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One of the first things you need when you start working on an appliance is the model number. Otherwise, unless there's a tech sheet with the machine, there's no way to find technical info on it. But what do you do when the model number tag has been damaged or removed? It's a rare occurrence, but one that can cause a major roadblock in a repair. Here's an example of one such situation:
As you can see, both the model and serial numbers are almost entirely illegible. Fortunately, there's
New technologies are never invented specifically for household appliances. We always get hand-me-downs. But just because a technology was used first in a different field doesn't mean that we're familiar with it already when it reaches appliances.
TMR (tunnel magentoresistance) sensors are one such example. Coming to us from the world of computer electronics, they serve the same purpose as Hall Effect sensors but work completely differently.
A TMR sensor consists of two ferromagnets sep
With the ongoing COVID-19 crisis, things are changing quickly. No matter how long or short the actual pandemic lasts, everything won't just go back to how it used to be, and if we appliance repair techs want to stay in business, we will have to adapt.
What exactly that adaptation looks like remains to be seen, but Team Samurai has been in the business long enough to have some solid ideas about it. Heavy sanitation precautions are something that is already happening and will continue to beco
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
All of us techs are carrying around multimeters these days, and that means we have several different voltage measurement settings available to us at any given time. Usually these are DC voltage, AC voltage, and LoZ (low input impedance). Each of these functions has a specific use, and part of taking a voltage measurement is picking the correct setting for the job.
LoZ is by far the most common voltage function you should be using. In fact, there is almost never a time when you should do an
Here's a timing chart and a schematic. See if you can spot the problem... (HINT: it's in the motor circuit.)
Did you see it? If you did, bravo! Your schematic-reading skills are pretty sharp. If not, don't worry -- I'll step you through it.
Like I said, the error in the schematic is in the motor circuit -- specifically the start winding. Like any good tech, I'm going to do a load analysis on that winding to see what's up.
Line and neutral both have to go through
Here's something you don't see every day: a gas range that is powered only by a 9 volt battery. Pretty nifty, huh? @Littletexan told us about his encounter with this one in this post from a couple weeks ago.
Let's look at some of the unique aspects of this model. We'll start, as always, with the schematic:
Well that's about as simple as it gets! All mechanical controls -- nothing too fancy going on here.
One thing I will point out is that, while the schematic seems to show a
How would you go about troubleshooting the valves?
As always, we should start with a load analysis on your load (or in this case, loads) of interest. That means identifying how each valve gets line and neutral. (The wire marked with a blue N connects directly to neutral).
You should immediately see that something is off. How do the IM and water valves get neutral?
The answer is that someone over at Whirlpool made a whoopsie when drawing this schematic. There should be a line
Most of you have probably heard about loading down before -- when one failed DC component causes a ripple effect that keeps other DC components from functioning properly until the failed component is removed. But what does that actually look like in practice? And how do you go about troubleshooting it?
To answer these questions, let's take a look at a straightforward, real-world example of loading down (taken straight from this topic at Appliantology).
@marshall450 ran into what seemed
In the appliance repair world, we deal with two different kinds of thermistors: NTC (Negative Temperature Coefficient) and PTC (Positive Temperature Coefficient). Don't know what those terms mean? Don't worry, I'll break it down for you.
Despite both being thermistors, the only real similarity between NTCs and PTCs is that the resistance of both changes in response to temperature. Beyond that, they work quite differently and serve very different functions.
Here's what a typical NTC the
Didn't make it to ASTI this year? You missed out on some great technical info!
But don't worry -- we took careful note of all the juicy tech tips being dropped by Samsung, Bosch, and Whirlpool in their technical training and showcased them for your benefit in this latest webinar recording. Give it a watch to get the inside scoop!
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
Just got back last week from ASTI 2020 in (not so sunny) Florida! Aside from helping man the Master Samurai Tech booth at the trade show, I attended as many of the manufacturer training sessions as I could. I figured some of the Appliantology Brethren would like to take a peek at my notes...
