Kitchen Aid - Smoke Types

I won't bore you with the tale of yet another Kitchen Aid Pro 500 going west.  What is interesting is the ensuing story of the vain attempt to repair it...

The smoke that you see when one fails due to being overloaded is from the armature wire and plastic spacers that hold the wire in place.  The plastic spacers melt and throw melted plastic around the inside case.  What makes the motor stop is a temperature sensing switch that opens at 142 deg C. permanently opening the armature winding such that the mixer is no longer operable.

Finding a replacement motor was an interesting exercise.  Finally traced one down in San Jose, California (always bring the defective part with you when replacing defective appliance parts). The new motor is a redesign of the original 525 Watt motor and is now rated at 575 Watts.  I was also informed that the new motor will not fit into the casings (top & bottom) of the old mixer.  New casings plus motor would come to around $200.00 U.S.  With this informaition  I decided to purchase a new thermal switch, thanked them for the help and returned home muttering incantations about companies that fail to support their products.

Replacing the thermal switch allows the machine to operate but is not recommended for long term service. The machine has run long enough at this point to service the squeezing of around 50 Lbs. of Meyer Lemons.

What's interesting is that Kitchen Aid increased the Wattage of the Pro 600 series from 525 Watts to 600.  At about the same time they introduced the spiral dough hook.  The machine failed using the older C hook which sustained gasket blowing force loads on 2 quart dough kneads.  The spiral hook, as I've discovered, aleviates the peak motor loading yielding a much cooler motor. 

I'm now following the progress of a brand new mixer winding its way here via a Fedex Tracking number...

+Wild-Yeast