Panasonic Bread Maker

Hi everyone. Great work done here. My Panasonic is an SD-ZB2502. Has a separate yeast dispenser. But very similar to the ones here.
Has worked fine for about 2 to 3 years then suddenly started turning out carp loaves, just as described. Got gradually worse until now when baking with rye flour I get a complete disaster that looks like it barely mixed at all.
Looked on a few other forums, then discovered this one. Tried the spindle cleaning bit. Saw the panasonic load of round things about the world flour harvest. Don't know why they do it. Makes them look really incompetent.
My spindle was as described and the machine does run better now I've cleaned it. But I think I will get hold of a Suitable capacitor and try that. Will post back next week with the results and give details of the capacitor I get.
Had this exact problem of capacitor failure on a boiler control board. In this case it had worked for 10 years and was an electrolytic, so no surprise there. This seems a bit of a poor show for Panasonic as they actually make capacitors and this must be a polyester or polypropylene cap. So maybe they under rated it. Didn't allow for the constant stop start surges when the breadmaker does run.

Am checking temperature control as well since this has also come up on other forums, with a less skilled membership. Maybe another red herring. But nice to check.

Looking forward to your update Tigger666.

Since spending £3.69 on a capacitor to solve the problem of my SD255 I was given an SD253 from my daughter who bought it in a car boot sale for less than a capacitor.

I shouldn't think it has baked any more than a few loaves. I haven't baked a loaf with it yet but the paddle works as well as the heater and the pan is good. If OK I will be able to bake three at a time.

Baked this morning in the SD253 mentioned above.

Hi chaps!
I have followed the advice on this forum and ordered a 440v, 3uF capacator to restore my faulty Panasonic 2500 breadmaker to active service.
I mistakenly ordered it from China so it took a fair while to come, but it arrived today and I've fitted it straight away, but now I get an error code H01.
Aaaargh!
Please can anyone advise how to get back on track to nice bread?

David

Fantastic insights. Thanks all.

Our breadmaker is an SD257 of Feb-2011 vintage. It has done sterling work, running most days for the last 7 years.
In the last few months it has been struggling to mix the dough and producing poorly-formed 'bricks'.

The symptoms were clear. The mixing action was weak, often it would struggle to turn the paddle at all, needed more water to help it mix, and even then it didn't mix very well.
The bottom of the loaf would visibly have more of the butter on the outside, and the corners often had small pockets of un-mixed flour.
It was slightly more tolerable on the full-length programs, but the rapid programs in particular produced a miserable excuse for a loaf.

Anyway, I finally took the plunge, armed with the valuable insights from this thread, especially nice clear instructions from r765, and further details from here:
https://handshake.co.za/2017/fixing-panasonic-bread-maker-weak-mixing-action/

I ordered the replacement capacitor a couple of weeks ago (common theme ... thought it was coming from UK, but turned out it was shipping from China), did the replacement yesterday, and made a fresh loaf overnight.

Bingo. One well-formed, full-height loaf. Breadmaker restored to former glory for the price of a capacitor.

I'm new on here, but registered to thank r765! With some help from my OH who is better with the soldering iron, we replaced the capacitor with this one
https://www.rapidonline.com/ducati-4-16-10-03-14-3uf-leaded-plastic-case-capacitor-10-2964
(Had to trim a bit of the plastic end off to get it to fit).
Our SD257 is now making beautiful loaves again instead of the badly mixed bricks we were getting before!

I have a Panasonic SB200 breadmaker which is 25+ years old (made around 4 loaves a week for 18 years) then one day suddenly stopped. I couldn’t live without a breadmaker so went straight out and that day and bought a Panasonic SD257 which has gone great ever since.

Seeing I thought the 200’s problem may not have been all that serious, I didn’t chuck it…kept it thinking I would look at it one day. After a year I contacted a repair outfit and they said it would cost $NZ50 just to break it down. What if I break it down? OK. So I broke it down and everything seemed fine, no loose wires or such like. So…I thought I would try plugging it in, then wiggle a few wires etc, and when I switched the power on it went!! After fiddling around a bit, I tracked the problem to the three pin plug to the power supply! Replaced that and all was great. Wasn’t that easy! Nothing to do with the actual breadmaker itself at all!

So now I had two breadmakers.

As a result I took the SB200 to our holiday cottage so we could have fresh bread when we were there. I would make up dry ingredient mixes for however many days we were going to be there and take them with us on holiday. That worked a treat for a few years, but then the loaves started getting smaller and smaller – as per the problem outline on this thread. And this despite exactly the same mixes and yeast working fine in our SD257.

We have just been to our cottage and the same thing happened, only this time I observed the blade really struggling to turn. I decided something must be wrong with it so have brought it home to find out what…thinking it could be the drive belt. Within the last hour I discovered this thread while searching for solutions and have read it through. The symptoms described are exactly what I have observed…so I will be trying out this condenser solution. Will come back when bought, fitted, and tested.

