LDE9304ACE (Maytag Dryer) Motor Wiring Help Needed (not upgrade)

[Guest]

9 hours ago, iHeartNuance said:

Appreciate the interest & the input, Doc.

All the power off seems a little extreme but hey it adds to the fear factor part of the electricians story. 

For what it's worth you would connect the wires to the new breaker and then press them into the panel bus bar which would be no more dangerous than turning any of those breakers on or off. 

Not a bad idea at all to hire an electrician when you're not comfortable.  

 

[Guest]

My guess is $2500 - $3700 estimate from the electrician. 

Thanks for your replies, buddy, and pal.

[iHeartNuance]

Well, the electrician came and put a new breaker in - everything works - dryer, lights that didn't work before, all of it!

But at what cost?

Well $180/hr with a 2hr minimum!

He was here for about 15 minutes. He talked about the 2hr minimum as if it were beyond his control - like "I'm just as mad about it as you are, maybe more so". (And he's one of the honest tradesmen around here.)

Comes out to $4 per amp of resistance if my calculations are correct.

Aesthetically its priceless tho....

Blah blah should replace the box one day but let's wait til it really breaks before we do that cos we've gotta have the electric company turn off power to the house cos y'know, we cant.

Blah blah you're gonna see other breakers doing the same thing cos they're all old blah blah etc etc.

I keep telling myself it was worth it.

The piece de resistance was when he said "I didn't realize you turned off the main. You could have turned it back on with those breakers out and had power the whole time".

!!

He doesn't remember that I asked him specifically if I could do that last week and he said no, don't touch anything else!

Must say that I'm glad I don't need a new dryer tho. Now if I can just figure out why the door light doesn't come on....

 

 

I really appreciate the help guys. Thank you. I'm much obliged. 

[Guest]

On 2/3/2024 at 3:01 PM, Dr. Horshenschwartz said:

All the power off seems a little extreme but hey it adds to the fear factor part of the electricians story. 

Figured - But hey it's Hawaii.

Whats the yellow inset picture? A snake?

The dryer door light should be simple enough.  It's eother getting power or it's not.  The bulb is either worn out or it's not.

Light is tied to the door switch electrically.  Maybe you had the machine apart and that came unhooked?

You'll want the same multi-meter setting as I stated for testing the outlet as it covers up to 300V AC.  That voltage should be something close to 120V

 

 

[iHeartNuance]

No snakes in Hawaii, Doc!

I believe those are the remains of a gecko (I always doubted they were good luck). 

The door light thing is a bit weird. I bought some 7 watt bulbs as specified by the internet. Got LED and incandescent types. 

With the incandescent bulb in there I get nothing, no light, not even a flicker.

But when I try an LED bulb, also 7 watts, it barely lights but it does illuminate. Completely useless tho. You wouldn't even notice it was on.

Then, when I push the button to simulate a closed door, the LED bulb kinda fades but doesn't go completely out - I think that's a characteristic of LEDs tho isn't it (I know I've seen videos of scared-looking ppl holding unplugged LED lamps that are inexplicably on)?

Guess I'll take her apart again and have a look and a voltage test.  Switch/light must be connected tho for the light to come on at all. Why so dim though? I followed the schematic for the proper wire placement when I reassembled the dryer, I'm sure of that.

Does 7 watts sound right? That info isn't from Maytag now I think about it - I got it from one of those parts universe type sites - maybe it's wrong. The $22.24 they charge for one bulb certainly is! Part no. is W10857122 btw.

The electrician checked the outlet during his visit and it was 230-something volts which was good enough for him.

The main thing is that the unit dried clothes today which is fantastic - no issues at all (except the light lol). 

[Guest]

 

Way too much below; I'm poor at describing things in seven words or less, just bored and trying to help a brother out. Increase your confidence in electrical testing and you'll increase your ability to fix things. 

7w Watts is correct according to what I see. 

Do you guys have Amazon there? I know Hawaii is expensive but $22. For a bulb? 

You'll unhook the wires from the switch to test the switch with the probes to see if power is making it out of the switch when the button is not pressed and that it's not passing electricity when the button is pushed. 

120ish volts there is what you want. There's three sizes of terminals on the switch but I think it's possible to to get two of them swapped but I'm not positive on that. And not positive it wouldn't work either way even if it's technically incorrect. 

I'm not that versed on the fine details of of electricity but I've heard the term phantom voltage and I've seen low voltage myself on wires on a washer or dryer when there's not supposed to be 120V flowing. Its not that there's something wrong, it's just a thing, and I can't explain it but I think that helps the idea of the LED glowing a little but not the incandescent as the LED probably has a capacitor or something that allows it to glow a little with low voltage whereas the incandescent needs a lot of volts to make it glow. In theory, in this situation, if you had a way to measure the temperature of the incandescent you may see a raise in temp but not enough to visibly glow. 

So if 120 is present at the door switch then look at the wires between the switch and the bulb socket. 

Ideally you could just skip to testing the bulb socket by touching black probe to known ground and red probe to one of the prongs in the bulb socket, I think it would be the one that contacts the tip of the bulb base but I'd just check both to see what I get. You'll need someone to press the door switch for you to see that the voltage goes away as well. There's probably a green ground wire screwed to the cabinet nearby which in theory should lead to a good ground.  The L shaped part of your dryer outlet is ground and provided the electrical cord on your dryer has the ground wire connected the body of the dryer should be ground. It certainly shouldn't be live voltage. So black probe to ground screw or clean bare metal should be good for testing for 120v here. 

For continuity, to be sure a length of wire and it's connectors are passing electricity freely you want the setting for Ohm, the fancy horseshoe symbol.  You need to be certain both ends of the connection are disconnected from power. Essentially in this case you would want all wires disconnected from the switch and you would probe the wire that connects to the switch and probe the prong in the bulb outlet at the same time and you should see the numbers rapidly change but also the meter will just return to zero or some other display that basically means there's very little resistance to electrical flow which is what you want. You can see this happen a little slower by just squeezing each probe with your fingers on both hands are the same time. You may see an actual number here as your body has more resistance to flow but it may just zero out also. For what this is worth this is where an analog meter with the needle that moves is better as you can physically see the reading even if the needle pegs to the right. 

With the wire resistance test you are confirming electricity can flow on those wires. Your meter may not be sensitive enough to give you an actual number for resistance but in this case that's virtually always enough information. 

You could probe the incandescent bulb by itself and likely get a reading as it flows because of resistance.  The LED probably would not show anything because I think an LED technically converts to DC power which would mean there's a diode and other stuff that probably would block a resistance test but I can't be certain. 

What am I doing?