My Dualit Stand Mixer has broken
My Dualit Stand Mixer has broken!
It’s coming up to five years old. I think it had two years warranty on the mixer, and five on the motor. The motor is fine, so it appears to be a failure of the motor mount. The alloy casting has fractured.
The first problem I had was getting into the thing. So here are the instructions:
Don’t forget to turn the mixer OFF and UNPLUG it first;
1. Turn it on its side and undo the nine visible screws, then the two under the rear feet. The base will come away.
2. Use a long reach small cross-head screwdriver to remove the two screws holding the headcover to the base. You’ll have to peer past the electronics up toward the hinge to see them. You won’t see them if the head is raised, keep it down.
3. Use an Allen key to remove the centre screw under the mixing head. Then slide the head down (align the whisk/dough hook fitting peg to the front) taking care to keep the driveshaft steel dowl safe if you want to use the mixer again, it’ll probably drop out and slots through the drive shaft. Then undo the two screws holding the headcover on.
4. Now the headcover will come off easily.
The mixer had a fair amount of flour in it, but it was nowhere near enough to be a concern and the gears were still well-greased and showing no adverse wear.
If you look at the bottom photo above you can just about see the motor mount fracture, the accompanying video may help.
The guys at Dualit have been as helpful as they can be for a discontinued model with no serviceable parts, in other words they can’t help me. But even so, I’m happy it lasted five years.
It does beg the question of why when everything is perfectly good is it now junk? I could strip it down and either;
a) get the part welded up, but being cast aluminium that’s not easy.
b) try and find another mixer with a dead motor and good casting to swap in
c) get it 3D scanned and either a plastic or metal 3D printed replacement made.
If money was no issue c) is the attractive idea, but b) is more practical. So I’ll try and find a used spare part.
Otherwise, it’s time to start looking for a new mixer.