Sunbeam Gelateria GL8200 Questions & Answers

Have you tried putting some hot water in between the bowl and the machine its not easy

The only thing I can suggest is the same as Anne's. I hope you get it unstuck soon. I've not had this problem with mine, but it can sometimes take a bit of effort getting it out. I haven't used mine this summer.

Try it on a different outlet. Your Circuit Breaker might be a bit light on amperage wise on that loop. This is equivalent to a small fridge so probably draws a chunk of current on start up. Also check that it is a CB tripping and not the RCD (earth leakage device). No, I don't guarantee it is one of these things but it is worth checking. Also I can only assume you've had it stored face up and not sitting on it's side or upside down in a cupboard somewhere as that could mean a seized compressor.

Hi Maddi, sometimes things need regular usage for switches and the like internally to be kept operational, and a good first step is to listen for the compressor in the unit to start - this will be audible and you can also feel the vibrations - if no cooling occurs at all, and you hear the compressor running - it could be either a gas charge issue - i.e. the refrigerant gas has leaked out (not that common for a low use device) or if there is a little cooling but not cold enough to freeze anything, if that is your finding then it may not be economical to repair - these have a fan (I think) inside that could have stopped working (that fan blows warm air out of the appliance) - lubricating oil can just gum up like glue inside the bearings of the fan (common if not used for a long time) - this would be an easy fix for anyone handy with a screwdriver and some fine manual dexterity.

Hi Maddi C, Thank you for contacting Sunbeam. Did you put the teaspoon of salt and water under the bottom of the canister? This assists in the freezing process. Kind Regards, Sunbeam

Hi, yes I did and allowed extra time for it to cool before adding the custard but it never cooled

Hi Angela V, as this product has been discontinued for some time, we no longer have the replacement part. Maybe try searching online on places such as ebay or Gumtree or type into Google the code GL82101

That is highly unacceptable to provide a top of the range product, so when someone purchases "the best" product on the market, and then discontinue making a replacement part which is often faulty! I am thoroughly pissed off to say the least. So now a perfectly good machine has been made redundant and need to be thrown out!! This is EXACTLY what is wrong with our world today! Our parents generation would buy something which would last them a life time! And this generation, we are forced to live in a disposable world!!!! In effect, in equivalent, you have sold me a top of the range car, with no option to replace a single tyre when it's worn out! Your company is disgraceful!!

I totally agree with you, Angela. I hate the built-in obsolescence of today's appliances. My Canoscan 8400F scanner was expensive and must be at least 13 years old, but if it wasn't for the great people who created VueScan I wouldn't be able to use it now. All computer things stop being supported once they are 7 years old. But for F&P's agent in Rotorua having a pump for our 28-30 year old washing machine we'd have had to throw that out too. It's time for consumers to rebel!

From our experience this is as good as it gets. The machine will slow down the more you use it until it just won't turn anymore. It is a disappointing product indeed.

Hi Dixie, you may not have seen my review of the GL8200 - might be hidden for a reason ! but this is the link if every you wanted to revisit the appliance or get it working https://www.productreview.com.au/reviews/b9e1dbf3-18f2-4ada-9a7a-b3e47c7e0a37

After about six uses, the blade stopped working completely so I tried using it without the blade. All we got was a frozen crust on the edge and a thick soup in the middle. When the blade worked as it was supposed to, we got rock-solid ice-cream all the way through even after trying several different recipes and methods.

Well, thanks Adrienne, the question now becomes "how did you get the blade to work properly??"

Hi Lester, do you mean the salt solution that you add to help with the freezing? For further troubleshooting please contact our Consumer Support Team on 1300 881 861.

We bought a second hand one on gumtree which was supposed to have been an unwanted gift and never been used. I couldn't tell if it had been used or not although the box had been opened. The compressor worked fine but the paddle motor didn't work. We paid $150 dollars for it and we were tossing up whether to complain to the seller. I decided to see if I could work out why it wasn't working. I managed to get the paddle to work after about 12 hours. It is an easy machine to disassemble... very well designed in my opinion... except for 1) where the removable mixing motor housing electrical contacts meet the contacts from the body of the machine and 2)the gearing cogs that drive the paddle. The first thing I did was I removed and took apart the contact housing that the paddle assembly clips into and adjusted the contacts so they were a little higher and leant forward a little more so as to be better aligned to make contact with the two brass pins from the mixer housing. It didn't help... the mixing motor still wouldn't turn... at all! I then checked if the mixing motor would turn while removed from the machine by applying power directly to the pins as the mixing motor runs off 240v. It still didn't work. I disassembled the removable mixing motor housing to see what might be wrong in there. It contains basically a small motor driving gears which have a final drive to the cog that the paddle clips into. I removed the cover of the first cog that contacts the motor and removed the large plastic cog gear so the motor wouldn't be under any load at all. The motor ran perfectly. When I tried to put the cog back in I noticed it was a very tight fit and was rubbing on the side of the surround. There was also a hole in the top of the gear cover, a hole through the centre of the gear and another hole at the bottom of the gear housing that to my eye was meant to house a pin of some sort to prevent the cog from wandering off centre. I could see no pin. I ended up grinding the plastic cog teeth down by about 1 mm so that the cog would fit without rubbing on the side, and recutting the teeth. I also had a piece of stainless steel rod the exact diameter required for the missing pin so I put it in and reassembled. It now works. Well, we have made 2 batches which isn't much to go on I know, but much better than nothing. I couldn't imagine every machine having this problem. Surely not? My guess is that the factory assembling this mixing motor housing has recieved a batch of the wrong sized cogs for this assembly and rather than replacing the over sized cog with a correctly sized one they are force fitting the wrong sized cog by removing the aligning pin and hoping that copious amounts of grease will overcome physics! Sunbeam gets a bad reputation for an otherwise excellent product.

Paul McEwan paul@conkerberry.com.au

Hmm, well I am not sure I have your courage to open the paddle motor. I did call Sunbeam. It was a very strange conversation as the guy asked me what I was doing, and I said making the custard base and then putting it in. He said that was the problem. I said I thought that was rather strange as that was how icecream was made and I was following the recipe in the book. Anyhow he said he would send me out a replacement paddle motor. Again, I thought this odd because the machine would have been out of warranty and he wasn't asking for any money. But he took my address and said I would have it in about 2 weeks. I didn't hear anything again, so a month later I called them, and they said they had no record of that conversation or sending anything to me. So the next person went through the same quiz, what was I doing, had I tried using salt water as per instructions (I do), had I tried not using salt water (yes I had) and then he agreed to send out the paddle motor. Again, I heard nothing. So after 3 weeks I called and this time I took the persons name. They said there was a record of the conversation and apparently the motor had been sent out. he said to call back again at the end of the week if it still hadn't arrived. So the following week, when nothing had arrived, I called again. This time the guy didn't give me the quiz, but said that the computer said that it had been sent out. Then he said he would go and check in the warehouse. A few minutes later he came back and said he had found the last one, in a box, and had now addressed it to me and it would go out the next Monday (this was a Friday). Middle of next week the parcel arrived. I put it in the machine and had the same problem. The paddle stopped before the mix had even half way frozen, it was still runny on the inside but clumped on the outside. I packed it up last weekend and sent the whole thing to Salvo's... with a note to explain to any unsuspecting buyer that it only half does the job.