washing machine broke down - part 2

My earthly belongings have been conspiring against me lately. They are breaking down faster than I can repair them. I have been utterly depressed when my washing machine began to emit foul odor of burnt electronic PCB. I thought to myself the sign is not on my side. If one of the printed circuit boards is damage it would be a tall order to fix it as typically they are brand and model specific parts. Finding replacement part for this 18 year old machine would be next to impossible.


For me major household appliances are durable goods. When I buy one I am seriously plan to keep them close to a life time. You know what our government and economists notion of durable goods? Actually I should say definition of durable goods? Their definition of durable goods is products that lasts 3 years or more. Nuts! No wonder United State is world's leading throw away country.

I have been out of a washing machine for nearly 2 weeks now. The thought of going to the laundromat depress me. The thought of buying a replacement machine is gut-wrenching. I finally gathered up the courage to tear into it to see what is wrong. I really was not looking forward to the task as some of the PCBs are difficult to access in this front loading machine.

Well the stars in the heaven must be lining up over my head. As soon as I open the top I immediately see what is wrong. This supply wiring immediately after the fuse is so badly corroded and burnt. Actually the reason I found it so quick is because I was hoping that it is one of the two fuse holders has overheated due to bad electrical contact.

The reason for the failure started with bad wire. Even though Asko makes some of the best laundry appliances in the world things can still go wrong. In this case they sourced wires with sub par quality from a supplier. Unbeknown to them there is a batch likely has contaminates in the copper or the insulator casing and 18 years later the corrosion reduced the current carrying capacity of the conductor and it goes into the vicious cycle of overload-overheat, and more overload. The conductor gets so hot that it vaporize the plastic wire casing.

you can see how badly the copper has been corroded - you can also see the corrosion with the newly stripped segment in the front

It took me less than 10 minutes to replace the wire. I always solder the wire first before crimping on the slip contact to make it mechanically and electrically stabler.

the new replacement wire i made - the white one pointed to by the pencil

 here you see the high quality stainless steel drum assembly and the drive belt pulley

 sound insulation on the housing

the user accessible water pump for clearing out the occasional pennies

the red thing is the emergency release for the machine's front loading door should the release mechanism or computer board fails and you have a load inside

while i am at it i cleaned the heat exchanger of the dryer really good

here is a live shot during the spin cycle at 1400 rpm taken with my iphone at rather low light so the shutter is quite slow; you can see from this shot how well balanced the spinning inner drum which suspended together with the door

the clothes is very dry after the spin cycle so it take very little time to finish drying them in the dryer

Not so related I also found the cause of what blew the fuse in Brunnhilde's cigarette lighter and audio circuit. It is this Belkin i-device power adapter. The plastic case has split and causing a short between 12V and ground. Like I mentioned before I always dislike auto industry still using cigarette lighter in this day and age as power outlet for mobile devices.

this thing cost me 2 20A blade type fuses before I realize what is the problem; the plastic self-destructed from the stress imposed by the two stiff leaf springs on each side as well as the spring-loaded tip

 fortunately i just bought a tube of all purpose plastic repair adhesive from tap plastics

I love this compact adapter. It was sized for iPhone 3GS but it works for my iPhone 4 and iPad even though they requires a lot more current. The reason it can power the higher power devices is due to the smart design on Apple's part. The device knows the capability of the adapter and reduce the charging current it imposes on the adapter.