I ran the Thermador through the FULL STEAM cycle the other night. It steamed for about 20 minutes--well after steam was puffing out the fill flume. I imagine it wouldn't go so long if it were in a toasty kitchen instead of a frigid garage. Oddly, its thermostats are all pressed against the inner door rather than the bottom of the tank. I guess they measure steam temp rather than water temp, but...how hot has the water become by the time the inner door reaches, say, 140 degrees?
I had to fix the rather unique dispenser. It had become slightly deformed from heat and time and wasn't opening. I shaved a bit of plastic off and it's fine. It's sort of like the old GE square dispenser, but its a half circle instead of a quarter circle, and it has two compartments. There is a single bimetal that triggers up to 3 times--it ratchets open one cup the first time, another cup the second time, and then triggers the rinse agent dispenser the third time. You have to be careful when you use a short wash cycle to only close the dispenser halfway, otherwise it will open the empty cup for wash and open the filled cup during the final rinse. I like the idea in that it simplifies the timer and the circuitry to just repeatedly actuate the same bimetal, but it seems to trade possible increased reliability for certain human error.
Also had to fiddle with the timer--it stopped advancing right before Rinse. There was some yitka in that segment's tooth of the ratchet that advances the timer (is that called the escapement?). I carefully cleaned it out with a toothpick and it's now run 3 times around with no problems.
Getting closer to actually putting dirty dishes in it...
T.
