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Appliance Repair Tech Tips

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The Vital First Step to Troubleshooting Any Refrigerator

No matter what refrigerator problem you're called out for, no matter if it's for a warm freezer or a noisy fan or a leaking dispenser, there's one simple step that should you should always do before anything else -- before you or the customer even opens the doors of the machine: Measure the compartment temperatures. Simple, right? So why am I writing a blog post about it? Well, a lot of techs don't see why this is a step that you must always take when troubleshooting a refrigerator. Do

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai

Unravel the Mystery of this Simmer Switch Circuit...

Take a look at the circuit for this electric cooktop element. Notice anything odd about it? Looks pretty straightforward, right? Well, it certainly is straightforward when the simmer switch isn't closed. Here's what the circuit looks like when it's not running on simmer. L1 goes through the simmer select board and a temperature-controlled switch, and L2 goes through the relay board and a couple other switches. Standard stuff for one of these elements. But what's going

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

Troubleshooting a Bosch Dishwasher No Heat Problem Using the Schematic and Live Tests

We techs should always be looking to sharpen our repair skills, and one of the best ways to do that is to learn from each other's experiences. In this excerpt from a longer webinar, the Samurai walks through a Bosch dishwasher no heat problem that he encountered, working through his thought process and schematic analysis step by step. Watch it and learn a thing or two! Want to watch the full webinar recording? Click below -- viewable only by premium members.

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

The Problem Statement: Don't Troubleshoot Without One!

The very first step in troubleshooting a broken appliance happens long before the tech sets foot in the customer's home. In fact, it can happen even before the tech knows about the service call. We're talking about formulating a problem statement. What I mean by a problem statement is very specific. A valid problem statement answers these two questions: "What is the appliance not doing that it should be doing?" and/or "What is the appliance doing that it shouldn't be doing?" It doesn't go b

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

Pop Quiz: What's Wrong with This Defrost Drain?

If you cracked open a freezer and saw the defrost drain looking like this, what would be your immediate reaction? Do you see what the problem is? Take a closer look... Have you figured it out? The deal with this defrost drain is... There is no problem. This is a clear, perfectly normal-looking defrost drain. You can see a little evidence of some water pooling and freezing, but the amount is well within acceptable limits. Based on a visual inspection, there is no issue

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai

What You Need to Know to Repair Internet-Connected Appliances

Internet-connected appliances aren't a niche anymore. They're made by just about every brand out there, from Samsung to Whirlpool and beyond, so if you want to stay in the appliance repair game, you've got to know how they work. Lucky for you, this post is going to break down what you need to know to work on them. The key thing to keep in mind is this: internet-connected appliances are not that much more complicated than normal appliances. As long as you grasp a few fundamental concepts, th

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai

Samurai's Picks: Quickly find the best tech info on Appliantology!

Appliantology is a big place, and there's valuable technical info constantly being posted in the forums and the blogs. But techs are busy folks, and we know that you don't always have the time to read through everything that's going on at the site. That's why I want to direct you to your new favorite page at Appliantology: Samurai's Picks. Accessible at any time from the main menu bar, Samurai's Picks is the go-to place where you can find content from the site that's hand-curated by u

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai

Can You Find the Cause of These Four Inop Loads in a Thermador Refrigerator?

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

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

LG Electric Dryer's FlowSense Explained in One Short Video

When you see a term like "FlowSense" in a service manual, don't immediately assume that you're dealing with some bizarre, new technology. 99% of the time, it's just a fancy brand name that the manufacturer slapped on a bit of simple tech that's been around for decades.  And that's what you're going to see in this video! in it, we show how "FlowSense" is just a fancy name for a single sensing line on the control board that detects the presence or absence of L2. Watch it now to learn exactly

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

How to Know the Limits of What You Can Troubleshoot

There's a goal that any tech worth his salt should have when he heads into a service call: troubleshoot the machine until he has logically and definitively located the problem. Most of the time this goal is achievable, as long as you have the documentation for the appliance you're working on. You can take measurements and compare them with the specifications from the manufacturer until you find what's not within specifications. This is called analytical troubleshooting and is, in fact, the 

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai

Voltage Dividers and how Control Boards Read Thermistor Input

We're all familiar with how thermistors work: their resistance varies with temperature, which in turn varies the voltage drop across them. The control board then reads that voltage drop and determines the sensed temperature based on that. But those with a bit of basic electricity knowledge might scratch their heads a bit if they think about this. Thermistors are almost always drawn on schematics such that they aren't in series with anything else -- it gets its 5 VDC supply and DC ground dir

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

Pop Quiz: Can You Solve this Series Circuit Puzzle?

Think you know your circuits? How about we put that to the test! In this excerpt from one of our many illuminating webinar recordings, the Samurai traces out the circuit for a refrigerator evaporator fan. Interestingly, the neutral side of the fan's power supply goes through both the defrost terminator and the defrost heater. How can this be? Watch this excerpt and ponder the mystery for yourself. When you think you have the answer, click here to view the full webinar and see if you go

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai

When the Tech Sheet Lies...