Thanks so much for the heads up about this.

If anyone who is knowledgeable in electronics is watching this thread, what difference would a 4uF capacitor make instead of a 3uF as various people have used on this thread? Our local shop only stocks 2uF and 4uF for about $NZ5. Thanks

My sb200 has a different sort of capacitor...

Rinsola,
To answer your two posts:
1) What difference would a 2uF or 4uF capacitor make instead of a 3uF.
PROBABLY noting, BUT the circuit will be designed for a 3uF so there may be some reduction in power of motor and hence might not be as perfect as you want.

If you do go for your local shop capacitor go for the 4uF >>>> but its is more important than the uF rating to check that it is the correct voltage rating. IT MUST MUST be greater than 400Volts.
The capacitor your local shop has should also be about the same size as the one your are removing. If it is much smaller is not suitable as you need a '3uF motor start run capacitor 450V'.



2) Looking at the photo of your old capacitor I would expect that that is simply a plastic cover over the capacitor which will be the normal small coke-can shape. However the cover is likely to be permanently fixed to the Capacitor, but you could give it a pull and see if it comes off.
So replacing with a different shape will not be an issue (but as said before should be about same size and I think Coke-can shaped).
Look under the Capacitor on the other side of the circuit board and see if there are two solder spots where it is soldered on.

3) I see that the NZ ebay does not have that many capacitors, but this is the UK ebay search that I did:
https://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_...uf+motor+run+capacitor+450v&_blrs=spell_check

SFK

Thanks SFK. What you've said about the capacitor conforms to what I was told by a friend who knows about electronics. In fact today he removed capacitor and tested it and it read 2.88 which is not far off 3. Never the less, all the symptoms I've experienced conform to those referred to on this thread. This friend gets electronic parts regularly from the US and will get a new capacitor with his next order, so we'll see how it goes...

Hi

I bought the Panasonic 2502 in March, it ran perfectly for several weeks, I made about 30 loaves, then it started making bricks. I changed everything, contacted Panasonic, sent it off for repair. After a month I got it back, they'd changed the circuit board and self-tested it (but didn't make a loaf, I believe)

Same problem. I contacted Amazon, they sent me a new one, so for a short time, until I send the old one back, I have two of them. I've been trying to make loaves, changing ingredients and programmes, and still the same bricks. At the end of the kneading phase, there's no dough, just thick liquid.

So I've come across this capacitor issue. My question is - would there be a duff capacitor in a brand new machine, or in one with a completely replaced circuit board?

FREE TOMMY...

Hi Phil, try this recipe... works great for me... everyone likes it...

For Panasonic Breadmaker (SD-257 and older equivalent)

In order of adding ingredients (Important at several places *)

Bread pan on scales

- 3 tsp Surebake Yeast *
(Yeast goes in first so that it is covered by flour and thus ‘protected’ from water for delayed cooking.)

Reset scales to 0

- 300 gm High Grade Flour*
- PLUS Wholemeal Flour to make up 465gm of flour
(All flour to be put in before other ingredients so accurate measuring of it can be done. Nothing else needs to be measured by weight.)

- 2 TSP Milk Powder
- 1 TSP White Sugar
- 1 ½ tsp Salt
- 2 TSP Sunflower Seed
- 2 TSP Pumpkin Seed
- 1 TSP Chia

- (1 TSP Linseed - I’m not using this now.)
- (1 TSP Kibbled Wheat * - I’m not using this now)
(Kibbled wheat last dry ingredient put in before water so as to ‘soak’ – for delayed cooking.)

- 2 TSP Margarine/Butter *
(Margarine/Butter put in last so the measuring spoon is dry for all other ingredients.)

- 360ml Water. If bread rises too much (hits lid of breadmaker), experiment by reducing amount of water by 10mm or so…

Cooked on 4 hour cycle PLUS any extra for delayed cooking...I find delayed (overnight – 7am finish) cooking generally produces a better loaf…

TSP - Panasonic tablespoon
tsp - Panasonic teaspoon

Settings for Panasonic SD-257
Turn on Breadmaker
> Press OPTIONS once (‘Bake’ flashes - 4:00hours)
> Press SIZE twice (Large)
> Press CRUST twice (Light)
> Set TIMER (for delayed start – each press is 10 mins) or press START

Hi Rinsola

Thanks, but it's not the recipe that's the problem, I'm trying recipes that have worked a dozen times before, and they're to the letter the ones recommended by Panasonic. There's a physical problem with the machine

Yes I knew that but seeing you're just getting a thick liquid, sounded to me like a recipe problem... thus the recipe (and it is a good one! )

Can't see how you can end up with a 'thick liquid' at the end of the kneading phase unless there is too much water.

If a new bread maker is not performing, I'd get a replacement.