all of the sensors
a) Dryer Thermal cutoff fuse
b) Dryer High Limit Thermostat
c) Dryer Operating Thermostat
Dryer Timer
220 Breaker in home breaker box.
Dryer was working fine, then one day it would not function. I replaced the thermal cutoff fuse, High Limit thermostat and a bad dryer operating thermostat. Put it all back together and everything worked fine. About six months later, the dryer was not drying clothes but ran fine other than that. I then replaced the heating element (10 years old), plus a bad dryer thermal cutoff fuse. I put it back together and when I turn the timer dial it flips the breaker before I can make a full turn. I then replaced the dryer timer, same problem. I then replaced the breaker in my breaker box, same problem.
Next I:
Ohm-ed out the heater coil (10.6 ohms) - thought it should be higher, but from I read it is ok.
Checked the resistance between the element and ground. No short.
checked each of the sensors and all were closed to allow power flow.
Next I unplugged the start button, temperature control, one end of the heating element, the motor and removed the moisture control board.
Still flips the break when I turn the timer clockwise 360 degrees. It always seem to flip the breaker when it get to the end of touch up dry.
So start off from the end and work back. Unplug the power cord. Then remove the terminal block cover and there check for continuity between L1 and neutral then L2 and neutral then between L1 and L2 (also between each and ground) with the timer in the off position. Then move the timer to the (cool down less than 5 minutes) position shown in your photo. (great pic by the way, your wiring seems to be in the proper positions) Now repeat the continuity tests. Determine where the dead short is located. My suspicion is from L1 and ground because in the cool down position the power to the heating element is turned off. When you find out let us know. The attached pic denotes a three prong plug outlet, yours may be four which adds a green or bare wire to ground. terminal block.jpg (2.8 KB)
L1->L2 - Open
L1->White → Short
L1->GND → Short
L2 ->White → Open
L2 → GND → Open
I looked at my schematic (which I missed the first 5 times I was in there), I unplugged one side of the thermal fuse and the short went away. The next thing I see that it could be is the belt switch. If the belt switch is extremely defective could it cause this kind of short? If it is a belt switch, how hard is it to replace? Can it be done (easily) without taking the motor out?
Am I heading the correct direction, any additional thoughts?
L1->L2 - Open
L1->White → Short
L1->GND → Short
L2 ->White → Open
L2 → GND → Open
I looked at my schematic (which I missed the first 5 times I was in there), I unplugged one side of the thermal fuse and the short went away. The next thing I see that it could be is the belt switch. If the belt switch is extremely defective could it cause this kind of short? If it is a belt switch, how hard is it to replace? Can it be done (easily) without taking the motor out?
Am I heading the correct direction, any additional thoughts?
I wouldn’t know unless the belt switch is like cracked open and touching metal somehow. Anything is possible I suppose. Here is the however. For a dead short (enough to trip a circuit breaker) there must be a wire or part conducting electricity touching, rubbing, abraded in direct contact with the machine. Now if you look at the schematic I believe that the line going thru the thermal fuse and the belt switch are ground or neutral return. So that would make sense if you disconnected the thermal fuse. But my question is if you don’t have the machine turned on why is there a complete circuit??/
This only started to occur after changing the heating element (10 years old) and the thermal cut off fuse. Sense we can rule out very likely its not the heating element because its not in play with the timer in that position. It must be a wire or part in the thermal fuse line. It may be a defective thermal fuse. More investigative work in your future.
OK, I feel like an idiot.. I mistook a symptom for a cause. I tried to check the switch for continuity but I could not reach both sides. But I notice, which I missed before, that I did not get a short when I have the dryer apart and was testing it. The answer why was simple upon additional thought. The belt switch WAS working and when the tension was off, the switch disconnected the power line and thus masked the down steam short cause. So, I jumpered around the switch, and the short came back. Now it seems I am at the motor. I have attached a photo of where I jumpered around the switch by unplugging one wire and moving another. Now that the short is back, I decided to free spin the motor, when I do the resistance changes and fluctuates between about 2.0 and 2.6 ohms (which seems not good).
My jumper (see attached photo) consists of removing the wire C from position B, (leaving it hanging) and them removing wire from position A and moving and attaching to position B.
The black block attached to the motor, is it a starter relay of some type that can be replace or is it part of the motor? I am thinking at this point, my motor is bad? I have already replaced the a lot of the down stream parts.
I disconnect my thermal fuse again, ohmed across it (it was very low ohms, which is good), I ohmed each side to ground (open). So I am going to say it is good. I unplugged the start button, the buzzer and temperature control console switches to ensure they were not shorted (they had no effect on L1-GND short). Motor? or what next? jumper.jpg (199.1 KB)
Unplug the wire harness from the motor and see if you have a short. The interesting thing to me is it only happens when in cool down mode. Which changes nothing really except that the power to the heating element from L1 is shut down. Power to the motor is constant whether in heating or cool down mode. Not to mention you haven’t even completed a circuit so to speak because you haven’t pushed the start button. It very well may be a short in the motor or the centrifugal switch on the motor. You said you checked for resistance when spinning the motor. Try this after taking the wire harness off the motor and checking for the short circuit then try checking for a complete circuit on the pins on the motor. The two outside pins that the large red wires connect to should be open. Then see if you any complete circuits between any of the other connections and the large red wires. None of the smaller wires connections should show continuity with either of the red wire connection.
