Surged Washing Machine module

Hi Guys!

I live in a rural house without hookup to mains electric which in itself brings up its own problems but not least the fact that I have to generate my own electricity using solar panels and a generator! Hence the problem with this circuit board.. I'm afraid it got a belt of high voltage from the generator and refuses to play!

It's the electronic control module from a Bluesky 1030bf washing machine. This controls the programming/cycles on the machine. Please see pictures for the damage..

I've checked for burn marks, solder joint damage etc. and as far as I can see there are 2 affected components.. the resistor (burnt) marked R1 on pcb and there was a capacitor next to it (now removed, was the same as the other capacitors on the board VE09 0301 7Ku) marked VDR1 on pcb which had kind of exploded!

I can't identify the markings on the resistor due to it's burn out. I can just make out that it had 4 maybe 5 colour bands. One at one end is definitely brown, then one at the other is 90% black and there is one in the middle, looks pink now but may have been lilac?

The fault that all this causes is that when I plug the module in it just sends all the lights on and freezes.

I have contacted the manufacturers of the module (EGO systems in Germany) but they haven't replied. I managed to contact EGO in the UK but they said they didn't have access to this information but would try..

I found this but it's not very specific..

**broken link removed**

..it's the Type 6800 on that webpage.

Apart from that I just can't get any other info on this module.

My question is, then, would it be possible, for some of you out there, more experienced than myself (!) to take an educated guess about what this resistor would be trying to achieve and hence what it's value might be?

I can supply any other info off the other components on the board etc. if any of you have any ideas and need that kind of extra info..

Since some of the pictures were taken earlier and since then I have been to an electronics components shop and they gave me a new capacitor that they said was the same, so I have fitted that and tested the washer again but it still won't start. See the last pic which shows the capacitor (blue, with CNR 14D431K) now fitted.

I have taken the resistor out for a closer look in the past hence the rather shoddy soldering I'm afraid!

Thanks in advance for any help you can give.

The problem is that there may be more bad components even if you replace the resistor and the cap. Without a schematic it is difficult to tell which to suspect.

If you can not find a schematic you might check the web for rebuilt PCBs. When my 20 year old sears washer died I was able to buy a rebuilt PCB for under $100.

3v0

Thanks 3v0, I have tried hard to get a schematic but to no avail so far, that's the problem. I have a strong suspicion it is just the resistor left to sort now though. I could send the board off for reconditioning (if I can find an expert who has the details) but for the cost of a resistor I'm hoping someone can point me in the right direction and I can give it a go.

Thanks once again!

The blue thing is not a capacitor. It's a: **broken link removed**
These are used to suppress voltage spikes...and will be destroyed if hit by a high enough and long enough spike. Since the resistor appears to be on the down stream from it and the power input connector (?), my guess is that something further down-stream from the resistor shorted out when the varistor died.

Ken

the other component near by the resistor with two legs out seems to be a rectifier pack, normally this type of varistors are used for voltage spikes and to break the circuit during any spike, the ressistor may be for relay operation and still working. better try to find out what are the components and how they are connected.

my sugestion is if you know any one expert just give him mthe board and ask him to draw the circuit of the power control module, then you will get the idea what those componenets may be and how we can fix it back

i have done few times in rare cases the same way to know the circuit components this way.

ah, thanks KMoffett..of course.. I knew it was a varistor, I don´t know why I called it a capacitor! And called it a capacitor all the way through I now realise! Must have been that last glass of wine I had before writing it all!

So as you say, anyway, that´s exactly what happened.. a large and sustained voltage spike of perhaps over 300v.. I remember this was an all too common experience courtesy of my old erratic generator (now retired!)

To give you all a bit more information.. perhaps of some use in this investigation perhaps not.. after the initial "ooh there seems to be a ribbon of smoke rising from the washing machine front panel, quick turn off the generator!".. the machine would still work but only with the generator switched off, just running off the inverter (which is pure sine wave output, @ 226v) (country living! Solar, batteries, inverter and generator provides our "mains supply" you see)

Then sometimes, the machine would stop and flash up the error code which in the manual is detailed as "voltage too high or too low" which we knew it wasn´t as the inverter never deviates from 226v (with which it would have been happy with up till then). So, the voltage had not changed yet the machine had decided it had and it wasn´t happy with it.

Sometimes turning the machine off and on again would reset it and away it would go again. But sometimes it wouldn´t be having any of it and ..get this.. bizarre but true.. if we put it in the back of the car, took it to my friends house who has mains electricity and plugged it in there for 15 mins or so, it would reset and then run happily when returned to our house again!

This situation (of the machine saying "not happy with the voltage") got more and more common with time until in the end even taking it to a mains supply would eventually not reset it and hence we are where we are now!

I find this all a bit bizarre (as to why mains voltage would "reset it") especially as we all know mains voltage goes up an down like the wind anyway.

I´m thinking the components that I could see burnt by the voltage spike deteriorated until finally going too far out of spec?

Hope I´m not waffling on too much guys!

I know this is way old now . I wondered if in theses types of situations could a resistance wheel be used to set high and gradually reduce the resistance to ascertain when the thing looks like working ? Setting a common sense lower limit of resistance of course