This is for educational purposes only. This hack will disable the low water alarm and enable the propeller to turn on outside of water. This is a possible fire and injury inducing modification. I will not be responsible for any damages or injuries that occur from following this guide. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK!
That being said this is a pretty simple fix. This looks like a lot of info but it super simple!
Check out this teardown video: https://youtu.be/X6x_xokMgiY (you only need to remove two screws and only need to watch up to the 6:30 mark)
1350 Pcs 50 Values Resistor Kit
( I know this is overkill you only need one 10K Ohm resistor but I can’t find them sold individually)
Heat gun
This is the fix:
The wires in the video are 1 Red, 1 Blue and 2 Green. On my unit there were 1 Red, 1 Black and 2 white. You only need to worry about the red and blue or the red and black. Ignore the two colors that are the same. See this picture:
Next pull back the black cable tube shielding (on the second pic) to expose the wires.
Cut the red and black wires in the middle so you have room to work with both ends. Strip off the ends to expose the wire. (example below)
Slide the smallest sealed wire connector through the red wire (mine was the white colored one). Re connect the red wire by twisting it back together like this:
Bend a 10K Ohm resistor and shove it into the sealed wire connector like so: Make sure the resistor and the two wires all touch and align with the ball of solder
Use a heat-gun (recommended) or lighter to melt the solder and seal the red wires and leg of the resistor together.
If you still get beeping your wires and resistor are not contacting properly together and with the solder. I can confirm this is working and my beeping issues are all gone.
AGAIN WARNING: This is now a potential fire hazard due to this disables the low water shut off. Do not leave the system unattended. The propeller / heating element will now power on without water and will not turn off when the water is low so I do not take any responsibility if things go wrong. This is just for educational purposes.
I have the same problem but with ANOVA NANO. Always low level even after cleaning it with 1/2 vinegar, 1/2 water for 30 min at 70celsius.
Does anyone know how to open Nano model to by-pass the water sensor?
Thanks, B
In my experience the vinegar “solution” is useless. I’m not familiar with the Nano internals so I have no idea if my fix is even possible. Is it still under warranty?
Hi Bob,
wouldn’t be simplier to solder the resistor directly on the board where the blue and red cables are soldered?
any downside I.'m not considering doing so?
Actually you don’t even need to open the Anova. Just short the two temperature probes (the probes not connected to the heating element) and you are good to go. No need to open the cooker and invalidate the warranty. Be aware this is dangerous, there’s a chance of damaging the heating element if there’s not enough water and obviously there’s a fire hazard
This is a good start by Bob but it doesn’t fully address all situations.
I got my hands on an Anova hand me down from someone and was having a constant beep issue and it wouldn’t start BUT it was not a low water sensor issue.
You should be fairly familiar with electronics before proceeding to do this. This is what I’ve worked out. . .
There are 3 temperature sensors on the Anova. Ideally before proceeding, you’ll want to measure each of the temperature terminals on the PCB to figure out which is reading “high”
2 sensors are possibly used to measure temperature and its variance while in operation (the long probe and shorter probe not connected to the heating element).
These two probes coupled together are also used to detect when there’s low water. The resistance between the two probes determines if water is present. One of the wires of the temperature sensor is common to the metal surface (for both of the probes). When water touches the two probes, the resistance is lowered. Soldering a 10k ohm as Bob suggested basically fools the probe into thinking that water is present. I would suggest using a high grit sandpaper to sand the surface of the metal probes before soldering a 10k ohm across as suggested in the tutorial. There is possibly some sort of build up causing the resistance to read high even when water is present. (This suggested fix of course assumes that the two temperature sensors are still working fine).
The third temperature sensor is the tricky one. This is the one tied to the heating element. Mine was reading some really high value on the PCB (something in the mega-Ohms). Temporarily, I bypassed this with a 1k Ohm resistor on the PCB and the Anova worked again. No more beeps.
Next, I proceeded to extract the temperature probe from the metal shell, I noticed that the probe was disintegrated and smelled burned. I managed to work out that this third probe is some sort of safety PTC. The PTC chip was basically almost all black. I managed to measure around 1.1kOhm across the pad. I suspect that the heat from the heating element basically burned out the connection causing the probe to lose connection to the PCB. I’m not 100% but I do believe this would be a 1.1kOhm PTC (which goes into high resistance when it is heated). Functionally, it would cause the heating element to a safety shut-off in the event that the other two temperature probes fail.
In other words, if your Anova is beeping, it could be 1 of 2 issues:
As Bob mentions above with the low water sensor issue (which I think could be fixed by sanding the metal shell)
The PTC is for the heating element is burned out (which will require replacement). You should never run this bypassed because then the heating element itself would have no fall-back safety whatsoever.
)
