20 Most Recent Cuisinart DCC-1200 Coffee Maker - Page 2 Questions & Answers

I don't know if this is the same as a regular coffee maker but here is the answer I gave to another guy. I am not responsible for anything you choose to do if you do it yourself. Here goes:Inside the coffee maker , you will find a horseshoe shaped aluminum metal water heater. This is the part that transfers the water from the container to the part just above the pot using a plastic tube. the water heats up to a certain amount and 'drips' hot water on to the coffee and into the pot. First disconnect all the electricity and be careful and not be too rough handling the coffee maker in general. You sometimes need special tools to remove the screws because they are not ALL regular Philip head screws. They can be torx or a special torx screwdriver with a hole in the middle. What I do is use my dremel with a grinding bit and remove all the screws if they are not regular head screws. I replace the screws with other regular Philip heads. You have to empty the coffee holder and filter and the water in the coffee maker in order to do this and remove the bottom off the carefully. it is mostly cheap plastic in many brands. Just inside you will see a couple of electronic components that look like a little missile (lol) these things are called thermisters. Their job is to protect the rest of the components from overheating and causing something else to burn. Those are the ones that go bad when your coffee maker goes off like that. everything else is working except those little thermisters Most times coffee are discarded because of hard water buildup inside the horse shoe ( as I will call it from now on) and it will be very slow heating the water because the water can't pass through. I used the thermisters of an old one that I had thrown into the garage about a year before with the clogging problem. took the thermisters off that one and connected them to the one that wouldn't do anything except turn on the little light on. (There are some you can buy online that are switchable thermisters. Which means that they will turn off when or if the heat reaches a certain temperature.Then instead of burning out all together like the cheap ones, they will cool off and turn back on when they cool off. You can find them at ebay from the ebay ID name of Wendell Riseley. He is quick to deliver and even includes his email and phone number if you have any problems. You just replace the missile looking ones with the new ones which are flat with 2 wires ) Please do this on your own I do not want to be responsible for anything going wrong. I am simply informing you. And with that said NOT RESPONSIBLE. I just basically tied the good wired thermisters by over lapping them over the old ones in the coffee maker and made sure it was fairly tight. You can't use solder cause it melts down with the heat generated by the heater. which is a small little ceramic encased thing that is placed to latch unto the horse shoe on it's side. Just be careful to put in the new ones the same direction as the other ones are. Hope this helps you. Posted on Oct 22, 2017

There are 2 thermal fuses in the bottom of the unit, close to the heating element for the pot. Also, there is thermal compound between the plate that the pot sits on and the heating element. The compund on mine dried out in about a year's time, which caused overheating and the fuses to open.

Does anyone know the values of these fuses? I HATE to have bypassed them.

Theses types of home appliances are not repaired, they are considered disposable, replace it.

There is an "Auto Off" programing capability with this machine that may be the culprit if everything else is working fine. Check the user manual to reset it or disable the feature if it presents a problem.

here is the link to the manual http://www.cuisinart.com/share/man/25_man.pdf page 8 - looks like you have a calcium buildup - descale overnight using vinegar/water 50% if the self clean feature is not able to deal with the problem. hope this helps :)

The caraffe lid must be on the Coffee maker while making coffee. The lid pushes a opens the hut-of valve in the filter. If the lid is not on the caraffe, the valve will prevent coffee from dripping out of the filter. This is to prevent coffee leaking on the lower carafe heating element when you remove the caraffe to quickly pour some coffee. the water accumulates while you do this, so if the machine is still brewing, you should put the carafe with lid back in the cofee maker, to release the accumulated liquid in the filter.

Over time, Calcium will deposit on the tubes and containers which get in touch with water. The calcium can also impact the function of the Heating elements in the percolator tube. Try Decalcifying with Designated Products. Usually, you do this by diluting the product, fill up the water reservoir, and cycle on the machine, without cofee of course, Pour out the water. It will probably look troubled. If the water does not start percolating, just let the water reservoir stand with the decalcification product for about 30 mins. don't leave it in overnight, because these products are slightly caustic to remove the Calcium, but it could damage parts if left in the machine overnight. Repeat the process until the water starts running faster and/or gets hotter. don't forget to rinse with regular water. 2 Cycles rinsing should suffice. See manual for suggested products or just use 1/4 cup of Vinegar diluted with Water per caraffe. It will smel like vinegar while you do this, as the vinegar evaporates with some of the steam. I would repeat this process every month or so if you use your machine daily. If this does not solve, try contacting cuisinart customer service at 1-800-726-0190

