[poloman]

Well I’ve now replaced all the capacitors I could on the board & guess what – absolutely no difference at all! But….
Because I had the machine on it’s side & thought some muck might have been disturbed I ran a 40C Synthetics cycle with some soap powder in to clean out the machine – it ran without any faults, drained when it should have drained, spun when it should have spun etc.
I then did a light 40C synthetic wash and when it got to the point where it should have drained (before the rinse) – it didn’t drain, it then tried to turn the drum quickly and stopped after 1/2 a sec, no activity for 10 mins – then repeat attempt to turn quickly (still hadn’t drained), no activity for 10 mins then repeat etc. until it reached end of cycle without draining or spinning. E052 now displayed in diagnostic.
I turned off the water at this point and ran the diagnostic mode to see what water depth was reading and it displayed 104 which I presume is 104mm. So the pressure gauge is definitely working.
Water back on – exited diagnostic mode and ran rinse cycle and it completed that ok.

So why should it work fine with water + detergent but no laundry but fail to attempt to drain when running the same cycle with only a very light load of laundry? I feel there must be a simple solution I’m missing!

[poloman]

Hi Andy
Thanks for that suggestion. Sorry not to have got back sooner but the machine started working normally again (most of the time) and then I was on holiday.
Apologies for this long post:
Anyway it has now started acting up all the time and I have checked the pressure switch hose isn’t blocked. Having sat and watched the machine today I see that in fact the problem seems to be that it is failing to initiate a drain at the end of the wash phase of the cycle, it then tries (for about 1 – 2 revolutions) to do a slow spin (I’m guessing it wants to do a spin before the rinse water is added) and fails presumably because there is too much water in the drum and too much resistance on the motor.
This was on a 1’20” 40C Synthetics cycle – all was normal until the wash phase finished with 29 mins to go. After it failed to spin because it hadn’t drained the following timeline occurred – as displayed on the LCD:
28-24mins – no activity, then tried to spin again – failed because the drum hadn’t been drained.
24 – 19 mins – no activity.
18 mins – drained! No spin attempted and rinse water added.
17 mins – again tried to spin without draining
16 mins – nothing for 5 mins then tried to spin
15 mins – ditto
14 mins – no action (lasted 5 mins)
13 – 11 mins – no activity but each minute lasted 5 minutes!
10 min – Started turning, drained, did a couple of short spins
9 min – started to fill again
8 min – started to drain, tried to spin and stopped with LCD showing 1:20 and flashing green on the start/pause button. E52 error when checked.

Bizarrely – each minute from 16 to 8 on the display lasted approx 5 minutes.
After waiting a couple of minutes I started a separate rinse cycle which it completed without error. It seems to me that for some reason it is failing to initiate a drain before moving to the rinse phase. The pressure switch appears to be working normally when I run the diagnostic cycle and displays the water level. (all diagnostic tests 1-8 appear to be without fault/error).

I’m going to start replacing components on the main board but I wonder if anyone has seen similar behaviour before?

[poloman]

Hi Dave yes I removed the connector when testing the lead continuity. The tacho generator appears to be giving the correct readout when using the built in test.
I don’t think the motor is overspeeding – it never gets up to speed when attempting a spin.
I think you are right a trial and error remove and replace components is the way forward. Given the age of the machine I might start with the capacitors.
Thanks for your suggestions.

[poloman]

Hi, sorry to take so long to get back to you but I finally had the time to do the testing as you suggested & there were no breaks. Strangely for the next couple of days it worked fine and then today with a full synthetics 60C load scheduled to take1’50” with 43 mins to go it drained and then stopped immediately when it tried to do a spin – I would say it managed half to one second before stopping. It tried again after a pause a couple of times and then seemed to progress to the next rinse/drain stage and then again it stopped after attempting a spin and this time gave up for good with an E52 error. Again by choosing the rinse cycle I was able to finish off the wash with no problems.
It is really strange and I’m really reluctant to discard what is otherwise a fully functional (if quite old) machine.

[poloman]

Thanks for the suggestion Dave – I’ve now checked the wiring harness and there are definitely no loose/broken wires. It seems to be when it is trying to do a spin after a drain before starting the rinse part of the program that the problem arises. Is there a sensor that detects the load the motor is having to produce to start the spin? – if so it might be that which is faulty? – if so is it part of the main circuit board? It still weird that the standalone rinse cycle works fine after the main wash cycle has failed to complete.

[Author]

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