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Well, I got it off! I watched a video on YouTube where someone was doing something similar with a Whirlpool motor. Once I saw that I knew it was pressed on. I used a larger set of bearing pullers (that I had to grind the tips on to get them to fit), a drop of machine oil, some welly on the puller and it slid off nicely!
I got the bearings out shortly after!
Thanks for replying anyway.
Cheers!
AAAAAnnnnd here we are, four years later ! The bearings are now making distinctly “I’m buggered” noises, so I revisited this thread for a bit of quick revision. I’d forgotten about the mangled bearing housing. I’m contemplating binning it and just getting another machine now – but on the other hand, a bearing kit is a shedload cheaper than a new machine. I’ll have a think about it 🙂
Re: Induction motor ?
Definitely the motor. The drum spins nicely and the jerky stop-start symptoms point to the motor getting power intermittently – which is what made me think of brushes. As induction motors are not something I’ve worked on before, I’m struggling to think what could be causing the noise, as, as far as I can see, they don’t have any contacting surfaces other than the bearings. Maybe it’s electrical noise – I don’t know… rapid arcing perhaps, oscillating ? I know don’t the failure modes of these types of motors.
The bottom line is that I don’t know if it is an induction motor yet as I haven’t removed it from the machine. I was asking here in case anyone knew, and also knew how they usually failed. I won’t be ordering any parts for it until I’ve stripped the motor though.
Re: Induction motor ?
I DO know what I’m doing with regards to my own safety, which was clearly the point I was making regarding temporarily disconnecting the earth for diagnostic purposes in my dishwasher thread. The fact that induction motors are new to me doesn’t mean I’m an idiot who is about to electrocute himself.
Re: A shocking dishwasher problem!
Hmmm…. seems I was wrong and you were right ! I had another go at it this afternoon and, with my non-earthed extension in place to stop the house mains tripping, I found that the chassis did not become live when I had disconnected the heating element.
Therefore, the element must be switched on the neutral side. I didn’t think the water level rose enough to make contact with it, but I’ve just realised that the water only has to reach the mounting plate that is electrically at the same potential as the element itself.
Weirdly, when I ran the machine with the heating element disconnected, it filled part way then immediately emptied and gave me an LED ’02’ error. When I reconnected the heater, it filled normally and started washing…. strange !
Anyway…. new element on the way and hopefully, old Wishywashy lives on !
Re: A shocking dishwasher problem!
Well, the heating element was my first suspect too, but the tub goes live rapidly at a point where the water hasn’t reached the element yet. The element runs around the outer edge of the tub and is a good 1.5cm higher than the water level when it goes live.
Also, unless the element is switched on the neutral side, there won’t be any voltage on the element during the fill cycle anyway.I hadn’t considered the circulation pump motor for a similar reason, namely that in terms of water level, the pump motor is pretty much ‘below the waterline’ all the time. The symptoms of it going live at a specific water level doesn’t fit well with a motor whose physical environment isn’t changing at all.
It is definitely related to the level of the water, so, somewhere in the feed system there is a component, a sensor maybe, that is erroneously live and passing voltage into the water (or the chassis directly) once it becomes wet.
I can see me having to take all the damn panels off it and pick my way through with a meter….
Re: PCB type thermostat compatibility ?
I finally managed to fit the new thermostat PCB and…. It’s made no difference! >:-(
The damn thing still freezes everything in the fridge.
I was convinced it was going to fix it.
Where can I go from here?? Might there be a relay on the compressor that could be stuck?
Re: Ariston AFA250 fault
Could someone offer any advice on washing cycles please ? According to my user manual, a ‘Normal’ cycle is supposed to consist of:
- 2 pre-washes with cold water[/*:m:2xag5l00]
- Extended wash at 55°C[/*:m:2xag5l00]
- Rinse with hot water at 70°C[/*:m:2xag5l00]
- Drying.[/*:m:2xag5l00]
What is actually happening is this:
- 2 pre-washes with cold water (30min & 10min)[/*:m:2xag5l00]
- Cold wash (35min, detergent releases 3min in)[/*:m:2xag5l00]
- Rinse with hot water at 55°C (20min, heating starts after 5min)[/*:m:2xag5l00]
- Drying[/*:m:2xag5l00]
I’m puzzled why the wash (with detergent) is cold, though I did read somewhere that most dishwasher wash cycles are cold. Is that true ? What do you think is going on here ? Is the manual wrong or has the controller lost its marbles ?