Over time, Calcium will deposit on the tubes and containers which get in touch with water. The calcium can also impact the function of the Heating elements in the percolator tube. Try Decalcifying with Designated Products. Usually, you do this by diluting the product, fill up the water reservoir, and cycle on the machine, without cofee of course, Pour out the water. It will probably look troubled. If the water does not start percolating, just let the water reservoir stand with the decalcification product for about 30 mins. don't leave it in overnight, because these products are slightly caustic to remove the Calcium, but it could damage parts if left in the machine overnight. Repeat the process until the water starts running faster. don't forget to rinse with regular water. 2 Cycles rinsing should suffice. See manual for suggested products or just use 1/4 cup of Vinegar diluted with Water. . I would repeat this process every month or so if you use your machine daily. If this does not solve, try contacting cuisinart customer service at 1-800-726-0190

OK, I Fixed it. Overcame mutiple issues. Here's the deal.1. Call Cuisinart. If your in warrenty, they will just ship you a new one.2. The issue is that ground overflow the basket and clog a check valve in the water line.3. instructions assume coffee maker is positioned upside down and with water chamber closest to you.Solution: Dissasemble and flush grounds out.1.Remove botoom plate. They intentially made it impossible to get into There are custom 10mm torx screws with nipples in the middle (like compaq computer did to prevent us from opening computers). Answer DRILL them out. Extreme sounding but really pretty easy on the cheap soft screws. Drill out four (4) screws and Remove bottom piece.2. Free up Bottom plastic base. (hoses and wires will prevent true removal)Next issue is getting long (4 inch) size #0 screwdriver and removing 5 phillips screws. I had to got to home depot because Target and walmart didn't carry anything small enough and long enough.3. Remove left silicon hose (Orange).Lots of stuff here. a. pull BOTH hoses off the plastic (not aluminum) nipples down inside the coffee maker. No clamps, just pull up. b.Move LEFT metal clamp back off alum tube on the left hose.c. work LEFT hose off tube (know that it is full of grounds,,,)4. FlushCAUTION: Don't force this next step with water pressure. THere is a check valve which is supposed to stop flow one direction. You can feel the checkvalve and see it once grounds are out. a. Clean hose out. Logic says use sink, but I just used water in my mouth to gently go back and forth and grounds flowed into waste glass. flush FROM metal clip to water chamber. Get all grounds out.b. you can validate check valve working again because you can feel flow only goes one way as you swish water back and forth (again mouth works great)b. Re-attach hose to alum tubec. Flush from left hose through tube through right hose into waste glass.5. Reinstall. a. know that circuit board has to be seated in slotb. position base on and install 5 screwsc. THEN attach hoses to plasticd. put on base plate. Mine kind of snapped in place, but I put clear tape on it to hold it there. A real mechanic would of drilled out the screws and installed larger ones. Meh.

I tried a solution someone posted on this site back in Dec and it worked, give it a try: "I called the company about the "shutting off after a brewing cycle" problem and they had me turn the dial to "auto off" and set the time to two hours. You do this by holding down the "hour" button until it blinks, and then press it again until you get the desired hours that the warming plate will be on. Hope this helps."

DCC-1200 shuts off: How to fix it


A couple of weeks ago my DCC-1200 beganshutting off in the middle of the brew cycle, a problem commonlyreported here. I love my DCC-1200, and it ran like a top for the 8years I've had it. Luckily I have a backup coffee maker, so I wasable to take the time to find a fix rather than having to dropanother hundred bucks on a new one. I hope this helps some of you.


Behavior: The coffee maker beganshutting off during the brew cycle. The whole machine would go dead,including the LCD display. Changing outlets did not solve theproblem. Unplugging it and plugging it back in sometimes helped,sometimes not. Left plugged in, sometimes the power would restore andit would work for a time. This got progressively more frequent,though right before it quit working all together I was able to turnit on by pressing the self clean button. Pressure on the faceplateright above that button would shut it down again. I discovered thiswhile following norm49629's advice on cleaning the machine. Afterremoving the faceplate, I could see that any pressure on certainareas of the circuit board would restore or cut power to the entireunit. These experiences led me to conclude that there was an issuewith the circuit board. Please be reasonably sure this is the sameproblem you're having before beginning this repair. My coffeemakerwas out of warranty and I had nothing to lose.