Ok, Correction. The short seems to be there anytime the timer has the motor activated. So when I ohm L1-> GND, I unplug the thermal fuse and it stops, plug it back, move to the belt switch, unplug it stops, plug it back an it goes into the motor. I have taken the plug off of the motor and homed the motor windings and the both come back about 2.1ohms. When I unplug the motor connector the L1-GND goes away. Is my motor bad or the pluggable drive motor switch attached to the motor bad?
I am at a loss as to what to check next. I am outside the range on the low side for my motor windings, but I am not sure that is bad.
If there are no visible signs of abraded wires touching metal near the motor, then I suspect your motor and or the centrifugal switch are the culprit.
When the timer is turned to any on position power is being sent to pin #2 on the motor terminal (the black wire) but should not be conducting a circuit until the centrifugal switch is activated by the running motor. To further understand this watch the video in this link. Bill is demonstrating what happens inside that switch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CaaqRXQERVc
I had to take the wire from the motor to the belt tension switch off of the old motor and put it on the new motor. Where does it go? I think I know where one side goes but I am not sure about the other. Matter of fact, I may removed it previously when I was jumping out the tension switch and put it back in the wrong place. That could have been my whole problem this time, so I am double checking. motor_connections.jpg (177.8 KB)
Yes you are correct! The wire should go from pin 4 to the belt switch then back to the open terminal on the overload protector. With units the have no belt switch a wire would simply run from pin 4 to the right side of the overload protector.
Well, yes. The motor was bad. I changed the motor out and put the entire thing back together.. WORKS LIKE A CHARM!!! sorta…
Everything works, but for some reason when I move the dial on to set the time, the dryer kicks on without me hitting the start button.
I unplugged the start button and tested it. It is good, momentary, etc.
When I open the door on the front the dryer does not stop. The door switch works fine. I can push it in and out and see the light in the dryer turn on and off, but the dryer does not stop.
I assume the motor wiring harness is keyed and can be only plugged in one way, correct? Any ideas?
Do you still have the wiring chart for your machine? It was located inside the control head and likely would have been taped down.
If so can you either scan it or take a picture of it and post it back here.
I think you may have a neutral line from the motor grounding out somewhere before the start button or door switch. I need to see the wiring diagram to be sure.
Yep, I try to keep all of my docs in electronic format.. just in case. I have attached the .pdf version of the schematic. Mine is the electric on the top. I need to verify the docs that came with the motor, just to make sure there were not any OEM/ compatibility changes for the motor I installed. Dryer_Schematics.pdf (143.5 KB)
As I suspected based on the wiring diagram apparently the neutral wire coming from the motor to the start switch is grounded out somewhere.
Check the wire coming from 5 on the motor should be white with a red stripe. Follow it up to the start switch. It must be grounding against metal.
Ok, I took your advice and I hooked my meter to the side of the switch with the white wire with the red strip and to ground. It read 2.0 ohms (at the worst). So I gently started cutting the wire ties and tape holding the wires together to trace the wht-red-strp wire through the machine to the motor. I found at a certain point the wire intersects with a bunch of other wires of various colors. I handled all the wires gently bending them to see if I could find a bend or cut. Could not. So I start taking them off one by one to see if the gnd condition would change or go away. Finally I get to the wire that goes down the Cycling Thermostat. I removed the [purplish] wire from one side of the thermostat and the ground condition went away. I reinstalled it and remove the other side of the wire coming back out and the condition remained. So I decided the condition was contained to this thermostat. If I leave the wires hooked up and remove the device, the ground condition goes away again. So I am figuring the device is causing the problem. I am going replace it.
Pic 1 (Installed) is the device installed with the multi-meter on gnd and white-red stripe wire coming off of the start button.
Pic 2 (Removed) is the device removed with the multi-meter on gnd and white-red stripe wire coming off the start button.
Pic 3 (Part No) is just a clear picture of the part and part number.
So at this point I am thinking something is broken in the thermostat and grounding to the other case which grounds to the vent when it is installed. I am thinking I could make a Teflon spacer or I could just replace the unit. Thoughts? I think I am almost done fixing this thing.. Installed.jpg (146.3 KB) Removed.jpg (123.7 KB) partno.jpg (141.8 KB)
Interesting to say the least.
However those purplish wires should not be associated with the neutral wire from the motor. Those wires only operate small heating elements inside the cycling thermostat to have it click off at a lower temp when the low temp setting is selected. So if they are causing the short then I would find out where they are contacting the white red wire.
Thank you for your time. I will make this long story short.. Ok, so ultimately I had a bad motor AND a bad cycling thermostat. I just got done replacing all the sensors ( at which point I put a new BAD cycling thermostat into the dryer.)
Since you were gracious enough to answer my questions, I will explain what I did to find the short (least I can do and I like closure.. ) My previous post explains all of the troubleshooting that I did with the exception of replacing the cycling thermostat (which went in uneventfully.)
The first picture I am showing (overall.jpg) shows the white wire with the red stripe in its path across the back to the multi-wire splice intersection.
The second picture (cluster.jpg) shows where I traced the various wires too.. Full disclosure, I did this about 3 days ago and I am colorblind so it is POSSIBLE I didn’t get everything labelled correctly, but rest assured wires from that bundle DID go to the various locations listed. The question mark shown was one that I just completely forgot where it went.
After I got the Cycling thermostat out, I shook it and the inside was rattling. I am assuming something on the inside broke loose and was ground to the outside case.
As of right this second, my dryer is fully functional and working better then it has in ten years. Thank you for your assistance. How can I repay you? overall.jpg (164.7 KB) cluster.jpg (149.7 KB)