The first day and a half, I sat in on Liebherr, Samsung, and Whirlpool training. While these manufacturers all generally focus too much on monkey training (disassembly and other information you can easi
During the second half of my stay at ASTI 2020, I got the chance to get the inside scoop on Bosch dishwashers and many different kinds of Beko appliances. While the Bosch training didn't have much new to say, I got a pretty good look at the nuances of Beko products. They've got some nifty features that I haven't seen elsewhere, but there are some quirks to their design and documentation that could make for difficulties with repairs.
Take a look at my notes and see for yourself! Available to
What do you do when an appliance, despite all appearances of normality, simply refuses to do its job? The Samurai and I were forced to answer this very question today.
The culprit: A KitchenAid KGRS505XWH05 double oven all gas range.
The complaint: The customer told us that neither the top nor the bottom ovens would ignite, but the cooktop worked fine.
The customer's description turned out to be about right (for once). The upper oven broil and lower oven bake ignitors would glow f
Appliantology isn't the only online appliance repair resource out there -- but it's by far the best. What this site has over "free" alternatives, such as Facebook repair groups, are three primary points: Organization, Privacy, and Information Integrity.
Facebook isn't free; the product is YOU and you're "paying" by allowing Facebook algorithms to microanalyze everything you do on the site. Every click, every interaction, every post, even how long you spend looking at things are all permanen
Did you miss our awesome webinar a few weeks ago? With all the computer-controlled dryers out there today, many techs forget that they still need Old Skool circuit troubleshooting skills to solve many dryer problems they'll encounter in the field today. With that in mind, our recent webinar covered four real-world dryer case studies on simple dryer circuits that trip up lots of techs who should know better (and think they do but, in fact, do not).
Some of the topics we covered include:
@fillthebarman ran into an interesting problem the other day: he had a stacked washer and dryer where the washer could only be run when the dryer was running. How is this possible? Brother @sh2sh2 had the answer:
A brilliant piece of insight, and precisely what turned out to be going on here. But how does this happen, exactly? Let's look at the schematics. Here's the washer:
As you can see from the circled bit, the power supply for the washer comes right from the dryer's connec
There are some electrical terms that are often used in vague and incorrect ways by the general public. This can make things confusing for us techs, especially those new to the craft, because these terms have precise meanings when used by those in the trade. A couple of these words are short and ground.
Short is often used by the non-technical to refer to any "bad" circuit. The term "short circuit" is a popular one to throw around in this sense. In reality, a short is just one of multiple di
Sometimes, the hardest part of being a tech is dealing with the customer. Customers always have expectations, some reasonable and some not, and we have to manage these on top of performing our diagnostics and repairs.
A large part of being a real technician is knowing when to trust your own expertise over customer demands. This struggle generally manifests in two ways:
1. The customer has their own diagnosis that they're sure is correct. We've all encountered this before. Something alo
Reliable income is something all techs want to achieve. But to have consistent profits, you have to perform consistently on service calls. While we all might like to think of ourselves as repair cowboys who can head out on every job half-cocked and still get it fixed right, that's just not reality. The way to achieve the most consistency possible on service calls is by using systems.
A system is coherent set of standard operating procedures (SOPs) designed to achieve a specific objective. I
We've all been there: you're looking up the part that you need for the job, and the price tag about knocks you out of your chair. No way that heating element costs that much to produce! Maybe your concern isn't just for yourself -- you're interested in saving the customer some money.
Despite the sometimes exorbitant prices, there are many good reasons to go with the OEM part over a generic one.
OEM parts are generally better quality and make for a more reliable repair. You're going
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
We're so used to our fancy control boards and computer-controlled appliances that we sometimes forget how to troubleshoot old-skool circuits. While these circuits are generally pretty straightforward, the manufacturers employed some clever tricks that can mess with your head if you don't have a firm grasp of simple AC circuits.
Take the buzzer in this dryer as an example:
The Tan or Black side of the buzzer goes straight to neutral through that unlabeled switch beneath the temper
One of the first steps when you're troubleshooting a warm temperature proble in both compartments of a refrigerator should always be to identify whether you're dealing with a problem in the sealed system or with a problem elsewhere in the unit.
The go-to method for most techs is to get eyes on the evaporator coils. While the frost pattern there can tell you a lot of things about the health of the refrigerator, it has a massive drawback: getting to the evaporator can require a lot of non-tri
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