If this is your problem, you will bebaking the circuit board to repair micro-fissures in the circuitrywhich are interfering with its operation. These fissures are causedover time by the repeated heating up and cooling down of thecoffeemaker when you brew. To do this repair you will need to removethe faceplate, so I am including instructions for that based on myexperience with this issue as there were none to be found on Fixyawhen I looked.


To remove the faceplate:


You will need a tiny standardscrewdriver (I used one from an eyeglass repair kit) and a smallishphilips screwdriver. Begin by removing the carafe, the basket (andpermanent filter, if you have one), the water filter, and the inserton the underside of the flip-up lid. With the lid open, you willnotice two round screw covers towards the front of the coffeemaker toeither side of the filter basket. Remove these with the smallstandard screwdriver. This is impossible to do without damaging themsomewhat. Remove the two philips screws underneath .


There are nine clips that need to bereleased to remove the plastic top of your coffee maker. First, pressin on and release the two located on the back just below the lidhinge. With the small standard screwdriver, gently release the sixclips along the top edge of the casing. These are located two inback, near the corners and two along each side. You will have to getup underneath the plastic bezel, be gentle so that you do not bendthe stainless steel housing (if you do, gently bend it back intoplace before you put everything back together). Lay the coffeemakeron its back. The final clip is located in the carafe “nook” tothe back of the drip outlet. The upper plastic portion should nowlift straight up out of the coffeemaker.


With the coffeemaker upright, removethe four philips screws holding the faceplate in place. Remove thefaceplate by pulling it straight out towards you. Unplug the circuitboard. Remove the three screws holding the circuit board I to thefaceplate, being careful not to lose the three clear plastic washers. Remove the clear plastic switch (for the function knob) by releasingthe clips.


These baking instructions are based inpart on the many tutorials to be found online for repairing video andgraphics cards. Preheat your oven on its lowest setting, preferably170˚. Place a piece of aluminum foilon a cookie sheet. Tear off some extra and make three small balls offoil to place the circuit board on. With the circuit board LCD up,position the balls under the upper corners and the center bottom,away from anything important.


Bake at 170˚for 10 minutes. Allow to cool and put your coffeemaker back together.Brew a nice fresh cup for your efforts.


Clean any scale off the parts youremoved before you put things back together. To test your repairbefore reassembly, reinstall the circuit board and plug in yourcoffeemaker. Test all the buttons, switches, and functions. Becareful baking, if your oven doesn't bake as low as 170˚,ask around. My “self clean” button didn't seem to work, so Ire-baked for 10 minutes at 180˚. Idon't recommend doing this. At that temperature the LCD screen turnedblack and the glue melted and spread out. Luckily upon cooling thescreen returned to its normal color, the glue hardened, andeverything turned out fine. I would recommend a longer 15 or 20minute bake at 170˚ rather than ahigher temperature, should you need.


YMMV. Good luck!


P.S. Self clean works fine, fullfunctionality was restored with this fix.

First of all it depends on the hardness of the water. Vinegar doesn't really work in the heavy lime belt area of the midwest. It is better if you use lime away. It is an ecolab product that is great at lime removal. Use one cup per pot. Then rinse two pots worth if this is the kind of machine that uses the same water that is put in during each brew cycle. Some brewers have a reservoir. Bunnomatic is an example of that kind of brewer. If you use lime away in that kind of brewer you need to run about thirty pots to remove all the lime scale remover from the brewer. Slow brewing can also be caused by over softened water. I drove from Indy to Iowa after installing a brewer and then a day later the store put in a softener and over softened the water causing the coffee filter to clog up with sodium. Also check the sprayer disc or head where the water comes out. Over time coffee "paste" will build up around the outlet and if you don't wipe it clean or "smear" the coffee grounds around the outlet that will slow down the brewing cycle. I have thirty years as a brewer technician and it is usually one of the things I have covered, providing that the heat element isn't defective.

If you have had this machine for awhile sounds like there is calcium deposits built up. Try cleaning the disbursement head as well as the tube. also run some vinegar through the system a couple of times.Let me know if this helps.