the epic saga of the george foreman grill!

Posted by Tim 08 May 2006

so george foreman tried several times to make a comeback but it just wasn't in the cards. well let me take you down the journey of the comback of our george foreman grill!

before we left the united states we bought the big mamba george foreman grill... the biggest one that is a counter top model. it had the timer and temperature control... everything... and it was glorious! we never even actually used it because we bought it solely for use overseas. i knew that it, or anything of any quality like it, is not available over here hence the purchase and packing of george.
well anyways... we took george out of his packaging and put him in a suitcase to save room (you don't pack air when moving overseas), nestled by lots of clothes in hopes of keeping him safe and comfy. it didn't work... observe the carnage of the airport baggage handlers...

«exhibit a: busted george foreman grill totted in from the states»
now the bottom part where all the wires and the circuit board are was not exposed like that. the purpose of this picutre is so show you the base is currently crushed into lots of itty bitty bits and some big chunky parts hanging on by single screws.

so anyways... with the help of certain objects to prop it up we could still use it. however, because of the exposed metal, due to the big chunks missing, i would burn myself a lot on the 400 degree plates. ouch :( After burning myself a dozen or so times i decided that it wasn't worth my skin.

so some friends came to visit us here from america and they asked if they could bring us anything... to which i gleefully replied... well if there is space bring us a george foreman grill model GRP 99! There was space and there was much praising to be done in the Semmens household.

«exhibit b: *new* george foreman grill brought in by friends from the U.S.»

we had just moved to so i was getting everything ready to use it in the kitchen. i got out my 2000 watt transformer and plugged it in and then plugged in the grill... but i was a big dummy head and had the cords in the transformer accidently swapped. so basically...
i fried the brand new george foreman grill.
the horror!

i was recently over at a friends house and he showed me some nice speakers that he had. he said that a friend of his had zapped them on the electricity here (much like my new grill!) and gave them to him. he took them to an electrictian here and the guy swapped it all to 220! yay! they worked! immediately my mind conjured up doing the same thing with george. so i took him on down to this place we know of and opened george up on the gurney (table) and saw...

«exhibit c: george #2's little problem»
... that his heart was working on only one ventricle (i blew a transistor). the guy said he could fix it but the timer wouldn't work anymore. no problem said i. so the next day i go to pick it up and discover that the on/off button doesn't work and the temperature control doesn't work either! argh! not what i wanted! the beauty of this model is the temperature control. i can time it with a timer but i'm not going to bust out some jerry-rigged temperature control! so i tell the guy i want it all wired back the way it was when i brougt it to him!
i decide that i am relatively smart guy with the computers so i should be able to fix this myself. scary i know but bear with me here... i still had the old broken-down george foreman grill with what i believed would be a properly working circuit board.

so i busted the both out side by side... grabbed a pencil and paper and began to diagram out everything the way it was in the 1st g.f. grill.

«exhibit d: diagram of the circuit board»

«exhibit e: diagram of george's innards»

after diagramming everything i proceeded to swap out what I hoped was still a good circuit board for what I knew to be bad. after surgery it was wheeled out into the recovery room and the result...