Is there a reason to distinguish ground from neutral when it comes to electrical testing? If you need a reference for a voltage measurement, doesn't ground work just as well as neutral?
Not at all! Ground and neutral are supposed to be two separate things in an AC circuit, and so they can't be used interchangeably. In this short webinar excerpt, the Samurai breaks down what the difference is and why you should only ever use neutral in your AC voltage measurements.
The full version of t
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
Every split-phase motor needs a start device, and split-phase compressors are no exception. There are a variety of start devices out there for compressors, and it's vital for your troubleshooting that you understand how they work. In this short excerpt from a longer webinar recording, the Samurai steps through the differences between relays and PTCs, laying the groundwork for differentiating between these devices in the field.
If you want to learn more about the technology used in modern re
Take a look at this LG gas dryer schematic, paying special attention to the circuit with the flame detector.
If you trace it out, it becomes a bit puzzling what that circuit is actually doing. The hi-limit thermostat, the safety thermostat, and the flame detector don’t appear to have any direct effect on the gas valve coils as you would find in other dryers. So what purpose do they serve?
This markup makes it all clear.
Unlike many circuits that use controls li
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
If you are a member of Nationwide Marketing Group (NMG) and you would like to fully unlock the ultimate online appliance repair toolkit that is Appliantology, fill out the form below. Once you've done so, we'll set you up with your premium Appliantology membership at an exclusive 15% discounted rate.
Fill out my Wufoo form!
When you want to measure the voltage across a component, where do you go to do that? Do you just resign yourself to disassembling the machine until you have access to that component?
If you want to troubleshoot like a real tech, you use EEPs -- that's Electrically Equivalent Points. Identifying EEPs requires both being able to skillfully read a schematic and having a solid understanding of how electricity works. By doing this, you eliminate all unnecessary disassembly, increasing the profit
Have you ever been robbed of a quick troubleshoot by ghost voltage? How about by an open neutral? Sounds like you need to start using a loading meter for ALL of your AC voltage measurements. Watch the video below to learn why, and find out some things you didn't know about circuits and electrical measurements along the way.
Want to see the full troubleshoot of this dryer, showcasing multiple ingenious voltage test locations that ensure for a fast and accurate diagnosis? Click here to watch
For those of us techs based in the States, it can be easy to think that electricity just "happens to exist" as our familiar 120/240 volt split-phase power. But that's only one of many forms that electrical power can take. It can come in a variety of voltages and phases, all depending on what standard a particular country or region decided upon.
Let's step through the most common of these. There are two that North American techs are likely to encounter: the typical 120/240 volt split-phase t
See if you can identify two things on this Samsung dishwasher schematic:
1. Where does the control board receive line and neutral?
2. Where do the sub-control boards get their DC power supply?
The answer to the first question can be found easily enough, if you have a little schematic reading experience. But it's a bit trickier for those who don't have as much practice.
For one thing, line and neutral aren't explicitly labeled. Just wire colors are given, but fortunately
The technical side of the service call is generally what gets the spotlight, but what you do before, after, and during the call is just as important to your profitability -- and I'm not just talking about soft skills. The way you organize your thought process and go about your troubleshoot is vital to service call success. And that's exactly what we talk about in this short excerpt from one of our many technical training webinar recordings.
Topics covered include:
How to run a servi
Ever looked at a timing chart and been mystified by how to decipher it? Or maybe you're looking at the schematic, and you can't make heads or tails of which switch is supposed to be closed when during a cycle.
If timer charts have ever given you trouble, then this is the video for you. In less than 10 minutes, we'll show you how to read a timer chart, correlating it with the actual steps of the cycle, and then identifying how it relates to the state of the switches on the schematic. Give it
Picture it.
You're walking into the service call of a long day, but you're feeling good. You've got your tools in hand, you've done all the prediagnosis; you're gonna kill it. The customer lets you in, and while chatting affably he begins leading you to the appliance.
You can't place why, but a dark cloud of foreboding passes over you. You push it aside, but the feeling only grows. He's leading you downstairs now, into the basement. It's dingy down here -- clutter everywhere.
