Heater Failures

I've seen a couple of modes of failure of heater elements.

Wires Coming Off

The first is mainly seen in GHD3 only. The problem is that the wires come detached from the heater element. Initially this will manifest itself as the LED only coming on when the GHD's are closed. Gradually they will work less and less until the light doesn't come on at all. A number of people have tried to repair the heater by reattaching the wire, however I've not heard of anyone who has successfully made it reliable again. Therefore I recommend replacing the heater element with a new one. See this department of the shop for suitable replacements.

Heaters Cracked

The heaters are quite brittle and therefore can break under an impact. Therefore if you drop them, they could get broken! Mk3 GHD's won't turn the LED on if one or both the heaters are broken. Mk4 GHD's will turn on and beep as normal, however one or both of the plates won't warm up.

This behaviour can cause a secondary problem in Mk4s. If the heater that the thermistor is mounted on is broken, then the other plate will warm up, however the electronics won't know (as the thermistor will remain cold). This will cause the working plate to get hotter and hotter until the thermal fuse trips. Then you'll have a heater element and a thermal fuse to repair!

The heaters in fake GHD's seem to be particularly liable to break. If you purchased your Mk4 GHDs from Ebay and they broke within a few weeks, then they are probably fakes (sorry :-( )

Replacing Heaters

Instructions for replacing a heater in a pair of 3.1b's are here. These instructions are also basically correct for GHD3's.