Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Re: Hotpoint WF430 blown up! (Found fault, need advice)
Damn, looks like the machine may be scrap then. 🙁 Maybe it’ll be worth breaking it for parts on ebay?
I don’t suppose there’s any chance the board might be repairable? I’m a bit of a dab hand with the soldering iron though obviously I realise that there’s a chance one or more of the microcontrollers might be blown too and that means curtains.
Thanks for the help 😀
Re: Hotpoint WF430 blown up!
Sorry to post here again, but I have been troubleshooting and believe I have found the problem with my machine.
Just to clarify: I have not, at any point, been delving around inside it with the power switched on. It went “bang” after I reset the tripped MCB, before I knew the washer had a fault. It’s been unplugged ever since.
So anyway, I took the cover off last night. First thought was the mains supressor at the top of the machine – I unplugged this and tested it with my multimeter, seems OK, no shorts to speak of. L-N resistance is about 681k disconnected from the washer, L-E and N-E is infinite. Definitely no dead shorts.
Then I started delving deeper into the machine. Everything looked OK but I decided to take the main PCB out anyway to have a closer look – and I found this. Not immediately noticable unelss you’re looking hard, but definitely burnt:
Back of board showing singed tracks:
Scorched components – a resistor and a capacitor. Some other bits near one of the relays look scorched too.
The protective cover for the PCB, showing a burn mark near the singed bit of the board…
So, looks like my PCB has blown. My question is why would it do this? Have I got another faulty component that could cause the PCB to blow? Remember the washer was switched off at the front panel when it tripped the breaker for the first time.
I do intend to replace it if I can get one cheap enough, but obviously not before finding the reason why it blew in the first place.
Re: Hotpoint WF430 blown up!
Hi,
No, that’s not it at all! I haven’t done anything to the washer yet except unplug it (after working out that it was the appliance causing the trip, by turning the MCB back on once.)
All I did the night before was pull the machine out from the wall, do two washes and switch it off. When I came downstairs in the morning it had tripped the MCB, I have not opened it up or touched it yet.
The machine cost me less than 100 quid in the first place, with a fault like this is the culprit likely to be the PCB then? Do these sometimes short out even with front panel power off?
If machine is not worth fixing I’ll most likely scrap it and buy a new one, it owes me very little…
Cheers.
