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I have a four year old Kenmore Elite dishwasher. The detergent dispenser door stopped opening during the wash cycle so I took apart the dishwasher door to inspect. I noticed on the back side of the dispenser door assembly the inductor (that drives the plunger to activate the door) had gotten hot enough to cause an insulative door flap to melt and stick to the inductor. I replaced the dispenser door assembly. The dispenser door still didn't open during the test nor real wash cycle. I then noticed the main control board had a scorch mark on T4 triac that controls the opening of the door. I ordered and replaced the control board. All was well for 4 wash cycles - then the door stopped opening again. I took apart the dishwasher door and discovered the replacement control board's T4 triac was scorched and the detergent dispenser door actuating inductor had really gotten hot and melted the insulation flap to it even more than the original melting/sticking.
Another thing - there are multiple wires (even some of the main larger gauge wires such as the main hot and neutral feeds) inside the door that appear to have gotten hot and slightly melted their insulation. No breakers have ever tripped and there are no exposed wires - but they have obviously gotten hot.
By the way, I studied electrical engineering and have a nice multimeter to test with so feel free to "nerd it up." :) Right now I am going to try a new door assembly and control board (and will measure the actuating inductor before assembly vs the ones that appear to have cooked to check to see if they fried - the possible root problem?) Obviously I'm concerned this is a fire hazard with the melting wires and will have to keep a close eye on it.
Any assistance is much appreciated. Thanks!
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Rank: Member
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Some updated info: I checked the detergent dispenser door solenoid (I called it an actuating inductor in my previous message.) After failure the solenoid measures 8 Ohms whereas when new it measured around 300 Ohms. This could definitely cause too much current to flow which could cause the TR4 triac in the control board to fail. This seems the most likely other than the fact that I'm dubious as to whether I actually had two bad solenoids on two different dispenser door assemblies. I suppose if I had two controller boards that were bad they could have both led to the dispenser door solenoids failing if they energized them for too long. (Also seems unlikely.) The only other thing I can think of is that there is a short in the neutral wire to the chassis between the dispenser and P11-10 cause the solenoid to be energized for too long (but it doesn't measure that it's shorting to the chassis.)
This doesn't make sense and I hate to spend another ~$110 ($75 controller and 35 door) on it to just fry another door and control board.
Does anyone have any ideas? Have bad detergent dispenser doors or bad control boards been common in this model?
Thank you.
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Rank: Member
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Joined: 10/12/2011(UTC)
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Were you able to solve this problem? We are having a similar problem on a Kenmore 665.13789K602. Our detergent door wouldn't open and we found similar melting on the dispenser door solenoid and melting on the insulating flap. We replaced the dispenser assembly which did not fix the problem. We also have wires that have melted the insulation. I can't find the wiring diagram for my model, but the melting insulation is caused by wires leading from black boxes labeled "P2 W", "P3 W-R", and "P4 W-V". I am a civil engineer, not electrical, so feel free to nerd it up a little bit, but not too much. :)
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Rank: Member
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The second pair of control board along with dispenser door has solved the problem (at least it's been working for 2.5 months now.) I compared the resistance of the working solenoid to the solenoids that failed: the failed solenoids were showing almost no resistance across the terminals - likely the reason that the control board then failed as well. If you look closely at your control board you'll probably find a scorch mark there too. Happily, AppliancePartsPros was extremely good to work with and swapped the first set of failed parts out under the replacement parts' 90 day warranty (as was fair.) I ended up calling Kenmore and the Consumer Product Safety commission about the potential fire hazard. Good luck! P.S. I was able to find the wiring diagram attached to my dishwasher inside the low kick panel under the front door. It also had the testing instructions on the paper as well. Originally Posted by: mj77  Were you able to solve this problem? We are having a similar problem on a Kenmore 665.13789K602. Our detergent door wouldn't open and we found similar melting on the dispenser door solenoid and melting on the insulating flap. We replaced the dispenser assembly which did not fix the problem. We also have wires that have melted the insulation. I can't find the wiring diagram for my model, but the melting insulation is caused by wires leading from black boxes labeled "P2 W", "P3 W-R", and "P4 W-V". I am a civil engineer, not electrical, so feel free to nerd it up a little bit, but not too much. :)
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Rank: Member
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Around Dec 23, 2011 the solenoid overheated again. About an hour after the cycle was complete (luckily we were in the room) we noticed a burning electrical smell. The solenoid was again melting the flap of black insulation over the solenoid and melting goo was entering the dishwasher. After I turned off the power at the breaker box and took apart the door I measured the solenoid temperature to be 300 deg F with an infrared thermometer. (note that was after it had had some time to cool.) I am finished with this dishwasher and bought a new one.
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Rank: Member
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Thanks so much for posting your experience. With many other things going on, we had actually been very lazy about repairing the dishwasher. Instead, we were just opening the dispenser door manually about 10 minutes into the wash cycle. After reading your story, we will just continue to open the door by hand and not bother "fixing" the dispenser. We haven't had any additional problems with overheating on other elements, so hopefully we can let this dishwasher limp along for a while yet.
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Rank: Member
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Joined: 1/4/2013(UTC)
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Unfortunately I'm running into the same issue with the solenoid overheating. even after replacing a pair of dispenser and controller. Fixin_Steve, what brand of dishwasher did you end of getting and how is it working out for you?
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Rank: Member
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I don't know if y'all are still reading these posts but I am experiencing the same problem with a 2 yr old Maytag. I have replaced the entire dispenser and control board and the problem returned after about 1 week. The manufacturers must know about this re-occurring problem, wouldn't you think so?
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