Truma 6002 EH - 230v Elec problem

[Bolly1965]

I was thinking PCB but I take on board all the other points. I shall do some investigating tomorrow with regard to the vents and the sensors.

 

When we left the heating on all night it was still freezing in the morning.

 

I couldn't say how long it takes to get the water warm. I think I read somewhere that it should be about 45 mins on electricity which seems about right.

 

Thanks for your help.

 

(I really need to update my profile picture lol)

[Guest Joe90]

Just a couple of final points, the C6002EH definitely is capable of just blow air heating on electric, I have one.

 

I have also stripped mine in the past down to it's component parts, if you want I will PM you with my phone number in case I can help further, it's a lot easier to talk than type, just let me know. Mike.

[Bolly1965]

Ok, so I took a look this morning. My heater has four pipes leading from it - two at the front and two at the rear.

 

Two of these pipes were not connected. I refitted these pipes and tried the heating out.

 

The two at the front are getting warm, the two at the rear aren't, which leads me to suspect that one of the elemets (the rear one) has failed.

 

The two at the front feed the bathroom (which is covered by the sliding door) and the base of the bed - which wasn't connected. The two rear ones cover the living area - no wonder we were getting no heat!

 

I checked the two sensors and the on by on the outside of the wardrobe (where the heater is located) is not connected up and looks like it never has been - no idea why it is there.

 

If I am right and one of the elements has gone, is it worth getting it replaced?

 

I guess this will affect the heating of the water but as we've never known any different hadn't noticed the loss of power.

 

[Derek Uzzell]

My understanding (which may well be wrong!) was that the blown-air fan blew air over a Truma C-Series heater’s central heat-exchanger and the warmed air just ‘collected’ in the base of the heater that carries the four outlets to which the air trunkings connect. How the warmed air would then be distributed would depend on how many of the four outlets had air trunkings connected to them (a minimum of 3 outlets with the lower-output models and 4 outlets with the C-6002 heaters) and the lengths of the air trunkings.

 

In your case, as two of the outlets were not connected, when the heater was operating warmed air would have ‘preferred’ to find its way through the two outlets with no air trunkings connected rather than through the other two outlets with connected trunkings as the former route would be the easier. (I dread to think how hot the enclosure in which your heater is installed must have been getting!) If the front trunkings are short and the rear trunkings are long, I’d expect the warmed air to heat up the front trunkings before the rear ones. However, I’d expect warmed air to emerge (eventually) from the air-vents in the living-area and the bathroom area, but you appear to be saying that, although warm air comes from the latter, only cold air ever comes from the former.

 

I assume you’ve selected the 1800W 230V setting when testing and, if that’s so, your suggestion that one of the elements has failed seems logical. As I said earlier, even if the elements were not providing their full design-capability, water-heating would still take place though it would be slower than it should be.

 

Access to the heating elements is not a simple task as it involves major dismantling of the heater and this will only be practicable once the heater has been removed from its enclosure. As you should now get much better air-heating on gas and at least some air-heating on 230V, and it will cost an arm and a leg in labour costs to remove/replace the heater and carry out repairs, I believe you’d be better to do as Joe90 suggested earlier and employ an alternative means of 230V air-heating if what the heater is now able to provide on 230V power proves to be inadequate.

 

I suggest you contact the Truma(UK) technicians about this

 

http://www.truma.com/uk/en/home/service-center.php

 

as they should be familiar with the effect of problems with the 230V elements of a C-6002EH heater and may be able to give you a ball-park estimate of what element-replacement would cost.

 

I also suggest you explore ways of preventing the air-trunkings becoming disconnected in future from the outlets in the heater’s base. (As it’s happened before it could well happen again.) When I ‘re-trunked’ my Hobby’s C-6002EH I ensured not only that the air-trunkings were compressed lengthways so that they ‘pushed’ hard against the heater’s outlets, but I also clipped the trunkings securely to the enclosure’s walls to make it impossible for them to come free from the heater.

[Uncle Bulgaria]

A further point to consider is whether both of the 900 Watt electric elements are working. One of the two elements on my Truma 6000 Combi failed but no fault indication was given. I deduced what was happening when trying to get 40 C hot water on a single element with no hot water being produced. I also noted that the quantity and temperature of the air from the vents was unusually low when the power selector switch was set to use both electrical heating elements - in practice I was only getting the output from a single element. The dealer who repaired the heater for me said it had had several instances of failed 230 volt heating elements on Truma Combis in the recent past.

 

Richard.

[Bolly1965]

I think one of the elements has gone. When I said that only two of the ducts were getting warm, this was assessed by feeling them as they came out of the boiler, where the boiler connects to the ducting, not from feeling the air at the vents. I believe that you cannot replace just one element, they are integrated into the heat exchange and I suspect this will be expensive to replace.

When you consider the unit is barely eight years old and has only been used infrequently, I don't feel that the boiler is fit for purpose. I certainly can't justify an expensive repair for the use I will get out of it.

[Derek Uzzell]

There’s a C-6002EH schematic here

 

http://www.leisure-supplies.co.uk/productdetails.php?id=65

 

The parts listing indicates that it should be practicable to obtain the heat-exchanger minus its 230V heating elements and suggests (Parts 61a and 61b) that the two heating elements differ but can be obtained individually. The Truma Centre quotes a price of £48.84 for each element

 

http://www.thetrumacentre.co.uk/magento/truma/tma/heating-element-230v-cable.html

 

The Truma heater fitted to Richard’s (Uncle Bulgaria) Hobby is a Combi 6E. This appliance’s design differs radically from a C-6002EH’s and, although the 6E schematic indicates that the 230V heating-elements are similarly integrated into the heat-exchanger, there’s certainly no guarantee that the procedure involved in element-replacement would be the same.

 

While it’s logical to assume that only one of the C-6002EH’s 230V elements is providing heat, this does not necessarily mean that the element has failed - the problem may be due to a wiring fault. I don’t know what’s involved in replacing a C-6002EH 230V element, but I suspect that access to the heater’s underside would be needed and I’m sure that the heater’s top would have to be removed. As I said earlier, the Truma(UK) technicians should be able to provide expert advice.

 

In late-1998 I bought a 2-years-old Herald Templar motorhome that I owned until 2004. The Herald was fitted with an Atwood Confort 3+ gas/230V combination air/water heater that never worked reliably. Despite intensive fault-finding efforts the problems were never successfully resolved and, to add insult to injury, Atwood had suddenly ceased trading in the UK.

 

The Atwood unit was replaced in early-2000 (under the selling dealer’s warranty) with a Truma C-3402EL. This later began to leak (a weld failure in the water reservoir) and, not too long after, the ceramic insulation on the gas igniters cracked. Within 6 years, then, the motorhome’s original heater needed replacement and the replacement heater needed to be removed, repaired and reinstalled twice. The overall cost (ignoring the costs involved in three 200-mile round-trips to Truma(UK)’s HQ) would have been around £2000, fortunately mainly recouped from the warranty company.

 

So you think you’ve got problems... ;-)

[Bolly1965]

ha ha ha - I'll get an oil filled radiator!

 

Seriously, I did think about the wiring but I'm no expert and the wiring in the cupboard looks like spaghetti junction!

 

It rarely gets used in colder weather so i may just run it on gas