[Prowler]

Originally Posted by Sran

Internet has spoiled people.
I think the heating element is known as spiral heating element. It comes in different lengths. I think your heater is 2500W. May cost around rs 1500- rs2000. You can also ask your local plumber and he will get it for a premium.

Internet has really spoiled most of us. I confess that these days I do almost all shopping online. It is a nightmare finding parking in Parris corner/ Richie Street. You park somewhere and take an auto. The online shops are better stocked and source products all over the world.

Originally Posted by srini1785

I doubt it since there are no grooves for the heating element outside of the ceramic rings. I did find something similar in Amazon but may not be exactly what is needed.

Srini Sir. Please teach me how you found that element in Amazon. Thank you so much. This forum is really amazing. You get to communicate with brilliant minds who think outside the box.

[Sran]

Originally Posted by vsrivatsa

After my Dad made that comment about the quality of the blades, we came home and saw the advertisement pages for Maharaja...they seem to have lot of focus on the blades - so there must be some truth to what my Dad felt when he checked the different Jars and blades.

Go with your dad, atleast you won't get to hear I told you so.

Originally Posted by mvadg

This may be off topic, but the original "Sumeet" brand no longer exists. Someone else has bought the rights to the brand name and intends to market a completely different product under the same brand name, so we will have to wait and see if the new mixie is as reliable as the original.

I have no knowledge of this. I had heard that the two brothers had divided the business amongst themselves but it was a decade back.

Another thing I've noticed about mixies is that the electricals are strong and reliable but the jars are prone to failure in various ways.

I feel the same. How did my bajaj mixer's ss chutney jar developed holes within 2 months is a mystery to me. Plus the clips on lid are prone to breaking.

Originally Posted by srini1785

I doubt it since there are no grooves for the heating element outside of the ceramic rings. I did find something similar in Amazon

https://www.nationalent.in/kanthal-f...al-sweden-make)

https://m.indiamart.com/proddetail/s...901227912.html

This sort of element is needed for the ceramic tube.

[srini1785]

Originally Posted by Sran

https://www.nationalent.in/kanthal-f...al-sweden-make)

https://m.indiamart.com/proddetail/s...901227912.html

This sort of element is needed for the ceramic tube.

The element shown is a direct immersion type coil and does not need a ceramic former. From what @prowler described below :

Originally Posted by Prowler

Modern day water heaters have their elements inside the tank - within the water. These ancient heaters have a cavity where the elements live without touching the water. Thus no corrosion, no leakages and long lives.

It looks like this has a different type of heating element. Some more photos would clarify the issue at hand. Ceramic being an absolute bad conductor of heat, its still a mystery how the element was wound on it without touching water. My guess is that there must be a metallic body part which covers this unit (the ceramic ring and rod).

Originally Posted by Prowler

Srini Sir. Please teach me how you found that element in Amazon. Thank you so much..

The super genius that i am, i googled " Ceramic heating elements" and matched images to the nearest equivalent of the image that you have shown and took the precaution to post the reply with enough hedging statements to absolve myself of any blame like the quote below :

...I did find something similar in Amazon but may not be exactly what is needed.

It is a nightmare finding parking in Parris corner/ Richie Street. You park somewhere and take an auto

Riche street or Paris corner or you can also try old Moore market and the hundreds of gullies that radiate out of walltax road up to Padbhanabha Talkies (no idea if its still standing).

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by srini1785

It looks like this has a different type of heating element. Some more photos would clarify the issue at hand. Ceramic being an absolute bad conductor of heat, its still a mystery how the element was wound on it without touching water. My guess is that there must be a metallic body part which covers this unit (the ceramic ring and rod).

I looked inside the cavity with a flexible camera. The cavity is made out of copper. The heater element is a tight fit and thus heats up the copper tank. It must have been effective as it lasted more than 35 years. It drew only 1000 W.

Originally Posted by srini1785

The super genius that i am, i googled " Ceramic heating elements" and matched images to the nearest equivalent of the image that you have shown and took the precaution to post the reply with enough hedging statements ...

You really are a Genius Srini Sir. I have been working with search engines and AI in the last 18 years. Yet I couldn't conjure that trick you used to extract useful answers from that wild mule called as Google.

