a few months, the others have been in over 10 years now.

 

These are the ones that lasted, and they have battery backup.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/DIGITAL-IMMERSION-HEATER-TIMER-LG-DIHT/dp/B0066NEBO6

[Jeremy Harris]

I've had relays and power supply circuits fail in time switches.  Right now the relay in our ~3 year old heating programmer is starting to fail.  It sometimes doesn't switch on, and needs a hard tap to jar the relay enough to make it operate.  I suspect these things are being "value engineered" to the point where long term reliability is starting to suffer.

 

FWIW, I repaired a faulty relay in a time switch at our old house, and that was still working about ten years later when we sold the place.  I strongly suspect that the brand name relay I used as a replacement was a great deal more reliable than the no-name bit of Chinese tat that was fitted originally.

[Russell griffiths]

Bloody hell it’s annoying 

nothing seems to last more than 5 years. 

[Russell griffiths]

So just as a safety precaution I pulled this thing apart could you pair shed some light as to why this might have gone pop

 

if its chinesium shit then fair enough, I just want to make sure it won’t burn the house down. 

Should it have tripped the breaker??  

[Jeremy Harris]

What's on the other side of the PCB?

 

It looks as if it may just be that the PCB track has burned out, if that connection is to a relay contact.  Could be something as simple as a dodgy solder joint that's decided to fail, and the black marks are where it's been arcing. 

 

A fault like this wouldn't trip an MCB, but would now be picked up by an arc fault detection device (AFDD).

[ProDave]

As long as the relay is okay a bit of soldering will fix that.  I would lay a bit of copper cable on the track to reinforce it when repairing that.

 

It reminds me of one make of solar PV dverter that a friend has.  I have twice repaired it where PCB tracks have failed like that.  It has not failed again since I laid a length of 2.5mm copper cable along the track to reinforce it.

[Temp]

Looks like it failed where the leg of a component came through the board. Needs a good clean up so it can be soldered well.