Hotpoint dryer heating element question/help

[marcin22]

Hello guys,

Recently I had a problem with my Hotpoint Aquarius (WDL5490) washer dryer. My circuit breakers started to trip every time I tried to turn on the machine. After I have taken off the top cover I’ve noticed that one of the dryer’s heating element connection broke off and was causing a short circuit as it was touching other metal components in the washing machine.

Now. To fix that problem I thought that because I don’t ever use the dryer, but only the washing machine part, I will just isolate the cable. Machine seemed to be working without a problem for the first two cycles (washing & rinse? not sure); however once the spin cycle began, it pumped a little of water (not all of it) and machine stopped with all the function button lights flashing – refer to the link(click here) for the manual on page 8 to see what lights I’m talking about. I have read that this flashing configuration indicates “F15” fault code, which suggests that there is a problem with the dryer heater element relay.

Anyway, with regards to this problem I would be grateful if anybody could guide me on how to solve my problem to get the machine to work properly.

One question I wanted to ask, is whether I can short the connections together so the control unit sees that there is a closed circuit and doesn’t recall the error. As I
don’t use the dryer part there wont be a high current going through the wires (right? :rotfl: ). I don’t want to do that before I’m 100{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d} sure as I don’t want to damage anything (control unit itself) . Why doesn’t it let me do the fast spin anyway? Does it need the dryer for that?

Please do let me know what you think/know.

Thank you

[iadom]

Re: Hotpoint dryer heating element question/help

The electronics self test all components and will go into error mode if a fault is detected. Shorting out any components will just result in another error code. 🙁

[electrofix]

Re: Hotpoint dryer heating element question/help

also shorting out an element will cause complete machine failure if the element is ever turned on even by accident. Blowing a big hole in the circuit board

don’t even think about it

Dave

[marcin22]

Re: Hotpoint dryer heating element question/help

Thank you guys for the reply. But why do you think when i disconnected the heater element connection its working fine for the first two cycles but stopps when its about to start drying cycle. I would think that in theory it should not matter as I set the drying function to zero. So why does the machine send any votage through to the heating element?

[electrofix]

Re: Hotpoint dryer heating element question/help

who knows what hotpoint are thinking when they design these but it will only be sending a sensing signal to the element

If you can operate the machine and get it to do what you want with the element disconnected then its ok as long as the wires are well insulated and tied down so they don’t move around when it spins

Dave

[Author]

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