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Refrigeration can seem a bit like magic -- how does a little bit of refrigerant being pushed around in some metal tubes somehow chill a freezer down to 0 degrees F? Well, it's not magic -- it's just physics.

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 how?

Ever wondered how L1 and L2 in a 240 VAC circuit have a voltage difference of 240 VAC? Or what people mean when they say that L1 and L2 are 180 degrees out of phase? And what exactly do we mean when we say "voltage difference" anyway?

We get asked this frequently by people who are new to the trade and considering enrolling in the online appliance repair training at the Master Samurai Tech Academy.

Take a look at this motor circuit: Three different windings? Triacs in the circuit? A "sense resistor"? What's going on here?

Ever wanted an in-depth explanation of how a split-phase motor gets going from a dead stop? Sure, most of us have a passing knowledge of what's going on. But do you really know what's happening on the electromagnetic level? What is this special "split-phase", anyway, and how do we quantify the way the magnetic fields interact?

You're investigating a refrigerator that's not cooling properly, and you see the following bits of evidence:

Specs are essential for troubleshooting. After all, to test a hypothesis, you need to make electrical tests, and to make electrical tests, you need to know what your expected readings are. However, manufacturers don't always give you everything written out. What do you do if you need to make an amp measurement, but the manufacturer only gives you watts? That's exactly the question we're going to answer in this excerpt from one of our many in-depth technical webinar recordings.

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?

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

Download Service Manuals and Tech Sheets at Appliantology.org

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?