I have a fault on my stoves ceramic hob 3 years old. When the power is turned on, i get an error flashing 56 and continuous beeping. is there a fix for this.?

william graham, August 2009

Big thanks to BWBI ..Just carried out this repair on my old stoves hob must be 6 years old and has been bleeping for a while but always seemed to settle down but lately it wouldn't stop bleeping. Bit nervous and my hands were shaking when soldering but it all went smoothly. A cheap fix

SM, November 2015

I have carried out this repair about 2 years ago and the problem has started again. We have found that turning on all rings to No 9 will allow the hob to work but obviously this aint ideal and sunglasses are required. Time to do the repair again i think.

Chris, December 2011

Thanks BWBI. Fitted the new capacitor and saved myself a bundle. Why are these manufacturers allowed to get away with this sort of thing?

Wolfielives, November 2011

This is a regular fault on Stoves Ceramic hobs! I was quoted £212-89 for a new PCB Clutch Board! Plus Fitting! or they would do me a concession on a new hob!

Now wait for it! you can replace what is a faulty capacitor on the Top right corner of the PC board for 62p yes 62p from Maplins and hey presto your hob is working perfect again! The capacitor is marked C17 on the board and is silver in colour. You may have to snap the old one off and the maplins one is slightly larger so be prepared to trim the wires on the new capacitor. The longer wire on the new one is the positive wire and is soldered on to the plus on the pcb board. You may need a magnifying glass to see the positive and negative markings. The maplins part no is VH50 PC Elect 1000UF 16V. You will need a fine soldering iron and a steady hand but the repair is easily carried out and I am no micro electrician! It took me an hour which included removing the hob stripping the ceramic top from the base and the visit to Maplins and the subsequent repair!

Be careful when you remove the screws to release the ceramic top or the plates will fall out inside causing possible damage or stress getting them back together again inside the metal surround of the hob. In fact you just need to remove the half a dozen or so silver phillips head screws from around the edge of the base and NOT those on the actual base it'self.

Best of luck and trust me it is an easy repair and gives tremendous satisfaction when you have repaired it as this has to be the biggest potential rip off of all time! Now where's my wine glass!

BWBI, September 2011

I just rang Stoves service help line as I have the same problem (error 56 and beeping). They state the fault is due to a printed circuit board failure, likely caused by power surge following a power cut. £120 plus for the part, and not available until Feb 2010!
Any ideas on a better option to fix would be appreciated. I have seen some suggestions from other websites solving the problem by buying a new capacitor and soldering it yourself, but this is not a realistic fix for an amateur to electronics such as myself. Any thoughts?
P.S. should I be pursuing some sort of consumer claim here? How does a power surge get through the ultra sensitive trip switch on the kitchen ring, the fuse in the plug and the fact that the hob was off at the time? Am i being done over on this one?
I have a funny feeling that instead of a top class bottle of single malt, it's a trip to Currys for a new hob this christmas. :(

PW, December 2009