Panasonic Bread Maker

R765, I doff my hat to you! You have no idea how many brownie points I got for resurrecting my other half's beloved SD-257 by replacing that capacitor (ours too was down to 1μF). Many thanks :-).
 
What a great site with great insights. Was about to buy a new bearing for the pan at £22 but my symptoms sound much more akin-ed what R765 reported. I will now try the replacement capacitor from Maplin's at £3.69. Probably take a while to get round to swapping it out.
 
Have changed the capacitor and it is as good as new. Full size loafs again. Without the help of this site I could have waste much time and money do many thanks to R765. The steps to replace the capacitor are straight forward and easy to follow. It is a large capacitor so the soldering required is also easy. Nice big wires. Taking the bread maker apart and reassembling is straight forward.
 
I have used Panasonic breadmakers for 13years or more and always been delighted with the results, using a variety of programs. I always use recommended yeast and flour and measure my ingredients very carefully – I’m hopeless at estimating weights and measures. My dear old model 257 gave up the ghost recently and I decided it was time for an upgrade. Big mistake.

I bought a model 2511 with the idea of making sourdough and ‘rustic’ bread.

I made a loaf using the 50% whole wheat program. I make my bread overnight, so I am used to coming down in the morning to that wonderful fresh bread smell. No such luck. It smelt odd, a ‘doughy’ smell. The loaf looked OK, albeit with a lighter crust than I’m used to. The crust sounding nice and firm when tapped with the fingernail. However, within 5 minutes or so the top crust had collapsed the way it does if you leave the loaf in the breadmaker for a while after it finishes baking. When I cut my first slice I found the centre of the slice, although it looked OK, was felt damp and doughy – under cooked in my opinion. I tried a number of recipes with similar results. I took the machine back to John Lewis and they replaced it. Same results from replacement machine. I swapped the 2511 for a 2502. Same results. Is it me? Has anyone else experienced similar problems?
 
I had trouble last year and contacted Panasonic. The lady said they had trouble with poor quality flour and I should use separate sachets of yeast and ensure they were fresh. She said pots of yeast go off very quickly so use a fresh sachet measure out a teaspoon of whatever the recipe required and dump the rest after a week or so!
Yea, I thought what a load of waffle. Still I bought fresh strong flour and a packet of sachets, she said Tesco yeast sachets are as good as any, surprised to say it worked!!!!!!
 
I had an old Hinari bread maker, and it was dirt cheap and made damned great bread. It would happily tolerate wrong amounts of ingredients, yet still make good bread overnight. So when it finally died a death, I swapped over to a Panasonic, and it worked, but was useless. It wouldn't make a good overnight loaf, and you had to be so careful over the amount of ingredients, so in the end, I learnt how to make sourdough bread by hand, and whilst I miss coming down to a fresh loaf. I get far better results.

What I have learnt over the years, is that you can use plain flour just as easily as strong Canadian and still get good results. You don't need to knead the flour to death (AKA Paul Hollywood style) and you can get away with just a quick mix and leave it in the fridge overnight, and then just shape it the next day. Pots of yeast don't go off till they are out of date (test by putting some in warm water with sugar), and soda bread can be knocked up in under an hour. And machines are great, but temperamental.

I am damned impressed with the perseverance you guys have shown, and if I ever get back to using the Panasonic, I'll now know how to fix it when it goes wrong.
 
I see it was August 2014 I joined this thread so I thought I would update how things are going with my Panasonic SD255 and the leaky shaft seal in the pan just in case anyone is still around wanting to know. Two things have happened:-

Firstly I bought another bread maker – an SD254 for £5 in a sale. The bread pan was good and fitted my SD255. The SD254 was also good and the 550 grm whole meal/white flour mixture rose so high it stuck to the lid. Same result at the time with my old one as long as I kept the shaft clean.

Secondly the old one is causing problems again with dense loaves despite keeping the shaft clean. I even premix the mixture by hand in a bowl and tip it in the pan when the paddle starts (this reduces the amount of water and flour getting into the shaft as the seal is so bad it spins around). I have now taken the machine apart to check the belt. As far as I can tell it looks OK and should turn the paddle faster than it does. It’s definitely slower than the other one.

Reading further on with this thread r765 from Bournemouth mentioned on 30th May 2015 the motor capacitor on the pcb was the cause of his motor struggling to turn the paddle. I am not into capacitors and measuring uFs etc but am capable of doing some soldering so am going off to Maplins to get a capacitor for £3.69.

