As mentioned on the main popper page, the popper of choice is the Prima PCM001, but there's also a PCM001S and a PCM002 (unfortunately, I think all of these are discontinued - so ebay it will have to be, if you want one). I happened to have a PCM001 and a PCM002 come available cheaply at the same time, so I've compared them. Since this information doesn't seem to be out there, I thought it might be helpful. There's also some hints here about dismantling both, and general information about their innards.
Incidently, I believe the PCM001S is just a PCM001 with a shiny aluminium sheet wrapped round it. If that's the case, I think it will work just as well as a PCM001, but I've never actually seen one.
PCM001 on the left, '2 on the right.
The most significant difference is just that the '2 is bigger.
The bigger '2 is most obvious here.
On the bottom, I assume that date-like code is a date. If so, all mine were made within 3 months of each other (as well as these two, I have a 02-04-00 '1).
While looking at the bottom, I compared the area of air-hole cutouts. Interestingly, I calculate that a '1 has 680mm2 (18 slots 11.5x3 plus 3 holes 5 diameter), and a '2 has 680mm2 (slightly more complex). That looks too good for coincidence, so presumably it's a designed figure.
However, the intakes on a '1 are less obstructed (they're round the edge,
higher off the surface that it's standing on) so I'd expect
marginally easier air flow into a '1. If you're worried about air
flow, clean out the slots with a scalpel - mine were all partly blocked by
mould spew (or whatever it's called). I also drilled some extra holes in the
bottom, which presumably can't hurt.
The removable butter-warmer on a '2 is a bit of a pain - it just balances
on top in a couple of notches. It's trivially easy to knock it out of place,
and then chaff (or popcorn, depending what you're doing) comes flying out the
top, rather than heading into the bowl. The butter dish on the '1 is more secure.
This is the full '2 package. It comes with a bowl that interlocks.
Conclusions from that? The '2 is bigger and might have marginally less good air flow. The '1 has a top that fits together more securely. Therfore, given the choice, a '1 is probably better for coffee, but not enough to turn down a '2 if it's available.
Incidently, the '2 is better for making popcorn - the closely fixed bowl and more enveloping lid catch the corn better - you get more in the bowl and fewer spread around the room. The bigger lid also seems to control and divert the hot air better - it's less likely to singe your eye-balls if you get too close.
The black bit at the top is held on to the white bit at the bottom with
(lowish security) anti-tamper screws. A '2 has five of them, and a '1 has
only three. This is a win for the '1, since you're probably going to want to
get inside it.
I say lowish security 'cos it's easy to defeat this screw-head. Find a
suitable machine screw and about five minutes filing gives you this. This was
an electrical box screw, which was almost the perfect size (3.5mm diameter?),
such that I get the best fit with the least filing.
And minutes later all screws are out.
Conclusions from that? The '2 is marginally more difficult to get into - five screws rather than three, but if you bodge a suitable tool for the screws, they're no more difficult than 'normal' screw-heads.
This is a '2, but trust me, the innards are the same.
This is the same '2. To get this out you need to undo the two normal screw-heads visible from the bottom of the unit, prise the on/off switch out and disconnect the crimped terminals from the switch, then where the cable goes into the body squeeze the top and bottom part of the black plastic lump together hard (pliers) and pull outwards.
The '1 is identical in every respect at this point - I only know this is a
'2 'cos the photo file tells me it was taken minutes after the last photo...
Conclusions from that? They're both the same where it matters.
This is my (fairly scrappy) notes on the circuitry inside. The upper dotted box is the metal popping chamber. The lower is the PCB you can see in the photo above.
There's a heater coil which has a tapping off it part-way to provide a lower voltage which is bridge rectified and used to drive the blower motor. There's a small capacitor across the motor, presumably for smoothing or reducing interference or something.
I'm guessing about the thermostat and thermal fuse, but that's what they
look like.
For comparison, this is what I rewired it to at first.
This is what I subsequently changed it to. By omitting part of the heater
element, this makes more heat input
available, and I made the change after doing a roast in ambient temperatures
of about -2 C, which the popper couldn't get to 2nd crack. (Although, it
probably could have done had I reduced the air flow through - but there were
various reasons I didn't want to do that.)
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