Fisher and Paykel SmartDrive error 49 beeps during rinse

[alexGS]

Hello there,

This forum looks fantastic – a lot like FIATForum.com where I have a post count of 2000-odd. 🙂 Allow me a brief introduction…

Recently I was given a Smartdrive with an unknown fault. Something to do with not filling, or maybe not emptying, and therefore couldn’t do a wash. Well, it’s a lot newer than my F&P 380, so I decided to give it a shot.

It’s the poverty-pack model, the one they don’t try and sell… the AW095. ‘Fresh’. It has only water level, temp, and spin speed (c’mon, even the 380 has far more features… ;))

I have great admiration for the Smartdrive so please don’t misinterpret the above. I love the design and how most things are secured with a single fastener. The motor must be one of the finest in the world.

I’ve just finished completely stripping and cleaning my ‘new’ machine. I discovered a brown motor controller unit that is marked “New/Remanufactured August 2007”.

I replaced the bearings (top bearing a little rough, shaft a little worn) – getting old bearings out was a bit difficult (big mallet, jack handle), drawing new bearings into place quite easy with a large socket and length of threaded bar/nuts/washers.

I fitted a new shaft seal a little proud of the housing (~2mm) and packed it full of grease so that hopefully it seals well. There wasn’t a lot of previous leak evidence – just a little spray towards the motor in one ‘web’ where the drain hole is.

Anyway I took apart the solenoids, couldn’t find any fault. Took apart the pump chamber and removed some sludge and paperclips. CLEANED everything…! even the blue water spray bar.

I lined the cabinet with ‘mover’s blanket’ – compressed fibre blanket, contact adhesive – I think it makes quite a difference.

Trundled it into place (after heaving the 380 out and cleaning 12-years of drivebelt wear, clutch wear, solenoid leak etc. off the floor).

Imagine my joy when the Smartdrive burst into life straight away, filled right up with water (at the correct ‘warm’ temperature) and started washing away. 8)

I watched the progress avidly, having substituted a magnetic pickup tool for the lid (I’m that kind of person, sad eh.)

At the end of the wash, the water pumped out nicely, then there was a little to-ing and fro-ing, and water sprayed in, seemed to be going well.

Then a strange cycle began. A small amount of water sprayed in, enough to float the bowl. The agitator twists – half a turn? I didn’t notice – the bowl ‘catches up’. It stops and repeats, for a number of minutes. It doesn’t look to be achieving much. I wondered if it should be full of water by that stage?

After ten minutes – BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP BEEP… ad infinitum, and lights on to indicate what I now know to be error 49.

I found that if I switch off and advance to Spin – do not collect $200 – then the small amount of water pumps out and the spin seems correct. It’s so quiet, I can’t really tell whether it’s the proper speed or not. The bearings in the 380 have been knackered for years. I think the Smartdrive is going faster and the clothes come out drier.

Anyway I tried all this again from the start – twice – I tried Cold and Hot, it fills correctly (seems like good rate, either Cold or Hot, and up to the top), washes correctly, pumps out correctly, sprays for the rinse, but can’t seem to rinse correctly. I found this forum, ran the diagnostic, and here I am with code 49.

I searched here and found that 49 is something to do with inlet valves – is that the case and if so, how come it seems to be filling with either cold, warm, or hot as requested – something must be working so what can I test for?

I’m quite handy with a multimeter and handheld oscilloscope… but should I break the warranty seal on the motor control PCB? Is there a chance that F&P might replace it (I don’t have any receipt).

Just some advice on where to go next would be much appreciated. Thanks for reading and hope you had a satisfying day today with whatever you took on… 🙂

Cheers,
-Alex

[Penguin45]

Re: Fisher and Paykel SmartDrive error 49 beeps during rinse

49 is supposed to be dodgy wiring to the cold valve. Check connectors at valve and board end are fully home and have continuity.

I lurk in the Scudo forum on FF BTW….. 😀

Penguin45.

[alexGS]

Re: Fisher and Paykel SmartDrive error 49 beeps during rinse

Hi Penguin45,
Thanks for the prompt reply!

Since writing the post I discovered how to open the cold/hot valves while in the diagnostic phase – the Wash Temp up/down buttons – the valves open and close fine there. But I guess this means nothing if the microprocessor ‘thinks’ it has a poor connection! Interestingly I can’t activate the pump (in test mode) because my ‘poverty-pack’ model has no cycle buttons…

I’ve already cleaned the solenoid valve connections but I shall try again. The other ends of the blue/red wire pairs disappear into the Motor Controller module, which has a warranty seal. I’m thinking of ringing F&P to ask if there is any warranty on the latter part. The best I could hope for would be if I could return the motor controller to them to test. If faulty, I would like a replacement, but if not faulty, I’d be happy to pay them for the test, so as to eliminate it from the equation.

I find it an amazing coincidence that you ‘lurk’ in the FIAT Forum (and presumably drive a FIAT) – maybe it takes a special mentality to own/work on Italian cars and New Zealand washing machines. BTW I’m alexGS there as well.

I have my eye on another, newer, Smartdrive which is dead. Hopefully if I buy that, I can try putting the display module onto my machine to see if it reports the same code 49 fault. Then I can try swapping solenoids, etc. I am making the assumption that the motor controller is compatible with different display modules (the newer machine is in the same-shaped casing, ‘Pride’ model, basically the same).