Tell me what's wrong with this picture: No, your eyes are not playing tricks on you -- that schematic really is showing a split-phase compressor being run by an inverter board. If you're sitting there sputtering and foaming at the mouth in disbelief, thinking, "That can't possibly be correct," then congrats! You had the correct reaction. What this diagram is showing simply can't line up with reality. Split-phase motors are never run using inverter boards -- the very idea is nonse

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai

Educating Customers About Self Clean

Self-clean sounds like a great idea, right? Just push a button and watch your oven burn away all that caked-on grease and charred food.It certainly makes for a good selling point. But is this no-hassle cleaning feature really all it's cracked up to be? And what is the best way for the customer to use it (if at all)? First off: does it actually work? Can the oven clean itself just by getting really hot? Yes, definitely. Self-cleaning isn't just a gimmick, and when used properly, it does actu

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai

How does this Dishwasher Motor with Triacs and Three Windings Work?

Take a look at this motor circuit: Three different windings? Triacs in the circuit? A "sense resistor"? What's going on here? As it turns out, there's nothing really new or different happening here. In fact, all we're looking at is a standard split-phase motor with two different start windings. One is the start winding when the motor functions as a drain pump, and the other is for when the motor functions as a wash pump. Here's what the circuit looks like when the drain wind

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

How to Identify Unfamiliar Parts in Schematics

Take a look at the cooktop schematic below. I don't know about you, but "tranformator" isn't a familiar term to me. it certainly sounds like a transformer, but why would a transformer be necessary in a 240 VAC cooktop element circuit? The best thing to do here is to look up the part numbers for the "transformator" as well as other key components, such as those cooktop switches that the transformator is supplying power to. Then we can use a parts site to look at physical pictures

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai

How Do These LG Range Relays Get Energized?

Take a look at this schematic, paying particular attention to the two circled relays. What the relays actually do is pretty simple -- they switch L2 to the left and right burners on the cooktop. But slightly more perplexing is the question of how the relays close when those burners are turned on. We see the row of four burner switches along the bottom of the schematic above, but how do those switches cause those DLB relays to close? A quick recap on how relays work: a relay is an

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

2 Simple Steps to Make your Appliance Repair Business More Profitable

You're fighting a constant battle in the appliance repair trade to get the most money out of the time you spend. One of the biggest problems you face is unprofitable service calls. Most often these crop up as repairs that are close to the replacement cost. What customer is going to opt for a $300 repair when they can buy a new dryer for $400? Fortunately, there are 2 simple steps you can take to weed out 95% of these kinds of calls. These steps are prediagnosis and flat-rate pricing. P

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai

Learn All the Tricky Pitfalls in Troubleshooting this LG Dryer...

In our latest troubleshooting workshop, we start with a seemingly simple problem -- overly long dry times -- and walk through all the surprising pitfalls that you could be ensnared by. Topics include: Correctly measuring dryer vent airflow Differentiating between real diagnostic tests and fluffy sales features Identifying dummy troubleshooting directions and errors in manuals Learning why you should always use amps rather than ohms for troubleshooting AC loads

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

Testing for a Failed Timer with EEPs and Convenient Voltage Tests

Our scenario today is a dryer that heats intermittently. Blitzing through the Ten-Step Tango, we select the heating element as our LOI. But how do we test the heater's power supply? Do we have to start tearing things apart to do our tests? If you've been around Appliantology long enough or taken our courses over at Master Samurai Tech, then you'll know that the answer is, of course, "no". Instead, we've just got to look at the schematic and pick some clever test points. All

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

The Appliantology Brethren vs. Badly Labelled Samsung Docs...

Brother Scott-afl ran into some unexpected trouble when trying to extend the defrost cycle on a Samsung RF28HFEDBSR/AA refrigerator. In his words: Two puzzling things here: First, why the difference in the error code reporting? It's a minor point, but that E/C difference seems odd. Second, why is the procedure for extending the defrost not working, despite multiple attempts at following the instructions in the manual? Both of these discrepancies boiled down to one thing: po

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai

Troubleshooting Gas Range Burner Spark Ignition Problems

Gas burners are a whole little microcosm within appliances with some interesting technology that we don't see much elsewhere. In this webinar recording, we cover how to troubleshoot various cooktop ignition systems, covering topics such as: DSI systems Single-point ignition Reignition systems Continual sparking after a flame is established Applying the Ten-Step Tango to real-world problems ...and more! Click below to check out this webinar record

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

A Short Video Tutorial on How to Identify Compressor Windings

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

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

Dealing with Bad Heater Specs on an LG Dryer

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

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

A Practical Rundown of Sealed System Diagnostics

In this two-part Master Samurai Tech webinar series, we explore the nuances of sealed system diagnostics. Specifically, we're covering the nitty-gritty of applying our understanding of sealed system thermodynamics to real-world sealed system failures, such as refrigerant leaks, overcharges, and inefficient compressors. Sealed System Diagnostics, Part 1 Sealed System Diagnostics, Part 2 Topics covered in the first part include: Sealed system temperatures and pressure

Son of Samurai

Son of Samurai in Tech Talk

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