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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.

Say you're working on the cooktop of a Frigidaire gas range, and after chasing some wires, you find that this component is in the circuit, right after the power comes in from the outlet, that label calls a "signal transformer", but what is the point of this device, exactly?

We techs rely on accurate technical documentation to do our jobs. You can't make a troubleshooting plan or make meaningful electrical measurements without a good schematic. But what do you do when your technical info contradicts itself?

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.

We've got a toughie for you to figure out today. The tech in this scenario has been out on this dryer multiple times now, and the problem just won't go away. The heating element keeps going open, and the timer motor keeps stalling and not completing cycles. He's verified a good 240 VAC power supply to the timer and replaced both parts multiple times, but the problem keeps recurring every few months. What gives?

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?

In this excerpt from one of the many technical training webinar recordings available to our members, we cover two tricky areas that have tripped up many a tech: deciphering an unclear schematic, and decoding a convoluted customer problem description. Both of these are essential skills for any tech, since if you mess up either of these steps, the entire rest of your troubleshooting will be thrown out of whack.

We've got an interesting one for you today: the ice dispenser auger motor in this fridge. There are a couple interesting things to figure out about it. First, what's the deal with its power supply? If you look at the label on the motor, you'll notice that it says 120 VDC.

We've got a tricky one for you today: a Frigidaire-built Kenmore electric dryer that only runs on heat cycles. If you set it to a timed or auto dry, it runs just fine. But set it to air fluff, and you get nada -- no motor rotation, no nothin'. Sounds like a bad timer, right? That was our first thought, too. But like any good tech should, we covered all of our bases before jumping to conclusions, and what we found was much more interesting...

What exactly is this the function of a monitor switch in a microwave oven and how does it work in the circuit?

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?

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?

How can you bypass the flakey and troublesome auto temp control in Whirlpool washers?

Download Service Manuals and Tech Sheets at Appliantology.org

Take a look at this LG gas dryer schematic, paying special attention to the circuit with the flame detector.

Here's everything you need to know about thermal controls in dryers and the underlying technologies behind them.

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?

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!

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!

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?

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.

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.

Here's our scenario: you're working on a Samsung WA50K8600AW washer that won't advance in the cycle. Error codes and test modes aren't telling you anything useful, and the control doesn't even seem to be trying to advance the cycle. You've checked the air tube connected to the pressure sensor, too, and everything is clear there.

What can you do here? Do you just call it a bad board and move on?

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?

You're troubleshooting a Samsung dryer that won't start-- the control panel will let you select a cycle, but it won't actually run if you press the start button. But the real head-scratcher is that, despite not being able to start a cycle, the machine always runs when the door is closed.