[Dan 123]

Hello everyone fairly new to the site been reading for ages though, now I have my first problem, just bought a extracta exel, just been serviced by previous owner, trouble I have is when I plug the vacs and pump plug in after about a min it blows the sockets, I've tried it in my cooker point although it's just a normal socket it has the cooker switch thing, I spoke to a electrician and he said to buy a surge protector plug thingie, now I went to maplins and they asked me what the wattage of the machine is ?does anyone know, and also has anyone else had this problem, I've only ever used ninjas where I used to work but thought I'd try one of these, is it a mistake? Thanks in advance to Any replies I have

[john martin]

 Do u have the motors / pump on when it trips switch ?

 Do u have the heater cord plugged in as well ?

 Does it trip the rcd switch ( different colour ) or one of the circuit switches .

 Are u in some ancient house with old fuses ?

 Shouldn't be tripping  , could be a short/fault of some sort .

 It has about 3000w on each cord , could be a bit more .

 Dont think u made a mistake , its a nicely built machine .


actually cant think why an electrician would think a surge protector would help

[timhersey]

Ring John at extracta he is very helpfull I had a machine for 10 years

[Dan 123]

H John thanks for quick reply,
Right, heater not plugged in when pumps ect plugged in just the two vacs and pump running.
It blows the rcd in the fuse box, all sockets in the house blow,
It's not an ancient house I'd say 20-30 years,
Am I right in thinking that if it was a problem with the earths ect in the machine, the sockets would blow straight away, and the bloke I got it from a very nice man had tons of spare parts in his shed he said he'd fitted it with new vacs ect and gave me a load of spare fuses swittches ect when I got it, and the machine worked fine when he gave me a demonstration, I'm stumped mate as my home electrics have only just been tested about 2 months ago,thanks again

[Dan 123]

Ring John at extracta he is very helpfull I had a machine for 10 years

Hi Tim if I can't figure out the problem I'll try him, just wanted to see what everyone on here says first before I ring him and he says it's something so easy to fix it makes me look stupid  thanks for reply tim

[john martin]

  Hard to say ... but id say its a fault with one of the components , i think someone here posted a similar problem here a couple of weeks ago and it turned out to be the pump .
Perhaps to try to isolate the fault ... run each switch individually ... pump , vac1 vac2
to see if one trips .
Doubt if its anything to do with your house electrics .

[Dan 123]

I did try running all seperate things once at a time this morning but nothing tripped till I had all three running at the same time, I know it's probably impossible to diagnose, but I'll try again in the morning and report back here first before I phone extracta, or might phone bloke I got it from and see what he suggests, dont really fancy travelling back to his though as he lives in york and it's about 300 miles from me

[richie]

Dan, go to the people that live next door to you or friend / family and ask if you can test run the machine at their home.  Sometimes a house can have a slightly weaker supply than others.

[Glynn]

It could be a build up of carbon around the brushes in the vac motors, take off the vac motor vents and blow compressed air in their.

[Robin Ray]

Are you pluging it in one plug on one curcuit?

The machine with two vacs and the heater draws about a total of 6000w which is the same as pluging two kettles in to one plug. Thats why the machine has two cords.

If you are pluging in to one plug try two separate plugs on two separate curcuits. Like the cooker and some where else like a garage or a hall.

If you know all this and have tried it, I dont know

[Dan 123]

Dan, go to the people that live next door to you or friend / family and ask if you can test run the machine at their home.  Sometimes a house can have a slightly weaker supply than others.

Cheers mate I'm going to try it out at my mother in laws tomorrow she lives in a old house, problem is if it works fine what am I going to do if I turn up a customers house and the same things happen, is there a special plug or something that might help, I was thinking of a transformer. Would this help

[Dan 123]

Are you pluging it in one plug on one curcuit?

The machine with two vacs and the heater draws about a total of 6000w which is the same as pluging two kettles in to one plug. Thats why the machine has two cords.

If you are pluging in to one plug try two separate plugs on two separate curcuits. Like the cooker and some where else like a garage or a hall.

If you know all this and have tried it, I dont know

Thanks mate but tried all that, even the cooker supply,

[Dan 123]

It could be a build up of carbon around the brushes in the vac motors, take off the vac motor vents and blow compressed air in their.

I'll try this in the morning and get back to every one, hopefully I can solve it then this thread will help others that have the same problem.

[Ian Gourlay]

Hope you solve your problem

I believe you said it has recently been serviced.

A few years back I was going to buy a secondhand Extracta Scrubber. Phoned very nice Lady at extracta and she said if I new serial number they would tell me how old and what they know  about machine

In essence she warned me to be careful as parts could be expensive and they had had experience with people who bought secondhand and were landed with costly repair bill

In the end I did not proceed

[Dan 123]

Okay bit of progress, still the same when I tried it at two other house, but isolated the problem to one of the vacs as when pump runs on its own it's fine, when each vac is run on its own it's fine but when I turn both vacs on at same time after a min it blows the sockets??

[Dan 123]

Okay so spoke to john at extracta today, he has told me that it could possibly be something to do with the insulation in the vac ( or something like that) do took whole machine apart and found that on one of the vacs one of the brushes was broke, the copper wire that is connected at the bottom of one of the carbon blocks was not connected, if that makes sense, so I've put the machine back together and before I go out and buy a new vac I'm going to try the machine in the morning, thanks for everyone's help and I'll report back tomorrow to let everyone know

[Alan falconer]

This kept happening to mine turned out I needed a new heating element thatwasall..£40 odd quid.

[Dan 123]

Hi mate thanks for the reply, trouble is it happens when the heater isn't plugged in?? Would this still cause vacs to blow if it isn't even plugged in?? Hope it's not just the element as I've just spent a fortune on 2 new vacs 

[john martin]

Hi mate thanks for the reply, trouble is it happens when the heater isn't plugged in?? Would this still cause vacs to blow if it isn't even plugged in?? Hope it's not just the element as I've just spent a fortune on 2 new vacs 

did someone talk u out of buying the cheap ones   

[Dan 123]

No mate, bought the cheap ones then bought 2 kits to modify them from the 7.2 to the 5.7 but all this is expensive to me as I've only just started out on my own, up until now I've allways worked for the same company, but after buying a van, machine, chemicals ect and I still need to buy a scrubber, the £150 odd is a fortune at the moment. But I'm hoping it is the vacs and not the element.