No,
Everything runs on circuit boards these days, and wherever there are circuit boards, there are semiconductors. But what are semiconductors, exactly? How are they made, and what do they do?
These are exactly the questions we'll answer for you right now in this excerpt from one of our many on-demand technical training webinar recordings. In it, you'll learn the answer to questions like:
What are semiconductors?
What are they made of?
What is "doping" in semiconductors?
When you need to test a component, do you always need to just resign yourself to tearing apart the appliance until you reach it? Or is that a waste of time and energy (not to mention unnecessary liability), when you could be working smarter, not harder?
Let's say you're working on a Samsung dryer, and you want to measure the thermistor. You know the ohm spec (unfortunately they don't give you voltage drop), so all you need to do is get your meter probes on it so that you can compare. Is you
Vent hoods are pretty simple appliances -- something you've probably surmised if you've ever looked at the schematic for one. Usually, all they have going on is a blower motor and a couple of lights. When it comes to troubleshooting a hood, there are just two technology-related concepts you need to be familiar with: venting specifications and how multi-speed motors work.
First, venting specs. As with any machine that produces exhaust as part of its operation, vent hoods have certain require
In this short, informative video, the Samurai walks through the steps of the patented Timer Chart Cha-Cha -- a system for reading and applying timer charts to schematics so that you can make sense of what's going on in the circuit. In just 2 minutes, you'll learn the steps of the Cha-Cha which empower you to troubleshoot timer-controlled circuits with ease.
Want to see the Timer Chart Cha-Cha in action and watch how it improves the troubleshooting process? Click here to watch the full webin
Information has always been the name of the game for appliance repair techs. Our jobs are all about locating and making extrapolations upon information such as specifications and measurements. If we can't access at least a baseline level of information for a particular job (at the very least the schematic), then it's almost impossible for us to do our job.
The meteoric rise of mobile technology and the Internet over the past few decades has hugely expanded how much information we can access
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
Jazz boards are a classic common-fail item in Whirlpool refrigerators, so important to know the right way to go about troubleshooting them. The good news is that they operate on the same principles that all control boards do, so if you know your basic electricity and troubleshooting principles, making big money off of these is a snap.
This is exactly the kind of stuff we teach in our Core Appliance Repair Training Course over at the Master Samurai Tech Academy. If you want a taste of that g
We've all changed countless ignitors in gas ovens, and any tech worth his salt knows that the definitive way to detect a failed ignitor is with a current measurement. But why does low current through the ignitor cause ignition to fail? Where does that current spec come from?
In this short excerpt from one of our many technical webinars, the Samurai explains the mechanism behind how these gas valves work. Not only will it give you a clear idea of the technology behind these common parts, but
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
You open up the terminal block on a Bosch range, and you see this. What's wrong with this picture? (Hint: those of you who have watched this webinar recording should know what's up).
A few questions for you sharp Appliantology techs:
Will the machine run in this configuration?
Why is it not okay to leave the machine in this configuration?
Does this machine have a 3 or 4 wire power cord?
How would you correct this situation?
Let me know your answers
Here's the situation: our tech has a Whirlpool dishwasher that does everything normally, except the wash motor simply won't run.
He's done his due diligence and checked for voltage to the motor -- with a LoZ meter, even! -- and what he's finding is puzzling. It looks like the voltage is jumping around from 0 to 120 VAC erratically. What does this mean? Could it be a bad board?
As with all good troubleshoots, let's start with the schematic. Here's just the motor circuit:
Now,
Ever wondered what the inside of a gas dryer valve looks like? And what's the purpose of having two separate valves in one component? What about those mysterious "safety" and "booster" coils?
All of these questions are answered in this short excerpt from one of our many in-depth technical training webinar recordings. Give it a watch and, if you want to see more, click here to watch the full recording. This and dozens hours more of technical education are available only to our premium member
By Samurai Appliance Repair Man in Samurai Appliance Repair Man's Blog1 comment
6 comments