The make of this appliance was the company with the commercial of the service man who is always waiting for the phone to ring. I did not buy the extended service coverage. Did I tell you I have been servicing my own appliances since my youth, oh, so long ago.
Well, I open the front panel and the motor is HOT. The sucker went into thermal shutdown. I try to turn the mechanics and to my surprise everything freely turns. I can get the motor to start sometimes but it sounds very rough when it runs. I remove the motor, place it on the floor still connected, and power it up. It runs rough and smoke comes out of it. Turns out that small water leak was leaking on the motor and it corroded through a section of the motor windings and they shorted out. Too bad. A quick search on the internet shows this motor available for around $130. I paid $300 for the whole washer. I decide not to get a new motor and go for a new machine.
It gets better. I go to the local appliance superstore and stay particularly away from my old brand. The sales clerk shows me another brand of similar size and features. I found it interesting that the controls were in the same configuration as my old one. Looking closely I notice it is strikingly similar to my old one. Even the three screws I removed to get at the wiring diagram stored behind the control panel were in the same place. Holy crap! Completely different company - same exact machine under the hood. There was only one other company that made a different looking chassis. I bought that one.
I had my original washer for around 17 years before it died. The main contacts in the control cluster (behind the big knob) burned out and at that time the control cluster was $140. I decided to replace the mechanical switch array with electronics. I went down an interesting path.
This was around 1993. I took a 2716 EEPROM and encoded a bit pattern that matched the timing diagram on the washer tub for the normal cycle. I encoded this to a one second resolution. With 8 bits of output I was able to dedicate a bit for hot water valve, cold water valve, motor on, motor direction, motor speed, run light and done light. I used a bank of 4 solid state relays arranged as an H-Bridge with the motor field coil bridged between them - a solid state DPDT switch. Using the 60 Hz from the AC line and ripple counters, I clocked through all the EEPROM locations to simulate the mechanical timing drum.
I'm a professional. Don't try this at home. I started up the new contraption and it works flawlessly through the first 15 minute wash time. Then there is a loud crack and a bad smell after the main 200 AMP main breaker in the electrical panel blows. Have you ever seen this happen? I have never seen a main breaker in a house trip before.
Well, it seems everything was too perfect. One second, the motor was washing away. The next second it was expected to instantly reverse direction as its field winding instantly reversed polarity. For a very short period of time I had all 4 solid state relays conducting across the AC main. Don't try this at home.
Back to the drawing board. I added several 3 second wait times to give the motor time to stop after power is removed, change AC phase, and then restart.
It's nice to have the lights stay on when you are washing clothes.
Then there was the time when the lights blinked during a thunderstorm and I wished I had a battery backup in the washer's controller. The clothes sat in dirty water for hours. Don't try this at home. My wife was frustrated through the whole thing but she was also accepting of the mad scientist in me.
The new washer is coming tomorrow. We'll see how long it lasts.
Going to bed now. I'm all washed up for tonight!
Here are the schematic diagrams of the infamous Washing Machine Controller
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contains the images below.