[Aroy]

Originally Posted by Prowler

I looked inside the cavity with a flexible camera. The cavity is made out of copper. The heater element is a tight fit and thus heats up the copper tank. It must have been effective as it lasted more than 35 years. It drew only 1000 W.

Looks like it is an old style heater. Similar to what we had in the clothes iron - Nicrome spiral of correct resistance (hence wattage) insulated by a series of ceramic beads. The beads were generally concave on one side and convex on the other, so that they overlapped each other, preventing live element touching metal.
Here are some heating elements that I found

https://www.kanthal.com/en/products/...ating-element/

This is what the insulating beads look like.

[sandeepmdas]

Originally Posted by Prowler

Once you are used to bathing in piping hot water no matter where you are, you can't get over that habit. A whole family can bath and still be left with plenty of water in the 60 L.

I guess the heritage heater is made by Raccold, or Venus. No other brands would last this much.

Since your target is 60L and you already have a new 15L heater, I'd suggest you to retire the hero and go for solar. A 100L solar heater is truly fit and forget, even utensils can be washed in piping hot water. You may use the 15L as a backup A problem I have experienced is (I live in Kerala) that if there are rains for 3 consecutive days (mon-tue-wed), you'll get only lukewarm water on Wed early morning.

[Mortis]

Could the old geyser brand be Spherehot ? We had large Spherehot geysers in our bathrooms that also lasted 35 years and we're replaced with smaller more efficient Racold units when we renovated the bathrooms. The brand was discontinued a while ago and then relaunched around the same time as our renovation but we couldn't get the model we wanted so opted for Racold instead. No idea if the quality is as good now as it used to be but as it is with all items currently, I doubt it !

[Prowler]

Originally Posted by sandeepmdas

I guess the heritage heater is made by Raccold, or Venus. No other brands would last this much.

Originally Posted by Mortis

Could the old geyser brand be Spherehot ? We had large Spherehot geysers in our bathrooms that also lasted 35 years

The old water heater's name tag plate has been painted over many times in all these years. The last I remember about that is it is some German name. It should be as it has unusual layout for the wiring. You can trust Germans to come up with complications even in a simple wiring setup involving a heater, thermostat and an indicator. The thermostat's wiring is done through a cable protected by small ceramic pull-through beads.

[TorqueyTechie]

Anyone here using this Rhino plus table top wet grinder from Butterfly? We have a bigger wet grinder bought in 1994/5 which is working fine but it is a chore to clean it as its heavy. Thought to buy a smaller one and liked this model but not sure about the reviews. Everyone I know have the ultra elgi model.

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Originally Posted by TorqueyTechie

Anyone here using this Rhino plus table top wet grinder from Butterfly? We have a bigger wet grinder bought in 1994/5 which is working fine but it is a chore to clean it as its heavy. Thought to buy a smaller one and liked this model but not sure about the reviews. Everyone I know have the ultra elgi model.

If it is working, keep it. Our six month old butterfly got a lose drive belt 2 - 3 weeks into the lockdown. With service centres closed, had to buy a new one. Somebody here had mentioned Elgi, but at ₹ 10,000, was waaay too expensive. Sales person's attitude at the shop was not very impressive either. Looking around, realised that choice is between tweedledum and tweedledee.

And in between stumbled upon

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coimbatore_Wet_Grinder

With that gyan, decided to go for a non - mainstream brand. So purchased something called "Sowbhagya" from Amazon. Turns out that it is a well known, but low profile brand which has been around for sometime.

[TorqueyTechie]

Originally Posted by BaCkSeAtDrIVeR

If it is working, keep it. Our six month old butterfly got a lose drive belt 2 - 3 weeks into the lockdown. With service centres closed, had to buy a new one. Somebody here had mentioned Elgi, but at ₹ 10,000, was waaay too expensive. Sales person's attitude at the shop was not very impressive either. Looking around, realised that choice is between tweedledum and tweedledee.

And in between stumbled upon

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coimbatore_Wet_Grinder

With that gyan, decided to go for a non - mainstream brand. So purchased something called "Sowbhagya" from Amazon. Turns out that it is a well known, but low profile brand which has been around for sometime.

