Panasonic Bread Maker

The new one is a replacement. I cut down the water on the recipe, still the same. The issue is the kneading process, it's not completing it properly, there's unmixed flour and it's too liquid.
 
Seems odd. We have had a great run out of our Panasonic BM... until the 22 + year old one started not mixing properly. Two of our daughters have them and I'm not aware of any issues with theirs. Probably a silly question, but do you have it in the correct mode?
 
Not sure what you mean. I don't think my machine has modes, just menu numbers.
 
Well...I got the capacity replaced on my SD200 and it did not solve the problem. Hmmmm.

When we measured the state of the original capacity it was about right, but we replaced it anyway... but no joy.

I now think the issue is the drive belt is too loose so am going to replace it. When the kneading starts the blade really struggles to turn (unlike like on my SD257 which turns like the clappers from the very start of kneading), thus I reckon now the failure of the bread to rise is because of inadequate kneading. When I broke the machine down there was quite a lot of rubber residue on the bottom plate which indicates the belt was slipping. I just broken it down again to check the belt tension and it is quite loose which would confirm this. Am going to get a new belt (2nd hand) to see how that goes. I see an SD255 is being sold cheap because the bread does not rise like it used to. May buy it now that I know what probable causes are...
 
Well...I bought all the internal workings of an SD253 for $NZ9 off Trademe so I could get a new drive belt. Then thought why not replace all the SD200 parts with the SD253 parts just acquired and then I would have an upgraded machine in the process of trying to solve the bread rising issue. So I did. The control panel doesn't match the breadmaker lid (the 253 has a raisin dispenser which the 200 doesn't) so it looks a bit unorthodox, but heck, if it works what a steal.

So I tried it out. Mixing/kneading went like a bomb from the very start... clearly the old drive belt was shot and confirms my analysis re mixing. So here we are 25 minutes from the end of the cycle and the bread is rising... that's great. Checked at the end and the bread was climbing out out of the machine but it wasn't cooked!!! Now that is a downer! My wife had been cooking a roast so the oven was hot, so I shoved the loaf in the oven. It continued to rise skyward until the heat got to the yeast, and I finally had a cooked loaf.

Well... why didn't it cook. Pass. However, I had left the old element in rather than change it, and I notice the part numbers are different...perhaps the element was wrong for the new parts. So I've changed the element for the 253 one that came in the parts package, and now I await the next loaf to see if it not only rises but cooks! :-)

I'll update...

However, it appeareth to me that another reason loaves don't rise is because the drive belt is shot... consequently the kneading process is not done correctly...
 
So... update. Due to apparently some parts being incompatible between the SD200 and SD253, I reverted to the SD200 control panel and heating element but retained the SD253 motor and pulley as these allowed the use of the wider drive belt which will be less likely to stretch. I have just made a loaf and the bread is as it should be... success.

In reflection I think the problem was the drive belt and not the capacitor, although I now have both a new drive belt and capacitor.

One thing you need to be exceptionally careful about if pulling apart any of these Panasonic breadmakers is this. There is a ribbon cable consisting of 9 wires that goes from the display panel to the circuit board. If this ribbon cable pulls out from the circuit board, it can be very very hard to get back in. If the individual wires, of which the 9 wires in the ribbon cable consist, beginning to separate, it is extremely difficult to get the 9 wires back into their holes... the unwound wires bunch up and do not go though the holes, then touch each other. I know! It took me a couple of hours and I only succeeded because I had a spare ribbon cable from the SD253 to use, and even then I'm not 100% happy with the connection. The original SD200 cable was to too short to redo the individual wires. If any of the 9 wires touch each other you will get an error message and the machine won't work. The fitting on the board should be pushed to open the connection points slight to allow the wires to go in.
 
A further update.

As mentioned in an earlier post, I saw that an SD255 was on TradeMe (NZ) due to bread not rising. As I was travelling to the town where it was for sale, and virtually passing by the gate, I decided to bid on the auction, and got it for $12. Tried a couple of loaves and they were perfect... but then after that none of them rose...and the kneading really struggled. I pulled it apart and the belt was fine, but I had no way of checking the capacitor... till today... months later. It was definitely sub par. Fortunately I had another capacitor among the parts from the 253 I had bought and when tested it show it was fine...so put that in. Made a loaf when I got it home and it is perfect. Kneading is great and the loaf rose as expected. Another success story. :-) One machine the bread didn't rise because the drive belt was stretched, and the other because the capacity was shot.
 
I know this thread is a year old but I am having he same problem with my Panasonic SD 2511, been using Panasonic bread makers for years but I keep getting the odd flat loaf, they haven't risen but it looks more because the top of the bread has burst so letting the air out, I'm thinking it's rising too fast, I've tried all kinds of adjustments to flour and recipe even fresh yeast, quite often it's ok but never super high like it used to be. I only realised the other day when I recommended the same machine to my brother and he sent me a picture of their first loaf with my recipe, it was huge. I never thought there might eb something wrong with the actual machine. Does anyone know if the SD 2511 is the same electronics?
 
My observation is that the basic mechanical workings are much the same across models. If you've read my posts you'll see I think there are two options as the source of the problem...the belt drive (check first) or the capacitor. The capacitor on all the models I've looked at have same specs though they may be a different shape. The rest of the electronics may not be interchangeable across models...at least I found that in one case. One of my machines had a sloppy belt, and the other a faulty capacitor. The later models have a slightly wider belt...one extra v...
The failure of the bread to rise is the result of insufficient kneeding...due the belt slipping or the capacitor not providing enough ummph to drive the blade through the dough...
 
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Really glad I found this thread. The loaves from my Panasonic SD-255 had gone flat and brick like and I was almost ready to give up on the breadmaker having varied all the ingredients with no success. I could hear the motor struggling when mixing, so had assumed it was worn so was initially searching for a replacement for that. Having read about the capacitor fix, it seemed a sensible step and having replaced for for less than £6 I am really pleased with the results. My thanks for the solution.
 
The loaves in my Panasonic don’t seem to rise as much as they used to and I’m hoping that’s because my yeast has gone off a bit. Trouble is, I haven’t been able to get yeast since the start of the lockdown. It’s got to be that though - I bought a 500g bag of bread mix and just had to add water so assuming all ingredients were in there. It came out perfect - in fact I’m seriously considering using that in future.

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Hello. I would like to ask about the Panasonic SD254 faults. Mine is quite old and has been a great servant, but it seems to be turning against me. Does anyone get burnt loaves? Just made a couple of loaves - one with honey and one with molasses in, and both were slightly burnt. And I am having to increase the amount of yeast to get them to rise. I haven't heard the motor struggling, but I haven't thought to listen to it! Do these machines have thermostats? Could they fail? Any ideas would help. Thanks.
 
I have an SD-ZB2502 which will not drop the nuts/raisins on programme 3, although it does it on programme 6.

Has anyone else had this problem and is it possible for a programme to be corrupted in some way?

I know the manual suggests that the hopper may be damp etc but the last time it failed to drop on programme 3 I went into the service menu, without touching the hopper, and triggered it from there. It then worked perfectly.

Any thoughts from anyone?
 
Now that Maplin Electronics appears to be out of business, where can I get a replacement capacitor that I can be confident meets BS EN standards? Needless to say that my Panasonic SD255 is exhibiting the symptoms described in this thread (started a few months ago)
 
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