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I have been reading some of the faults on these pages and although the advice given is very sound I feel a few tips would come in handy.
I am an engineer for indesit company which covers indesit, hotpoint, creda, ariston brands. As trained engineers we never do live fault finding. In other words we dont do voltage tests on individual wires. We always fault find with the machine unplugged and carry out continuity checks.
One thing the DIY repairer will most certainly not do is an insulation resistance test. This is done to ensure that the insulation is above the minimum requirement of 3M ohms ( 3 million ohms ) If it is below that or is getting anywhere near that there is something in the machine causing it.So for safety and legal reasons, a phrase I have seen on numerous occasions, how can advice be given to DIY repairers or amatuers?
One thing is for sure the only person who knows what condtition the machine cosmetically is in is the one asking for the help and advice but he does not know what condition the electrically.
Re: DIY repairs
hi and welcome indespoint i think that advice given is very good and if there is any doubt they are advised to seek professional help and they are always advised to unplug first.There are a lot of people who ask for advice who are technically sound practical is another thing totally :wink:. from a professional point of view i belive there is times when you have to LIVE test not good admitted but i have had jobs where you do a continuity test and belive it or not an insullation test to find out under load its broke down or even if its so simple to make sure you unpluged the right machine been cought out with that before 😳 has for insullation resistance tests they only test upto a certain point in the machine ie door lock, timer etc unless you put it on a programme let it run for ten minutes then unplug it quickly and test and even then you wont do a full insullation test it is a good practise though. altough there is machines you cant do insullation tests due to sensitve pcbs. I have worked for your company the training was great two/three weeks on the lash paid for 😀 😀 shame they didn’t teach me much full of people who didn’t even know how to switch a bloody machine on 😕 one was a carpet fitter 😯 . two/three weeks in a perfect enviroment doesn’t make them an engineer i know from experiance there is a lot of machines out there from new with insullation problems due to the quality of the components they use and the engineers are pulled from pillow to post so they dont have time to check/fix appliances correctly inc insullation tests been out with many a SENIOR engineer and they haven’t got a clue how to test properly 😯 how are things there now?still has bad or worse?sorry rant over just didnt like merloni’s work ethics
Re: DIY repairs
Most of the DIY repairers are going to have a go with or without advice. If someone can help them to tackle the job safely and point them in the right direction rather than wasting time doing the wrong checks this forum will hopefully help to prevent accidents rather than cause them. I suppose if you have a van full of Merloni spares you can often diagnose by substitution, not possible for us independant repairers who have to tackle all makes. We don’t usually have circuit diagrams available and in many cases, live testing is the only option. For example, you won’t find a sticking pump relay on a module using resistance readings but you won’t need to if you have a spare module in the van.
Re: DIY repairs
indespoint wrote: This is done to ensure that the insulation is above the minimum requirement of 3M ohms ( 3 million ohms ) .
3m ohms?
Re: DIY repairs
you are right to question the 3mohm test limit. of course in the ideal world it would be more than that. when pat testing a class one stationary asset with a heating element can be passed at 0.3Mohms. admittedly i’m not completely at ease with this and if it’s a washer i usually change the low reading part (usually the heater).
with regard to p.c.b. i must admit i sometimes wonder whether washers should be tested same as computers because that is what they are becoming. then on the other hand a computer doesn’t have a 2.5kw heater in it.
i recently discovered that a wma hotpoint circuit board has double pole switching to the heater and so a normal resistance test would not be able to find a faulty heater, unless it was done on the heater itself.Re: DIY repairs
A lot of heaters are double pole switched these days.
I always meggar the machine from the Pressure Switch. Most machines have a direct link from the pressure switch (high water level) to the heater,
Bob
Re: DIY repairs
indespoint wrote:This is done to ensure that the insulation is above the minimum requirement of 3M ohms ( 3 million ohms )
Is it 3 Meg now? It used to be 1 meg when I started, then it was moved up to 2.
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