Sometimes, manufacturers don't write out schematics as clearly as they should. In cases like this Frigidaire cooktop, the way that the relays for the simmer function are drawn is downright obtuse.
In our latest workshop webinar, we broke down the function of this circuit and really understand how it works, bringing our electrical and technical know-how to bear to make logical deductions about the circuit.
Did you miss the original webinar and want to watch this webinar recording? Click
Imagine you're in this situation: you're trying to do some ohms testing on the heater of an LG electric dryer. You're reading 21 ohms across a single coil, and 42 ohms through both coils. But when you look at the spec on the schematic, you're seeing almost exactly half that:
Weird. Maybe the heater is out of spec, but that's a weird discrepancy. And it's bizarre that we're reading double the specs given.
Can we get a second opinion? You look elsewhere in the manual, and you find
We had a great webinar this past Sunday all about troubleshooting a Thermador wall oven with a cooling fan that wouldn't run. Lots of vital tech know-how covered in this one, like how to structure your troubleshooting flow, identify loads and switches on schematics, and perform useful and meaningful tests that will lead you to the correct solution.
In this short excerpt from the recording of that webinar, we talk about using the schematic to identify EEPs for your testing -- no unnecessary
When it comes to troubleshooting BLDC motors and inverters, there's usually a standard strategy. You check the input to the inverter (a good 120 VAC power supply and a PWM signal from the main control) and you make sure the motor windings are in spec and all the same resistance. But what about measuring the output of the inverter?
This is certainly possible to do, and it can be a useful measurement, especially in hairier inverter troubleshooting scenarios. But before we get into that, let's
Want to really put your technical know-how to the test? Well, have we got the webinar for you!
This one covers a whole potpourri of circuit puzzles and troubleshooting scenarios, including:
Some pop quizzes about series and parallel circuits
Diodes, how they work, and the surprisingly tricky situations that can arise because of them
Loads in series, how they work, and what they look like in a real refrigerator schematic
A real world troubleshooting scenario invo
Got a fun one for you today, pulled right from the annals of Appliantology. That's right -- a tech just like you encountered this whacky problem and figured it out.
Here's the weird scenario: several different loads aren't working on this Whirlpool-built Thermador refrigerator. The water and ice dispensers, the dispenser light, and the freezer light are all inop. Wow, four different loads all happened to fail at the same time! Crazy, right?
A lesser tech might have gone full PCM and st
Let's say you're on a call for a Whirlpool GI6FARXXY07 refrigerator. You notice that the evaporator fan isn't running, even when the unit isn't in defrost. "Simple enough," you think, and you disconnect the fan harness and check its resistance.
Wow -- 500 K-ohms! No way that's in spec. Gotta be a bad fan motor, right?
Before we get too hasty, let's step back for a moment and do what we should have done at the start -- look at the schematic. When we do that, we can pretty easily locate
Here's the problem scenario:
The customer's refrigerator has stopped running. You take a look at the start device, and it's completely burnt out -- enough so that you can see that the plastic housing has melted. You swap it out for a new start device and...
Still nothing. In fact, a quick voltage measurement shows that the control board isn't sending voltage to the compressor. Now the board needs to be replaced, too.
So what happened here? Did the start device just short out and t
Here's your scenario: you're working on a Whirlpool CAM2742TQ2 Washer, and you've determined that the auto temp control (ATC) has failed such that it won't energize the water valves and allow the machine to fill. You intend to replace the ATC, but it's on backorder. Is there any clever trick you can think of that will at least get the customer going temporarily while they wait?
Time to crack out the schematic.
It looks like there's a lot going on here, what with all those alphabe
BLDC motors aren't new technology in appliances anymore -- in fact, they've become the norm. As such, it's important to be aware of the different configurations you'll see these motors in across appliances. These configurations fall into three categories: 2-wire, 3-wire, and 4-wire.
An important thing to note before we continue: all BLDC motors in appliances are run by inverters. The inverter may be a separate board, like you'll see in washers with BLDC motors, or it may be built into the m
Bimetals show up all over the appliance world in all kinds of applications. Resistive Temperature Devices (RTDs) are widely used in ovens and ranges and are commonly called "oven temperature sensors." Both are devices that respond to temperature, but beyond that, they work completely differently and serve different purposes. Watch this short excerpt from one of our many technical education webinar recordings to learn all about these devices!
The full webinar covers all the common
A lot of techs lose their heads when it comes to control boards. This leads to the classic PCM behavior of "throw a part at it and hope it works." But isn't there a better way of troubleshooting computer-controlled appliances?
Of course there is. With a concrete and logical troubleshooting plan like the Ten-Step Tango, you can troubleshoot any appliance with a control board with confidence. In fact, in many ways, a control board being present makes it easier to do your troubleshooting.
When you're working on an appliance that's DOA (no lights, no response from the UI), your first troubleshooting priority is to identify where the power supply is missing.