Incidentally, does anyone know what that PCB mounted pushbutton is for on the back of the BIT100 controller ?
Many thanks!
Re: Ariston AFA250 fault
Update: It would appear it was the thermistor all along. I emailed QER to ask if they thought they might be able to repair my controller and they replied that it sounded like the thermistor and that it should measure about 18K Ohms, and if that was ok, they would see what they could do with the board. I measured my thermistor and it was 58K, so I got a replacement from Maplins – but the closest they had was 15K. I soldered it in to the sensor housing and tried a test wash – it got to 40 C and completed successfully. I then added a couple of resistors in series to bring the starting resistance up to 18K and ran another test wash – which gave me 50 C, so I knew I was on the right track. After adding another 1.5K resistor, the next wash reached the magic 55C.
Total cost: 49 pence.
Re: Ariston AFA250 fault
Update: F**@;:&*&*!!!!!! It’s back to playing up again.
I have a digital thermometer probe in there, monitoring the water temp, and on a normal (55C) cycle, it got up to 40C and stopped heating any further. Without resetting it, I popped the front panel off and stuck the thermistor against a freezer block, thinking that if it was the thermistor wrongly telling the controller that the correct temp had been reached, it would hopefully make the heater come back on if I cooled it. The heater remained off.
Next, I popped the PCB out of the carrier (very carefully, as it was all still live) and tested the voltage going to the relay coil – nothing. So, for whatever reason, the controller isn’t switching the relay on correctly / for long enough.
Next up, I soldered two wires to the relay coil contacts and clipped them to my meter, reassembled the PCB carrier and set it off in test mode (as per my previous posts) – exactly on cue, the relay coil voltage came up to 10VDC, the relay activated and the heater came on. It heated the water to just shy of 60C and completed the test cycle without any errors. Bloody thing !!!
It’s beginning to look more like a controller fault – with the strange caveat that it’s running fine on a test cycle.
Re: Ariston AFA250 fault
On a whim, I decided to replace the relay – as @iadom suggested.
So far – it’s working perfectly! I monitored the temp on a regular wash and for the first time, discovered it does a hot pre-rinse ! Thanks iadom – it looks like my 14 year old machine lives on !!!!
Re: Ariston AFA250 fault
It is indeed QER. The question is though, does this look like a controller fault ?
Re: Ariston AFA250 fault
This is bugging me now… I found the test program instructions here : http://www.selfix-uk.co.uk/Test{e5d1b7155a01ef1f3b9c9968eaba33524ee81600d00d4be2b4d93ac2e58cec2d}20progr … FA2505.htm and discovered that then selecting the short test (position 1), it runs the long test (which is supposed to run at position 2) and selecting the long test (postition 2), the lights just go out and it does nothing.
However, it completes the long test as detailed and returns no errors. The water heats up to 55C – everything works. Yet, when I run it on a normal cycle, it intermittently aborts with a S0001 error – which according to everything is supposed to be a ‘not heating up in the required time’ (or words to that effect).
I tested the thermistor and that seems ok – or at least the resistance changes with temperature. I’ve checked the supply to the heater and the heater resistance – that’s all ok too.
I’m stumped.
The only thing I’ve got that’s not normal is the test programme running the wrong test on position 1 and nothing on position 2. There is a seller on eBay offering a repair service for the controller for £34, but I’m not even sure if the controller is at fault.
Re: Ariston AFA250 fault
Hmmm… I’ll stick my ‘scope on the relay output during a cycle and see if that’s flaky. I can’t imagine it’s the microprocessor. I’ll test the thermistor too – you never know, it might be intermittent… unlikely, but….
