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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

Dishwasher Filmology: Handling Hard Water and Mineral Buildup Problems in Today's Wimpy Dishwashers

Intro The dishwashers being made today ain’t like yo mamma’s dishwasher. Dishwashers made as recently as 1997 used big honkin’ motors that practically sandblasted your dishes clean and then reversed direction to pump the water out. They used a lot more energy and water than the delicate little dainties being made today. They also lasted much longer and weren’t as prone to having problems with mineral buildup inside of ‘em… but don’t get me started on that rant. Prodded along by the Beltway Bandi

Troubleshooting and Repairing a Bosch Gas Range Surface Burner

No schematics on this one! I know that'll be a relief for some of you. Honestly, it was a nice break for me, too. I love these easy jobs where you can troubleshoot using only your eyeballs and fix it with something as simple as a paper clip.  In this short little video, I show you how to troubleshoot a problem with a surface burner on Bosch gas range. The burner was not lighting correctly and would sometimes flare up.  All gas range surface burners operate using the same principles so
Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Samurai Appliance Repair Man

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Naked Before Millions

Hoo-wee! We just passed One Million views on my YouTube channel! With over 140 videos (and counting) of my gnarly, naked knuckles whuppin' up on a bunch of appliances, you're sure to find some inspiration for your own appliance battles. Subscribe to my YouTube channel and observe, first-hand, my patented appliance repair battle techniques.
Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Samurai Appliance Repair Man

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New Personal Hygiene Appliance for Future Appliance Repairs

You old timers remember back in the day when we used to get service calls on scrotum scrubbers? Yeah, I was really glad when people stopped using those. Well, just when you thought the bad old days were gone for good, get ready, guys, because there's a new, even more disgusting personal hygiene appliance coming to the market that we'll be getting calls on: the butt wiper. Coming to a neighborhood near you:   
Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Samurai Appliance Repair Man

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Helpful Tips and Tricks for Troubleshooting Samsung Refrigerators

Troubleshooting Samsung refrigerators can be a head-fake for Appliantologists who aren't used to some of their special quirks. If you know just a few tips, it can really facilitate your troubleshooting and even keep you from faking yourself out or running down rabbit holes. Brother Durham has put together a short list of some very helpful tips and tricks to keep tucked into one of those cerebral creases when you're tracking down a problem in a Samsung refrigerator. Let us attend: Buy parts for y

Master Samurai Tech Radio Episode 21 – Battle of the Titans: Samsung, Whirlpool, Kenmore, Amazon

Industry News: Employment numbers for the appliance repair industry Whirlpool lawsuit against Samsung because Samsung is kicking Whirlpool's corporate *ss on front load washers Samsung opening a new, state-of-the-art $380 million manufacturing facility in South Carolina Kenmore appliances on Amazon Appliantology monthly workshops Refrigerator sealed system repairs: what you really need to know Top Kendo Master at Appliantology each mo

The Willie Method ™ for testing a microwave oven magnetron tube

Sometimes, when you're troubleshooting a microwave, it can be tricky to tell whether or not the magnetron tube is bad. In the case with many GE microwaves, the magnetron can test good according to the filament resistance specifications yet fail when you're actually trying to get the damn thing to heat up your bagel. One of the outstanding Master Appliantologists at Appliantology.org, Budget Appliance Repair (a.k.a., Willie) offered the following procedure for assessing the operational state of t
Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Samurai Appliance Repair Man

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Podcast

Master Samurai Tech Radio, Episode 29: Appliance Repair Triage Tools or Dummy Directions?

Triage tools for appliance repair service calls are all the rage today. Whether based on a frequent parts replacement database or more sophisticated database queries and constructs using AI, there's lots of talk about these products.  Team Samurai weighs in on this topic to discuss the proper and improper use of these tools. In the hands of a skilled tech, they can be a time saver. But triage tools cannot make a skilled tech out of PCMs. Lots of nuances to this topic so listen in.
Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Samurai Appliance Repair Man in Podcast

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Master Samurai Tech Radio Episode 23 - ASTI 2018 Wrap up and More!

In this epic episode: - Wrap up of the 2018 Annual Service Training Institute (ASTI) held in St. Petersburg, FL - Technical and business training at the ASTI - Travel tips to avoid getting sick - Fun facts to know and tell about how social media manipulates you and gives you brain damage   You can subscribe to the podcast and just listen to the audio portion here.

