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Samurai Appliance Repair Man's Blog

A blog by Samurai Appliance Repair Man in General

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About this blog

Pearls of appliance repair wisdom from the Appliantology Forums

Entries in this blog

When you buy a GE appliance, the initial purchase is just the beginning of your long, corporate gang rape

Hi, boys and girls! For today's excursion into Corporate Gang Rape™ excellence, we have a Frigidaire-built washing machine with a GE label slapped on it. Frigidaire parts will work in this machine just fine-- if you happened to know that it was built by Frigidaire in the first place. That's where the Master Appliantologists in the Samurai School come in. In this example, Master Reg shows us the difference in price for two identical motor control boards for this washing machine. The only di

What's Your Sine? How Sine Waves are used on Oscilloscopes to Represent the Real World

Introduction Some people say that a technician is only as good as his test instruments. I strongly disagree! In fact, just the opposite is true: a test instrument is only as good as the technician using it.  You can have the best, most expensive, fanciest test instruments in the world, but if you don’t know how to interpret what that instrument is telling you, what good does it do you?  Some techs are using an oscilloscope in appliance repair. Now, I’m all into cool toys but I don

What's wrong with this picture?

This is a picture from a recent service call I did. That white/translucent plastic tubing you see coming out of the floor and connecting to the gray PEX tubing on the refrigerator is a big No-No. That's a flood waiting to happen. Think about it: that plastic tubing us under household water pressure 24/7-- that's 40 to 60 psi. Combine that with with the fact that it gets hot behind a refrigerator that's pushed back against the wall, especially in summer. Heat... plastic... brittle... cracked or b
Tech Talk

What's the best way to test the defrost circuit in this refrigerator?

Hint: Please don't bore us with any amateur hour "ohm out" answers.  Extra credit: What is the function of the brown wire at pin 5 of the ADC controller?  Double extra-special credit: Enroll at Master Samurai Tech and a get free premium tech membership here at Appliantology.   First person to post the correct BEST answer, I'll hoist a mug of my flavorite brew in your honor. AND if you get the Extra Credit question, too, you'll get an electronic plate of my special cardboard c
Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Samurai Appliance Repair Man in Tech Talk

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What looks different about this cheap Chinese replacement motor for a Kenmore or Whirlpool dryer compared to the OEM replacement motor?

Buying cheap, generic parts is always false economy and ends up costing you way more in the long run, not just dollars but aggravation, time spent here at this forum when you coulda been squeezin' on your lady-love... just sayin'. Don't waste time and money on cheap, imitation replacement parts-- come git you a real, OEM replacement motor with a one year return policy: Part number: AP3094245 Source: Kenmore electric dryer shuts off

What causes SUDs and SD error codes in high-efficiency front-load and top-load washers?

Many important questions have plagued mankind since the dawn of time. Questions such as, "Why am I here?", "Who is God?", and, most importantly, "What causes SUDs and SD error codes in high-efficiency front-load and top-load washers?" Here now to guide us into the truth and understanding of this important epistemological question is Brother Delawaredrew: Source: Suds error sd

What brand of appliance can you buy today that will give 10 to 15 years of trouble-free operation?

Many appliance owners are frustrated today because they don't realize that the days of buying an appliance and having it work trouble-free for 10 to 15 years are long gone. The good news is that you can buy an appliance today for about what you would have paid 15-20 years ago. The bad news is that there's an on-going cost of appliance ownership in doing repairs-- industry average is every 2 to 4 years. What varies among brands and models is how big will that repair need to be, not whether or not
Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Samurai Appliance Repair Man

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What are PTC compressor start relays?

PTC stands for Positive Temperature Coefficient. This refers to the silicon guts inside the relay whose resistance increases as its temperature rises. When the compressor first starts up, the resistance of the PTC stuff is very low and it lets current flow into the start winding of the compressor. As the current flows thru the PTC, it heats it up and also raises its resistance to the point that the start winding is effectively taken out of the circuit, which is what you want to happen as soon as

What about Protection Plans or Extended Warranties for New Appliances? Are they worth buying?

I get asked about new appliance protection plans and extended warranties a lot both during real-life service calls as The Appliance Guru and via emails from this site. So, FWIW, I thought I'd offer my contemplations and musings on the topic. First off, you gotta realize that protection plans and extended warranties are only as good as the people offering or doing the actual service work. Protection plans are basically a form of insurance. Lots of companies want to get in on the protection plan b

Welcome! New here? Take a free tour of the beautiful Appliantology Academy campus!

Join Mrs. Samurai on a five-minute stroll through the beautiful campus of the Appliantology Academy. She'll point out some of the buildings and facilities here on campus to help you get to know your way around... <iframe src="http://www.screenr.com/embed/boys" width="650" height="396" frameborder="0"></iframe> COMING SOON: Stay tuned for Mrs. Samurai's next exciting screencast rock opera where she'll step you thru how to register as a new student in the Academy by clicking the gr
Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Samurai Appliance Repair Man

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Welcome to the New Digs!

It was a long, tough day yesterday being a keyboard warrior, getting the forums converted to from UltraBB to this new forum software, Invision Power Board. Most stuff came through fine though there are plenty of bugzillas scittering about. If you find one, lemme know and I'll squash it. Some known problems: - About 30 to 40 Chief Apprentice Appliantologists (Permapprentices) transferred over as Grasshoppers. If you're one of those, let me know and I'll fix it for you. - The user titles an
Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Samurai Appliance Repair Man

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Webinar Recording: Appliance Service Call Structure and Troubleshooting Strategies

Great turn out for this webinar-- had over 30 people on! That means there are lots of techs who recognize the need for help with these skills. This is good because they can be easily learned by anyone who wants to learn them! This webinar lays out a road map for you to declare your independence from tech lines. Professional Appliantologist members may watch the webinar recording here: Appliance Service Call Structure and Troubleshooting Strategies Master Samurai Tech Academy students m

Webinar Recording for Office Hours, March 6, 2017

We talked about lots of good stuff last night at the Office Hours webinar. I started off with a brief presentation on Neutral and Ground in AC circuits, explaining how they are different and each serves different purposes in AC circuits.  Then we applied what we learned about power supplies in that presentation to decipher some crappy instructions in a service bulletin for a Whirlpool inverter microwave where we had to figure out how to test the digital data input to the inverter.  We

Webinar Recap: May 23, 2016 Web Meeting

Fantastic web meeting last night with many assembled Brethren! This was one of the weekly web meetings that we have every Monday evening for Professional Appliantologists and Mast Samurai Tech Academy students.  Personally, I think it was the best one yet-- lots of interactivity and discussion about all kinds of different appliance repair topics.  It was a especially great because we had the audio under control so other people besides just me were able to talk. Mrs. Samurai even joined in t
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