Hotpoint WDD960 F15 Again

[msward]

Have a Hotpoint Wdd960 Washer Dryer

Giving F15, I know people have said the heater relay but I have done some testing and it may still be that but our problem only appears to happen when the machine is pumping ?

Here goes..

Nearly every time this happened I notices the clothes were really wet but the machine was not full i.e. you could open the door without a flood.

Yesterday we had quite a bit of water left so I set machine to pump and it immediately goes F15 and all the lights flash, I did finally manage to get it to pump out the water but it always started to pump then goes F15, sometimes without even starting to pump.

I took the pump cover off and cleaned out inside, it was a bit gunky, impellor seems to be free, took off the outflow pipe and cleaned it as it too seemed quite dirty and a bit smelly, it had a load of the usual gunk but was flowing.

I took off the fat pipe to the drum (one with the ball in it) and I now have 2.21 towards the repair and a screw, again a bit of gunk but nothing too much.

Tried again and it is was same so I tried a wash cycle and that starts ok, fills and starts to rotate the drum ok, let is run for a few mins and was fine, then stopped it and set it to rinse, that ran for a few mins ok (not to the point of pumping) then stopped it and set it to spin which of course tries to empty the drum first, it pumps some of the water then goes F15, did this several times and every time F15 either immediately or after a few seconds of pumping, it is pumping in that water does come out for the short time it works. Went back to wash and tried that again and it filled and started to wash fine. So it does appear it is either something to do with the pumping or the heater issue everyone mentions causes some kind of trip up when its pumping as well ?, seems odd.

Now I am thinking still a control board fault or could the pump be tripping intermittently, it has slowly gotten worse, we could manage the odd wash but now it wont seem to do anything once it gets to pumping.

I have obviously checked the outlet, I did the tests with the pipe in the sink rather than on the trap under it so I could see what was happening.

Any ideas ladies and Gents ?

Many Thanks

[1totalshambles]

Re: Hotpoint WDD960 F15 Again

Tricky one!
Ok so this w/dryer based on a WDD960GUK.C, because you didn`t give the full model number, is one of those induction motored 3 phase things. By tripping I presume you mean trips the house electrics or do you mean just trips the programme to fault 15? Terminology!
From what you say I`d first be looking at the heater. What you really need is a megger tester to test the elements to earth but you can at least test for resistance, in other words the wash element and tumble dyer element is not open circuit with an ordinary multimeter set on high Ohms.I know this all looks rather odd considering your 15 fault code ( and take most fault codes with a pinch of salt ) but the wash element might well be the problem- you can buy a cheaper pattern one to try.
Without sticking the old neck out, if it is not the wash heater no spin or skipping the cycle without it being a motor brush motor is usually the pcboard or wash element to slight earth. Beware; the pcb has to be programmed by Hotpoint on site = expensive / robbery. Might be a good idea to buy a multimeter or if you don`t want to do that buy a new wash element and see if it cures the machine`s problem.

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