I’m not giving up yet 🙂

Thanks again,
-Alex

[alexGS]

Re: Fisher and Paykel SmartDrive error 49 beeps during rinse

…and at nearly 2AM, I’m happy because I reckon I’ve found the problem 🙂

I cleaned the contacts on the solenoids with a small brass wire brush and tweaked the terminals. I put the machine through another wash (almost run out of dirty clothes now, so I washed some towels). And when it got to the Rinse cycle, same problem – only a little water, slow agitation, then beeps.

I immediately put the machine into diagnostic mode and pressed water-temp-cold to open the cold water valve – a beep, but no cold water! I cancelled that and swapped the plug to the ‘hot’ solenoid, and tried again. Yes – the ‘hot’ solenoid opened from the cold signal. But not the cold.

I noticed that the cold solenoid was hot to the touch.

By the time I had got out my multimeter, the resistance was 60 ohms. I re-attached the plug and the solenoid worked again.

Obviously this is a thermal-related intermittent coil on the cold solenoid! Perhaps some windings are shorted (the other solenoid is 64 ohms) and that is why it overheats? It is only hot enough to fail once it has completely filled the machine at the start of the wash cycle…

I took the solenoids out and swapped the hot and cold (machine still full of wet clothes and I wanted to get it going). The machine didn’t seem to like this at all, even though I set it to ‘Cold’ and started the rinse again – the pump would cycle on and off rapidly and I would get more beeps and code 50. That makes sense, though surprising that it was ‘trying’ to activate the ‘hot’ solenoid (which was, of course, now faulty – and faulty even quicker due to the hot water, proving the thermal-intermittent fault).

Eventually I managed to get it to spin and got my clothes out.

The next step is obviously a new solenoid – think I might replace both of them while I’m at it…!

Intermittent problems are always the worst for any kind of technician – but it’s satisfying when you finally catch it acting-up. I no longer think that my motor controller is faulty – potentially a lot of money saved.

I still have my admiration for Fisher and Paykel. We don’t have many companies like this in NZ that have ‘made it’ overseas – about the only other that comes to mind is Gallagher’s – inventors of the electric fence.

Thanks penguin45 for the pointers! 😉
-Alex

[Penguin45]

Re: Fisher and Paykel SmartDrive error 49 beeps during rinse

AW095 is a phase 5 machine – solenoid coils should read 64ohms. Cold valve is a non-proportional device, so make sure you get the right one. The coils can break down with age, so worth a punt.

Fiat – Scudo van for work, SAAB 99 for fun…… 😀

Penguin45.

[alexGS]

Re: Fisher and Paykel SmartDrive error 49 beeps during rinse

Well, a happy ending to report.

In order to get the solenoid valves, I bought another ‘dead’ SmartDrive – a ‘Pride’ model (MW059) which was just a couple of hundred metres from my door – picked it up last Sunday. Cost $42. The fault was a dead motor controller PCB. I took it apart and noticed a small transistor (power supply?) with a chunk blown out of it and a round ‘fuse’ that had blown. I decided not to try and fix it.

I swapped over the inlet valve assembly to ‘my’ machine – noticed that it looked completely ‘as-new’, no water discolouration at all – and also swapped over the top panel, as it had more buttons and also looked as-new. That gave a Size Error (code 9) that was easily fixed by referring to this forum 🙂

When I inspected my latest acquisition underneath, I was somewhat annoyed to find NO evidence of water leakage, bearings in perfect condition, and uncracked motor stator. I wished I’d bought this before I replaced bearings & seal in ‘my’ machine!

Anyway I transferred the motor components over to my machine and now I have a complete, working washing machine (no beeps) for a total cost of $102, which isn’t bad… I’ve even listed the leftover bits on Trademe so might get a few dollars back.

Incidentally the two water valves on this model seem to have the same part number so appear to be interchangeable.

Thanks for your help, penguin45! 🙂
-Alex

[GML]

Re: Fisher and Paykel SmartDrive error 49 beeps during rinse

Thanks for the tips on error 49.

I replaced the solenoid but still had binary 49 LED code. I chased the circuit through the Motor Controller (brown one in Australia) GW712.

It was a couple of FETS or Qs in a H drive. The get fed their +v from the main power rectifier. There is a funny looking round component called F^ which is a quick blow 1.6 A fuse. Because my solenoid had a shorted turn on it (bubling to outside packaging) it had blown this.

I didn’t have one instock so I substituted an ordinary glass 2AG 2.0amp fast blow. You need to remove the old fuse and solder 2 wires into the holes left these are inturn soldered to the fuse ends. I used hot glue to hold the fuse clear of any other components.

You can get slow blow fuses almost anywhere. In my experience ordinary fuses are the same they always fail after the components are lost anyhow!

If you are desperately dirty you could just jump the 2 holes with tinned copper but this could represent a fire hazard if a solenoid goes again.

We amke microcontrollers. It is a simple fix and saved me $350. A fuse is 10c or maybe $1 if you buy them one at a time. Make sure you test the plugs before you start up. My GW712 read:

1. Each motor winding ~ 35 ohms to any other
2. The lid solenoid ~ 70 ohms
3. Each water solenoid ~ 60 ohms
4.The thermistor ~ 10K ohms

# When this fault exists you can empty the water by removing the tube to the Pressure Xducer and using a tube from your mouth to blow into it HARD!!! The pump will start and pump it out for you.

To calculate the error code (for what use that is when you can find out)

LEDS indicating wash cycle

X X X X X X X X

128 64 32 16 8 4 2 1

Add the values for each light LED

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