Samurai Appliance Tech Boot Camp Sample Course

We're still pecking away like little Woody Woodpeckers writing unit lessons, making screencasts, creating quizzes, working from sun up to moon rise to get Part 1 of the Samurai Appliance Tech Boot Camp ready to unleash on an unsuspecting and woefully unprepared world by April 13. Yep, that's our deadline so picked because it's right before Holy Week. Seemed like a good place for a deadline. Meanwhile, as promised in my last post, I've prepared a little morsel of the course which you are invi

A Day in the Life: A Tale of Two Refrigerator Service Calls

In this first video, we troubleshoot a warm beer compartment (fresh food) in a Frigidaire Gallery french door bottom mount refrigerator. The video illustrates the importance of following a cardinal rule of troubleshooting: Fix the obvious problem first.  In this case, the customer simply reported that the FF compartment was warm but the freezer compartment was good. We verified these temperatures upon arrival. But then the customer points out that the lights in the FF compartment were stuck

Boot Camp Booty: Using the Schematic Diagram to Troubleshoot a Whirlpool Front-Load Washer that Won’t Run

In this exciting episode, the Samurai shows you how to use the tech sheet schematic to troubleshoot a newer Whirlpool front load washer (one of the new Alpha2 platform washers) that acts like it wants to start but won’t. Watch with shock and awe as I ruthlessly hunt down the miscreant part and guide you through the troubleshooting process both on the machine itself and on the schematic diagram, demonstrating killa troubleshooting techniques that every tech should know. Come with me now on a jour

Outage Fever

Been having brief but increasing frequent bouts of outages. This is especially annoying because I'm paying for premium hosting for this forum for the specific purpose of ensuring reliable uptime. Oh, the bitter disappointment! I'll keep limping along and complaining about this to Invision Power Board... for a while. If it keeps up, I'll just give up and revert back to the old forum. I think it was Sublime Master BrntToast who prophetically cautioned about this move, "If it ain't broke, d
Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Samurai Appliance Repair Man

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Home Improvements

The move-in process continues. I spent most of the evening getting emoticons uploaded and activated. Now when you post, you'll see taksan more emotes to chose from. Still have a few faves that didn't make it but they're coming. Didn't think it'd be that much of a PITA to get emotes done. I love Invision Power Board software but emote management is the one area I've found that could use some sprucing up. Currently working on getting the Gallery and Downloads sections set up. These can be

Locating a leak source in a Whirlpool direct-drive washer

This customer called in saying his washer was leaking but it was from somewhere up top. He had even put the washer on blocks and knew for sure that the leak was not from the bottom. This service call is a great illustration of the Golden Rule of Appliance Repair: Never, ever trust customer diagnostics. This customer has a PhD in mechanical engineering. If you were ever going to trust customer diagnostics, this may have been one of those times. Watch as I show the customer that the leak originate

GE Refrigerator Appliantology: Fans, Evaporator and Condenser

This is the first in a series of posts I’m going to do about the technology used in GE refrigerators. Understanding the basics of how these refrigerators work will give you a lot of troubleshooting insight when you’re trying to track down a problem. This post explains how the fans in GE refrigerators are controlled and operated. Like most other refrigerators, GE refrigerators have at least two fans: - the evaporator (freezer) fan - the condenser fan (the hot coil in the back, underneath the refr
Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Samurai Appliance Repair Man

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[video] No oven heat on a DUAL FUEL range

Watch as I demonstrate some basic troubleshooting katas applicable to all appliances, regardless of brand or type.   Wondering what the fault on L2 was? Here's the big reveal: we actually induced the failure ourselves on our test range in the Samurai Studio (in our secret lair hidden deep in a volcano) so we could show you this basic troubleshooting kata. Our videos are not showing pattern recognition ("if this symptom replace this part"), product training, or parts chan

Dragonfly Theatre on Mt. Ascutney

Check out the dragonflies swarming at Gus's Lookout on Mt. Ascutney as they snatch mosquitoes mercilessly from the sky keeping the trails safe for hikers.   <iframe src="http://player.vimeo.com/video/46163053" width="640" height="360" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>

Using Temperature Data Loggers to Solve Mysterious Refrigerator Temperature Problems

<p>As professional Appliantologists, we've all run into situations where we realized that we needed a way to log temperature data inside a refrigerator for at least 24 hours to get a clear picture of what's going on inside that box.  A couple of examples are:</p> <blockquote>Customer complains of warm temperatures in the beer compartment of her Maytag side-by-side refrigerator but says that the freezer compartment is fine (and we know how accurate customer temperature measureme

Winter Wonderland Hike up the Ammonusuc Trail

Celebrated the Second Day of Christmas with an awesome winter wonderland hike up the Ammonusuc Trail to the AMC Lakes of the Clouds hut. Didn't take the Oz Man this time because I didn't think this trail and conditions would be dog-friendly. Turned out to be the right choice-- would have had to abort mission if the Oz Man was with me, no way he could've made this. Trail conditions were snow on top of ice-- combined with the steep grades, this is one of the most difficult traction conditions y
Samurai Appliance Repair Man

Samurai Appliance Repair Man

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