Exploring Electric Rice Cooker| Part 1: diagnosing simple and common problems that occurs on a rice cooker.

Good day and Happy New Year steemians!

Today, I want to share my personal experiences and ideas on rice cooker. A rice cooker is an automated appliance that help us to save efforts in preparing fast meals. This appliance can help the household cook quickly rice without overcooking and burning. Boiling water and cooking easily cooked foods can also be done using rice cooker. Like other appliances, this can have some problems in time. In this tutorial, I will show to you some basic steps on checking conditions of your rice cooker.

Many people will throw in the trash if they encounter problems on it and buy a new one. But, with proper diagnostics, we can determine how severe the problem was. Simple problem may occur like loss contacts, broken fuse and connectivity with power cords. And this kind of problem will be easily fix and there is no need of buying new one. This will save you the cost of buying, enhance your skills in troubleshooting, and generates income by fixing your neighbor’s appliances.

What you will need?

1. Screwdriver
2. Multimeter
3. Rags or any cloth for cleaning

Note: Before you start working on any electric or electronic appliances, make sure it is not plugged to any power source. This is a must and the very first step to consider avoiding accident.

My Tips in unboxing the rice cooker

1. We will need a screw driver to unlock the screws. I suggest that you should have varieties of screw drivers. Choosing the right screw driver makes your work convenient and safe.

2. Before disassembly, I suggest that you should take pictures first. This will serve your guide when you are about to assemble the rice cooker. When you are unfamiliar with the set-up, this will be a great help. (sample pictures below)
   

   

3. Use separate container for screws. As much as possible do not mix screws, allocate different containers for every type of screw.

Steps how to determine the cause problem

1. Check if electricity can flow.

It is possible that the electricity is not delivered to the rice cooker. We will use the multimeter to check on this. Set the multimeter to ohmmeter function and test the plug for any resistance. If the rice cooker is OFF, the usual resistance reading is very large mostly close to infinity. If it is ON, there is a smaller resistance reading. A good and operational rice cooker will have a resistance reading like this. In case of having very large resistance or infinite resistance in both ON and OFF, it means that the circuit is not closed and electricity is not flowing.

2. Check the power cord.

Power cord serves as the passage of electricity from source to our rice cooker. Sometimes, it is the reason why the circuit is not closing because of its connectivity. We will check the connectivity by using the ohmmeter of our multimeter. It is connected if there is a resistance reading, otherwise, it is not connected. Connect one lead of ohmmeter to plug pin and connect the other lead to the terminal inside the rice cooker. We will trace that the plug pins are connected to it corresponding terminals.

3. Check the thermal fuse.

Thermal fuse is a safety device usually connected next to the power cord. It is usually covered with white rubber sheath as its insulation.

To determine the condition of fuse, check the resistance of the fuse and it should have a resistance reading. If not, then the fuse is broken and need to replace.

4. Check the heating element.

Upper view of heating element

Under view of heating element

This device will give off heat when electricity is flowing on it. This is a very high resistance device that can withstand a very high current and converts it to heat energy. The heating capacity of this device depends on its power rating. To check the condition of this heating element, we will use multimeter to check the resistance. Resistance must be high but not going to infinity or open circuit.

I hope this article will be a great help and relevant to you.

Follow me @thinkingmind for more on these. Part 2 of this Exploring Electric Rice Cooker will be release soon.

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Photos were taken from my phone camera @thinkingmind