The only concern I have is that the Maplins capacitor is a cylindrical one and I am not sure about where to fit it if it doesn’t go in the pcb box. R765 suggests a stud mounted capacitor and fix it to the lower flange which sounds good but not sure the Maplins one is of the stud mounting type. We’ll give it a go.

Just in case someone asks why I am bothering with this as I have the other bread maker it’s because I like to make two loaves at once while I have the ingredients to hand. Use one loaf and freeze the other for later.

On the subject of Panasonic blaming the flour I have to admit I find the best wholemeal flour for rising is from Spring grown Canadian wheat available from Waitrose for about £1.69. I use 350 grms of this with 200 grms of their strong white flour.
 
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A year ago, I fitted the Maplin cylindrical capacitor with a twisty tie to the motor leads (where I hoped that it wouldn't get too hot). No loaf failures since (at least one 500g loaf a week). i'm still oiling the shaft after (almost) every bake by dripping vegetable oil onto the paddle/shaft and spinning it round a few times whilst it is still hot.
 
You inspire me eighty two.

I have just come home from Maplins with cylindrical capacitor with two wires attached. I am hoping I will get it into the PCB box but it's a tight fit. By enlarging the hole at the top of the box there is just enough room to take the wires out of the top and then by bending them over they can come back into the box through the same hole. I then hope to be able to solder them in place.

There was an alternative capacitor that was stud mounted. I considered this but I would have to drill a hole in the motor plate and as it had no wires I would have to acquire some and fit them. It was only 240 volts compared to the 440 volts which is the same as the original. I hope my planned method will work.

Update later and hopefully this week

Mike
 
Hmm. We've got one of the Panasonic bread makers. Works fine and we've had it over two years now. I did once have a problem with small, solid loaves but it turned out that my yeast had gone off. The dried stuff you get in a tin. I only use it once a week to make a nice loaf for the weekend bacon sarnies. Having read the above posts though, I think either I'm going senile or it's come to the end of its life as this Saturday I came downstairs not to the smell of a freshly baked loaf, but a load of unmixed ingredients. I'll find out for sure on Saturday whether the machine has had it or I forgot to press the 'start' button!

On another subject, you know how nice it is to make your own loaves? Well, I've just started curing my own bacon. Bleeding gorgeous it is too. Any home bacon makers on here?

https://www.diynot.com/diy/threads/bacon.479139/
 
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Motman - The first thing to check is whether the paddle in the pan turns without putting it in the bread maker. If it doesn't it's because the water and flour has drained out the bottom and seized the shaft up. I never use the delayed timer now as I don't trust the seal. My bread maker is nearly ten years old and hopefully when I replace the capacitor the motor will be up to full strength and turn the paddle like it should subject to me cleaning the shaft regularly.
 
Just went and checked. Free as a bird. Nothing drained out as the water was all still on top of the flour in the morning. Thinking about it, if the paddle didn't turn, the heating element would have still come on to bake the dough, wouldn't it? The ingredients were all just as I put them in the night before. I use unsalted butter and that hadn't melted either so the element definately hadn't heated up. I'm hoping I just forgot to switch it on.
 
I'll bet you didn't press START! ;) Been there, done that... Also, I forgot to put the paddle in once - that doesn't work, either :(.

Put the bacon-curing thing on the hobbies forum... you never know! I do cider, real ginger beer (with GBP) and I might build a smoker in the spring.
 
EightyTwo said:
I'll bet you didn't press START!......
Click to expand...

Yep! I must have done just that. Put all my ingredients in last night, checked, then checked again that I had pressed start and went to bed. I knew everything was okay as I was coming downstairs this morning when I copped a whiff of freshly baking bread. :D
 
I have just fitted the Maplin's capacitor to my SD255 bread maker and the paddle turned nicely so it's now under test with some ingredients.

The new capacitor is the blue one on the right of the photo and the old one is the grey one beside it. To remove this I had to hold the soldering iron to the back of the connections on the PCB and pull at the same time to release one side at a time. The first decided to move a little and then re-solder itself but it eventually gave up.

Once removed just push the wires from the new capacitor into the holes and solder from back. Once soldered in place I pushed it into the top cover and replaced cover. As you can see it was a bit of a tight fit.

Whooa. The paddle is spinning like a top. No more tired grunting and deciding whether to go or not. I also have the £5 SD254 going beside it as well and the SD255 with the new capacitor may even have a stronger/faster spin. Two loaves should be ready this afternoon.

I would like to thank all you electronic experts who pointed me in the direction of the capacitor as without you I wouldn't have a clue about this. My ten year old SD255 hopefully now has an extended life.

Michael
 

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