URGENT TECHNICAL BULLETIN
This bulletin requires urgent action, please ensure you read this document fully and circulate to all engineers within your company.
Re: Westomatic manufactured hot drink vending machines fitted with chiller units.
Last week a customer made us aware of a machine on site where they had detected a crackling noise and saw some smoke.
We took this call very seriously and one of our engineers was immediately sent to look at the machine concerned. The problem was caused by liquid ingress into the plug connector for the chiller unit. The chiller is sited to the left-hand side of the machine as you look at it, immediately below the milk mixing bowl. On further investigation, it became apparent that it was milk that had dropped down onto this plug connector, probably as a result of a blockage at some time in the mixing bowl. The plug connector was stored on the left-hand side of the fridge beneath the bowl. This is not the correct position for the plug which should be properly stored within a box area under the whipper shelf. This is somewhat difficult to get to when the machine is fully assembled but would be possible to pull it out should the fridge be removed.
In order to be certain this cannot happen again we are enclosing some instructions on how the plug connector should now be positioned above the whipper shelf and providing security of fixing. We believe you should look at all machines in your fleet with chiller systems and indeed you may choose to look at those from other manufacturers to be certain they do not have a potential problem.
Our assembly procedure ensures the plug is properly sited beneath the whipper shelf so we will never know how it came to be in the position it was. The most important factor is that the machine blew its fuses and did everything that was expected in these circumstances. All machines manufactured by Westomatic are tested at an independent test house and there was no risk of fire or any other danger.
If you have any queries or questions about this please do not hesitate to contact us. Any machines leaving the factory from today will have this new routing of the cable and our own engineers will be vigilant when visiting machines of this type at customer’s premises.
Instructions for routing and fixing of the chiller loom
The chiller loom is normally tied up and positioned behind the whipper deck. On some machines this may have become loose or been pulled out to service the chiller. In future, the AC loom, part number 246537 (Loom Sigma FD3 AC Issue 3), will be produced with a 400 mm shorter chiller loom so that this can never come into contact with the chiller unit. For machines out in the field, it will be necessary to shorten the chiller loom behind the whipper deck.
The Chiller loom is fitted to the machine by a P Clip at Point [B] as is comes down from the Fuse & Distribution Box to the chiller. Just to the right at Point [A] there is a metal loom clip on the rear panel. Both of these can be reached by removing the top of the whipper deck and carefully reaching in with the supply off and the aid of a torch, taking care not to dislodge any wiring.
Below is a picture of the chiller loom with the slack removed. The cable is highlighted in yellow in the second picture. This will leave the AC chiller connector just below the whipper deck as before except this time there is no way that the cable can be pulled down due to attachment to P clip [A].
