Fisher & paykel Smart drive 501 stops and starts.

[sac]

Hi attempting what appeared to be a straight forward repair and not desired outcome.

The machine is 15+ year old machine operating in Australia. The machine wasnt letting in an adequate flow of hot water, the hot water solenoid was suspected and a new one ordered. I had put the machine into diagnostic mode and it would barely let any water in through the hot valve. I ordered a new valve, but was sent a cold water(supposed variable flow) one, telling me it would still work, I fitted that. When turning the machine on for a hot wash and attempting to fill, it would activate the water flow for a few secs and stop, this would repeat. Thinking it was maybe an incompatability with the valve, I selected cold water only through the supposedly good cold water valve, but the same off/on pattern resulted.

I put/attempted to see what would happen in diagnostic mode and it didnt actually go into diagnostic mode properly. Holding down the temp down button and pressing power should have a beep appear after 2 secs, but it didnt do this, two of the wash progress leds let up as well as one of the rinse ones. The third, fifth and sixth from the right, that would represent 4+16+32 = error code of 52?
It still allowed me to test the water flow and it would fill with either hot or cold fine in diagnostic mode.

I didnt fill the machine and attempt a wash but wanted to get the water out of the machine to more easily move it back, when putting the machine back into wash mode and selecting spin it would start to drain/pump but repeat the same off/on cycle as before. I put it into diagnostic mode and used the regular wash button to activate the pump and empty the machine.

clearly the machine is stuck in this off/on cycle, I tried all the delicate, regular, wool, heavy duty cycles and all did the same…as well as leaving the machine unplugged for half an hour.

It is obviously a control issue, I connected a multimeter to the valve solenoids and could see the voltage was getting switched in and out with the cycles.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

[sac]

Re: Fisher & paykel Smart drive 501 stops and starts.

for what its worth the model no is MW051-U

and error code 52, which is listed as a faulty divertor valve….but the machine empties fine when using the pump in diagnostic mode..

[sac]

Re: Fisher & paykel Smart drive 501 stops and starts.

/Decided to open up the two controller boxes, everything looked brand new inside. Twas then that i saw the switch under the heat sink controller with some corroded contacts…….could it be, yes, cleaned up the contacts for the out of balance switch and machine leaps back into uninterrupted action!.

but why didn’t that turn up in the fault codes? and why did it malfunction at the same time I changed the hot valve?

and how come no-one knew this on/off pulsing was symptomatic of a bad out of balance switch

oh well never mind, thanks for looking, moving on to the washing.

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