A tech is troubleshooting the power supply for a Maytag dishwasher control board, and he finds some interesting readings. Using a LoZ meter, he reports finding 120 volts at the outlet and at the control board. But strangely, he also has 48 volts on neutral. What gives?
In our latest webinar, we unpacked all the electrical know-how and troubleshooting mojo that goes into properly diagnosing a problem like this. To figure out what went wrong in this troubleshoot, you have to answer the follow
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
Merry Christmas from Team Samurai! Here's wishing you a joyous and peaceful holiday with all of your friends and family. And after that, lots and lots of kicking appliance bootay in the new year.
Need help with your very, very last minute gift shopping? This might help you out. (Weren't appliance ads just the best back in the day?)
There's a very common configuration of valves that are used in refrigerators with ice makers and dispensers -- so common that every tech should be very familiar with how it works and what terms are used to refer to it. You can't troubleshoot what you don't understand!
We'll use a GE refrigerator as our example, but this same system is used across almost all refrigerators with water supplies. Here's a snippet from a GE manual:
All this is saying is that you have three valves in th
How do you use a schematic to analyze a circuit, and how do you then apply that knowledge to a real-world troubleshoot?
That's the question we answer in this Schematic Workshop webinar! We start off by working through the most interesting parts of this dryer circuit, and then we move on to several more schematic exercises. You can watch an excerpt of the full webinar below:
Want to see the rest of the troubleshoot? Click below to watch the full recording and step up your trou
We talk a lot here at Appliantology about always consulting the schematic as the first step of your troubleshooting. But how exactly do you do that?
That's where the Troubleshooting Ten Step Tango comes in! Watch the clip below where the Samurai demonstrates how to use this reliable, universally applicable troubleshooting framework to troubleshoot a real-world refrigerator scenario.
Want to watch the full webinar recording and learn how to use the schematic and the Ten Step T
We covered not one, but two different workshop topics in our last webinar, and I now present to you the second one!
In this workshop about a dishwasher with a starting-and-stopping motor, we covered topics like:
How to nail this problem using a single test
Analyzing the wash motor circuit to understand how it works
Identifying how the board senses circuit current
...and more!
Click below to watch the full recording -- available only to premium tech member
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
In this recording from a recent live technical training webinar, we walked through the whole thought flow for troubleshooting this Samsung dryer that always runs when the door is closed. There's no guesswork or monkey-jabbing here -- strictly analytical and accurate diagnostic techniques that bring us ever closer to the solution.
Here's a short excerpt to show you what we're on about:
Want to troubleshoot like a real tech? Click the video below to see how. Viewable only by pr
You don't have to be a physicist or a mathematician to troubleshoot properly, but you can't get around the fact that math is the only way to really understand electricity. Sine waves are one such mathematical representation used for both voltage and current. But how does this representation work, exactly, and how does it help us wrap our head around voltage, current, and power?
That's what we'll break down for you in this excerpt from one of our many full-length technical webinar recordings
It should always be our goal to get our diagnosis with as little disassembly as possible using our schematic-reading know-how, but did you know that you can sometimes track down the problem without any disassembly at all?
That's just what the Samurai did for this Thermador gas range. Want to learn how he pulled off this magic trick? Watch the video below.
Want to watch the full recording? Click below -- viewable only by premium members.
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.
There are a lot of funky things going on on this Electrolux dishwasher schematic -- including normal-looking switches that are labelled "transistor switches". What does this label mean, exactly, and how does it affect our troubleshooting? That's what the Samurai breaks down in this short clip from a longer technical webinar recording.
Want to watch the full webinar? Click below to watch -- available only to premium members.
This past Sunday, we gave a webinar covering everything you need to know about thermal controls in dryers and the underlying technologies behind them. The full recording dives into all the details of identifying, understanding, and troubleshooting these ubiquitous devices.
In this short clip, we'll introduce you to the three technologies and show how different manufacturers give them various (and sometimes confusing) names.
Want to watch the full webinar recording? Click belo
In this clip from a longer webinar, we give you the long and short of how NTC thermistors work and how to troubleshoot them. Don't know what NTC means? Don't worry -- that's covered in this video, too!
Want to watch the full webinar, which goes through using the Samurai's Troubleshooting Ten-Step Tango to nail refrigerator problems every time? Click below -- viewable only by premium members.
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
Reading schematics is an essential part of troubleshooting, but it's not always clear how to break down a circuit into understandable bits. Is there an easy rule of thumb for identifying what component does what and how to go about testing it?
In this excerpt from one of our many full-length technical training webinar recordings, you'll learn exactly that! In addition, we'll show you how to break down a seemingly tangled schematic and identify loads in series vs. loads in parallel -- all in
We encounter diodes in a variety of situations, such as in certain refrigerator water valve configurations. If you want to be able to properly troubleshoot these setups, you need to understand the underlying technology of diodes. How doe they affect the circuit around them? And how do you test them?
These are the questions that we answer for you in this short video introduction to diodes. In just 6 minutes, you'll learn about how they work and how to properly test them. Plus, you'll learn a
If a dryer's motor isn't running, and you hear a strange humming noise coming from the start switch, what does that mean for the switch? And if you want to test that switch, what's the best way to do that?
These are questions that we answer right here in this short excerpt from one of our many in-depth technical training webinar recordings. Give it a watch and learn the answers for yourself...
Want to watch the full webinar recording? Click below -- viewable only by premium m
More and more folks are doing online training webinars these days -- so many, in fact, that it can be impossible to keep up with them all. Recently, Samsung and MSA both put out training webinars on Samsung dishwasher technology and troubleshooting, and I figured I would share the love with the Appliantology Brethren.
In the links below, you'll find my notes and screenshots from both webinars. Topics include:
Troubleshooting the OC/OE error
Identifying common sources of leaks
What do you do when you need to grow your team of appliance techs in order to meet the demand for service calls, but you can't find any job candidates with experience? This is the reality for thousands of companies across the country, since very few quality techs with experience are on the job market. You're in luck: with the training options available today, you can build a tech! Hire based on character and aptitude, then add training and some experience, and you'll have an independent applianc
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
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
We drop a lot of pearls of wisdom in our live technical training webinars, and I wanted to make one particular pearl available to all. In this short excerpt from one of our many webinar recordings, we cover what you need to know about electricity and voltage in order to make a meaningful and useful voltage measurement -- all in the context of a real troubleshooting scenario.
Topics covered include:
What is voltage?
How do you choose a voltage reference?
What is LoZ?
We've got dozens of hours of webinar recordings here at Appliantology covering all kinds of appliance repair troubleshooting strategies and technologies, ranging from the very advanced to the fundamental. This short excerpt from one of our many recordings covers the basic, but crucial concepts you must understand to troubleshoot an appliance with a control board -- even on seemingly "weird" brands like Samsung --including:
How to read and troubleshoot with board pinouts
How do DC
By Rhubarb Tau in Rhubarb Tau's Sloggy Vlog Blog Bog3 comments
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