My dryer tumbles, but the timer doesn’t advance and there is no heat. When I check the power at the cord I get a reading of 110v on either side, but 0v between the positive and negative. I have checked all thermostats, fuses, and the heating element for continuity- they all check out ok. I had an electrician come test the breaker and outlet- both read 240v. Today I bought a new cord to see if that was the problem- it wasn’t. I have no idea why the power isn’t getting from the wall to the dryer.
I am not sure about the following “but 0v between the positive and negative” as it is different from the electricians readings.
Unplug the unit and check the wires at the terminal strip in the machine to make sure none are loose or burned out
You may want to check the power at the units terminal strip.
L1 (Black) to L2 (Red) should be 240 volts
L1 to Neutral (White) and L2 to Neutral, both should be 120 volts.
If OK
Do this with the heater off and on.
[COLOR=“Red”]Be careful as 240 volts is lethal !!![/COLOR]
Unplug the unit, put it mid-cycle timed dry use the lowets ohms scale on your meter (usually 200 ohms).
Now measure from BK (Black) to F (White-Black) on the timer.
It should be about 10 ohms re: the motor and heater in parallel.
If OK
Then odds are that the 1M/2M centrifugal switch on the motor is either not closing when the motor reaches operating speed or the switch is toast. RED4440.pdf (181.8 KB)
[QUOTE=denman;714728]
You may want to check the power at the units terminal strip.
L1 (Black) to L2 (Red) should be 240 volts
L1 to Neutral (White) and L2 to Neutral, both should be 120 volts.
If OK
[/QUOTE]
That’s what I did when i got the 0 reading between red and black and 110-120 between black/white and red/white. Sorry I didn’t explain that clearly. I’ve also replaced the timer assembly already, so I don’t think that is the problem either.
I would check the power at the receptacle and the terminal strip again.
Something very weird is going on.
I am assuming this is a 3 wire hook up.
FYI: I do not know if you know how you actually end up with the 240 volts so will try to explain it.
The L1 and L2 voltages are 110 volts AC when referenced to Neutral/ground but they are 180 degrees out of phase. So when one of them is at positive 110 volts the other is at negative 110 volts and when you measure L1 to L2 you get 220 volts.
The only thing I can think of is that both L1 and L2 are on the same side of the line. The problem here is that the electrician measured 240 at the outlet/receptacle so that makes it very weird.
It’s a 4 wire hookup. I have a really crappy multimeter that has questionable accuracy. The display on it looks like it’s reading somewhere between 110 and 120 from either side to the neutral, but it’s dead 0 from pos to neg. It’s really weird. It worked fine for the first year we had this dryer, then quit producing heat out of nowhere. A couple of weeks ago it spontaneously started working again for about 2 days, but now it’s back to no heat. I’m stumped.
A couple of weeks ago it spontaneously started working again for about 2 days, but now it’s back to no heat.
Sounds like a bad connection somewhere but it could also be a part that is on it’s last legs.
I would start by checking the power first.
Then if that is good unplug the unit and take a look at the centrifugal switch.
Sometimes it is the mechanical centrifugal assembly that is not hitting the switches. I do not think this is your problem because the motor’s centrifugal switch would also not be activated and that can cause the motor to overheat and/or the unit will not run when you release the push to start button.
With luck it will be a loose connection at the switch.