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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?

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?

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.

Sometimes, the schematics that manufacturers give us aren't as clear as we would like them to be. Take this refrigerator, for example...

We run into water inlet solenoid valves in many different situations -- washers, dishwashers, refrigerators -- so it's important to have a firm grasp on exactly how they work. For example, I just talked with a tech recently who was wondering why low water pressure can cause inlet valves to leak.

Do you know the most efficient way to troubleshoot this washer motor, or would you go through unnecessary disassembly? Watch this webinar excerpt to find out.

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.

In this excerpt from one of our many illuminating webinar recordings, the Samurai traces out the circuit for a refrigerator evaporator fan. Interestingly, the neutral side of the fan's power supply goes through both the defrost terminator and the defrost heater. How can this be?

The most basic circuit safety device that everyone is familiar with is the circuit breaker. All a breaker has to do is detect if the amperage in its circuit exceeds a certain threshold and open the circuit if it does. Simple and effective, but not every electrical hazard involves excessive current. In fact, having less current than you should can also indicate a serious safety issue. Enter the GFCI and the AFCI.

After 8 months of appliance hell, I stumbled upon the Master Samurai Training Tech Academy. Within one month of applying the teachings through the courses I excelled as a real deal appliance diagtician. I went from being the laughing stock of the parts house to them asking me for advice. 

Push to start switches are extremely common technology in dryers, but do you actually know how they work? And do you know the fatal troubleshooting error that can lead you to misdiagnose them? Watch this short excerpt to find out.

You're probably familiar with the term "split-phase motor", but do you actually know what it means? That's exactly what we'll dive into in this post.

BLDC motors aren't new technology in appliances anymore -- in fact, they've become the norm. As such, it's important to be aware of the different configurations you'll see these motors in across appliances. These configurations fall into three categories: 2-wire, 3-wire, and 4-wire.

Superheat, subcooling, bubble, dew, and glide in refrigerants.

Put simply, diodes are devices that only allow current to flow in one direction. In DC circuits, this means that a diode can either act as a conductor, just as a stretch of wire would, or as an open in the circuit, depending on the configuration. But what happens when you put one of these devices in an AC circuit?

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 profitability of your business by saving time and money.

Let's take a look at the sine wave you would see if you hooked up an oscilloscope to a typical household power supply. This is showing reading line with respect to neutral.

Let's take a look at a multimeter and talk about what each function does and what it's good for.

Here's a timing chart and a schematic. See if you can spot the problem... (HINT: it's in the motor circuit.)

Self-clean sounds like a great idea, right? Just push a button and watch your oven burn away all that caked-on grease and charred food.It certainly makes for a good selling point. But is this no-hassle cleaning feature really all it's cracked up to be? And what is the best way for the customer to use it (if at all)?

Take a look at the cooktop schematic below.


I don't know about you, but "tranformator" isn't a familiar term to me. it certainly sounds like a transformer, but why would a transformer be necessary in a 240 VAC cooktop element circuit?

Internet-connected appliances aren't a niche anymore. They're made by just about every brand out there, from Samsung to Whirlpool and beyond, so if you want to stay in the appliance repair game, you've got to know how they work. Lucky for you, this post is going to break down what you need to know to work on them.

PSC (Permanent Split Capacitor) motors are nifty pieces of technology that you'll most often encounter in Whirlpool's VWM washers. They operate a bit differently from your typical split-phase motors. Rather than having a dedicated start winding and run winding, with each winding having different specifications, PSC motors have two windings that are physically identical. The only difference between them is in what direction the windings are wound.

When it comes time to perform the repair and install a new part, the last thing you want is a surprise throwing a wrench in your plans. All the unexpected twists and turns should have already been dealt with during your troubleshooting. Ideally, performing the repair itself should just mean doing as little disassembly as possible, installing the new part, and collecting your repair fee.

Have you ever noticed some connections on a schematic that just look plain unnecessary? Take a look at CN1 on this diagram.