Thanks BaCkSeAtDrIVeR. I was surprised to see that the model was not available in any retail stores though few of them spoke good of it. Only reason I am not going for ultra is as you said the price.

Reason to buy a tablr top as I mentioned is to reduce cleaning work for my mom when I am not around. Its heavy and she struggles these days.

Sowbhagya is something which I saw too but it is not sleek and not sure can be used as table top. Will take a look.

[mvadg]

Originally Posted by BaCkSeAtDrIVeR

If it is working, keep it. Our six month old butterfly got a lose drive belt 2 - 3 weeks into the lockdown. With service centres closed, had to buy a new one. Somebody here had mentioned Elgi, but at ₹ 10,000, was waaay too expensive. Sales person's attitude at the shop was not very impressive either. Looking around, realised that choice is between tweedledum and tweedledee.

And in between stumbled upon

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coimbatore_Wet_Grinder

With that gyan, decided to go for a non - mainstream brand. So purchased something called "Sowbhagya" from Amazon. Turns out that it is a well known, but low profile brand which has been around for sometime.

One thing to keep in mind when buying a non brand appliance is that you may not get spares and service outside its sphere of popularity. Drive belts come in standard sizes, so you should find out the spec for the drive belt used in your machine.

I bought two identical elgi wet grinders, one for my mom and one for ourselves. At mom's place, her maid knew how to feed the rice and urad daal to the machine and it has worked flawlessly. In our case, usage is about a fourth of the one at my mom's place, I replaced the belt (not really required according to the tech who visited later) and had to get the coupler replaced. Yesterday, another tech came and had bend all the rods inside the grinding vessel (stones and scraper) back into proper alignment - I was happy to pay them their service fee to get our machine back into shape. Plus instructed us on the proper way to load the machine - start, pour a little water, add small amounts of rice at a time, grind, then Urad etc...

[BaCkSeAtDrIVeR]

Originally Posted by TorqueyTechie

I was surprised to see that the model was not available in any retail stores though few of them spoke good of it. Only reason I am not going for ultra is as you said the price.

Sowbhagya is something which I saw too but it is not sleek and not sure can be used as table top. Will take a look.

I have placed it on top of the kitchen counter. It is a 2 or 3l model.

Originally Posted by mvadg

One thing to keep in mind when buying a non brand appliance is that you may not get spares and service outside its sphere of popularity. Drive belts come in standard sizes, so you should find out the spec for the drive belt used in your machine.

Plus instructed us on the proper way to load the machine - start, pour a little water, add small amounts of rice at a time, grind, then Urad etc...

Looks like a case of not reading the manual. :-)

One reason I stayed away from Elgi is its electronics. Timers and whatnot. For me, the mix is ready when I decide it is ready, and not when some timer or device says it is. And wife thinks similarly.

Maybe, Elgi has a no electronics model, but that is positioned at the premium end of the market. (Over priced, in queen's English). And that salesperson certainly was not enthu about anything else.

I believe Elgi too is Coimbatore based. And wet grinders is one thing the Chinese are yet to start manufacturing.

If you have not noticed, there is a difference between urad and rice and whatever else that goes in over a period of time. The time to reach a particular consistency varies by a few minutes. So a timer holds no value for me. YMMV.

[atnyia]

Off late, I am looking for a vacuum cleaner. I want it to use for cleaning upholstered furniture, mattresses, woolen carpets, and other hard to reach places like sliding windows, cupboard drawers, etc.

I already have WD3 from Karcher which is rarely used as it is very noisy and hard to use for all such things. I like the portability of my car's vacuum cleaner which is really effective to achieve regular interior cleaning.

I would ideally prefer

So, my idea is to buy a battery operated handheld vaccum cleaners like this or a two-in-one vaccum cleaner like this.

Have people here used these kinds of vaccum cleaners?

[diyguy]

Originally Posted by atnyia

or a two-in-one vaccum cleaner like this.

I purchased a philips one just like this from Malaysia for 16K INR and find it to be worthless. Very poor suction power and practically i cannot use it for most of my requirements. Without a home demo dont purchase a vacuum in my opinion.