Is it just the UI that's not getting power? Or is the main control board not getting power? Is there even power at the outlet it's plugged into?
These are the questions you need to answer before anything else, and you're going to answer these questions by taking measurements with your meter. However, there are right a
I just got back from this year's ASTI a few days ago -- a somewhat unique one, styled as "ASTI Lite". While the conference was shorter than usual, I still had a great time meeting many of the fine techs who hang out here at Appliantology and/or train with us at Master Samurai Tech. Looking forward to seeing all of you again at the next ASTI this January!
When I wasn't putting faces to Appliantology usernames, I was attending the training classes put on by various manufacturers. Ever mindful
Thermistors are everywhere in appliances these days, and they're a relatively common-fail item, so wouldn't it be nice to stock a supply of them in your service vehicle to be used on any occasion?
Well, in order to determine how feasible that is, we need to answer a question: are all thermistors interchangeable?
The short answer is no. The long answer is that thermistors are not interchangeable brand-to-brand, but they can be interchangeable within the same brand, depending on the manu
One of the best things we can do to sharpen our skills as techs is to learn from other techs' experiences. There are a number of ways to do that, but the way that's both most convenient and lets you learn from the greatest variety of techs is searching the tech help forums here at Appliantology.
Appliantology has been on the web for 20 years now, and over that time the site has amassed a library of technical knowledge that is unmatched anywhere else. As a member of Appliantology, all of th
Many techs are intimidated when they first look at a schematic -- but you don't have to be! You can make sense of any schematic, even one with multiple control boards, by following some simple troubleshooting principles. And that's what we're going to show you in this short clip from one of our many technical training webinar recordings.
In it, we'll use a real-world tech sheet to demonstrate some of these principles, such as:
Identifying the control boards
Identifying the b
Come on a journey with me as we explore just how tangled your circuit analyses can get when you're confronted with conflicting information in a tech sheet.
Here's the Samsung washer schematic we're working with:
Nothing crazy here -- this is pretty standard stuff to see on a Samsung schematic. But when it gets weird is when you try to trace out the power supplies of various loads and board on the schematic with the help of the pinouts elsewhere in the same tech sheet.
Here's
We’ve all been hearing about R600a refrigerant for years now, and the reality is that it’s no longer an innovation in the area of household refrigeration; it’s the new standard.
With the majority of new refrigerators now being R600a models, repair companies need to be ready to perform sealed system repairs on them. This raises a few questions for these companies: how is R600a different from R134a, and what do I need to service R600a refrigerators?
R600a (let's just call it R600 from he
Knowing how to properly use a schematic for your troubleshooting is key to saving money and time. In this short presentation, the Samurai shows performing circuit analysis to identify the most useful, but also the most convenient tests to quickly zero in on the problem. Topics covered include:
- reading schematic diagrams
- strategic selection of your reference voltage
- doing live testing (appliance plugged in and running) vs. Ohms testing
- using a loading meter to test AC line vol
Electricity and circuits are at the core of what we do as techs. You've got to have a solid understanding of these in order to do any meaningful troubleshooting. So that's exactly what we cover in this excerpt from one of our many technical training webinar recordings. Give it a watch and build yourself a solid foundation!
This video is an excerpt from a longer Master Samurai Tech webinar and is free for anyone to watch. In the full webinar, we covered topics such as:
Neut
While we don't like to rely on ohms testing as appliance technicians, those tests have their place -- such as if you want to verify that a compressor's windings are in spec. But if you want to do an ohms test on a split-phase compressor's windings, you'll need to identify which of the three terminals on the compressor's casing corresponds to which winding.
To do so, you have to have a little bit of knowledge about how split-phase compressor windings are arranged, and what their specificatio
In our latest workshop webinar, we cultivated the much-desired skill of troubleshooting appliances with multiple control boards. Topics included:
Using the schematic to form your troubleshooting strategy
Identifying inputs and outputs
Making meaningful measurements and understanding what their results mean
...and much more!
Want to learn this stuff for yourself? The full webinar recording is available right now to premium tech members of Appliantology. Click b
Some circuits have a bit more going on than they seem at first glance, and this Whirlpool washer has one such circuit. Watch the excerpt below to learn how to unravel this tangled mess of lines and apply it to your troubleshooting.
Want to watch the full webinar recording where we go through the entire schematic analysis, covering tracing everything out and covering topics like triacs, shunts, and series loads? Click below -- viewable only by premium members.
As control boards, and especially multiple-board configurations, become more and more prevalent in appliances today, we need to keep our troubleshooting skills sharp and adapt. So what troubleshooting strategies should you apply when you're dealing with a computer board?
The good news is that you don't need to be a computer geek to work with boards. You just need a troubleshooting strategy for dealing with them, and you need to understand how they operate on a basic level. That's what the S
