GE rant, and oven controll board problem

Its almost twenty years old. That is not bad for electronic items to=20 finally need any service. Do you drive a 1993 car, use it daily, and=20 expect it to not need service?

Manufacturers generally only stock parts for up to 5 years - after that=20 you are at the mercy of the aftermarket folks.

At least you found someone willing to fix it!

John :-#)#

--=20 (Please post followups or tech enquiries to the newsgroup) John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)

"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

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I've got a '95 Ford van that was just retired... still used to pull a boat to the lake. An '83 Datsun (now Nissian) pickup truck that gets work almost every weekend. (But almost always in 4WD low gear.) And my pride and joy, a '49 Ferguson tractor. 'course there's not to many IC's on that to fail. :^)

And I can still get parts for all those vehicles.

George H.

Yup that's what I'm learning.

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On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 13:06:35 -0700 (PDT), George Herold put finger to keyboard and composed:

A model number may help.

A photo of the board would be nice, too.

- Franc Zabkar

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Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Count yourself lucky, George.

I got an MTBF of 3.5 years out of my Maytag (JennAir) oven. I cut it up with an oxy torch a couple weeks ago. Highly recommended repair procedure for that manufacturer (and highly satisfying). :)

What Franc said.

Click on 'Help me find my model number' (Middle left side of page)

Part examples, some are well under $100.

--Winston

Not uncommon an experience, as I understand it. Finding a manufacturer which makes parts available for more than a few years (i.e. for much longer than the law says that they absolutely have to) is increasingly uncommon. Sears was traditionally pretty good about this, for their own products, but I don't know how they are at supplying parts for the other-label products they've been selling in recent years.

I can appreciate the manufacturers' problem, to an extent... there are so many models, and the competitive pressure between manufacturers is so high, that it's hard to manage to stock the unique parts for so many models for a long time without the overhead cost becoming quite prohibitive.

My guess is that when a manufacturer arranges to build a new model of $WHATEVER, they take a good guess at the number of replacement modules or parts of each type that they're likely to require during the "parts must be available" period, and bump up their ordering by that much and no more. Hence, most of the replacement control boards available for a given model are probably built at the same time as the completed ovens of that model, and simply stuck into storage (with the manufacturer having to front the cost for building and storing them).

When they run out, it's probably prohibitively expensive for them to fire up a whole new production line to build a few dozen or a few hundred more... and a lot of the original parts they used may no longer be available, so they'd have to redesign the control board in order to be able to build it!

I had an experience much like your own last year, with an oven of a similar age (non-G.E.). It started beeping and flashing a fault code when it wasn't in use. By googling around a bit I learned that this is a non-uncommon fault in that model/series, and that the original board would be extremely expensive to buy if it was even available.

I did the same thing you've decided to do - ship it off to fixyourboard.com - and they were as good as their name. I got it back within a week, reinstalled it, and it has worked fine ever since.

If I recall properly, the common sorts of failures on these boards include:

- Electrolytic capacitors drying out, and either losing capacity or developing a high series resistance. A capacitor ESR meter could perhaps identify these.

- Cracked solder joints, due to repeated heating/cooling cycles putting stress on the joints. Inspection of the board might locate some of these; wicking the old solder off of suspect joints, re-fluxing with RMA, and resoldering could fix 'em.

- Some semiconductors in some designs are prone to fail.

If I recall correctly, the fixyourboard service for my model included replacement of some of the "prone to fail" parts even if they had not yet failed.

--
Dave Platt                                    AE6EO
Friends of Jade Warrior home page:  http://www.radagast.org/jade-warrior
  I do _not_ wish to receive unsolicited commercial email, and I will
     boycott any company which has the gall to send me such ads!

I was going to recommend these guys.

Have had good success with them as an end-user but hitting their menu for GE oven/stove and looking for controller or control board -- nada.

--
Rich Webb     Norfolk, VA

The model number of the control board is WB27K5107. I'll go google for a pic.. well nothing looks quite the same.

George H.

Here's a pic from the repair place.

George H.

Hah, a big hammer would fun too. The GE repairman said something to the effect that consumer surveys show people would rather have a cheaper oven that lasts for 7-10 years, versus one that costs twice as much and lasts twice as long. We vote everyday with our wallets. I don't see why I need fancy electronics in my oven. A temperature sensor and some simple control.

George H.

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I've never bought an oven, they've all come with the house. But I like a simple appliance that I can repair or have repaired. My granma had this blender with just one speed. I think it was retired by my brother long after her death only because the top to the glass container 'decayed', some sort of plastic. I don't see the need for a new product every year.

That's very comforting to hear, I was on this other repair website and that was the reccomendation.

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Yeah I think the best bet is not to screw with it...Send it away to someone who knows the problems. I've got plenty of other stuff to do.

Thanks for the nice reply, George H.

E E

Thanks Rich, with Dave as a satisfied customer I'm happy with the site I listed.

George H.

(...)

The pity is that the more costly appliances are actually *less* reliable in a lot of cases!

--Winston

On Thu, 20 Oct 2011 16:05:32 -0700 (PDT), George Herold put finger to keyboard and composed:

Sears have the board listed as "return for repair":

- Franc Zabkar

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Please remove one 'i' from my address when replying by email.

Thanks Franc, I'm just going stick with the repair place I found.

George H

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Yes, you can get car parts from after market suppliers or part=20 manufacturers for vehicles - hobbiests get into the act after more time=20 (look at Model T/A parts as an example - Ford has nothing to do with=20 these parts...) .

Stoves and other appliances are far more reliable than cars and as such=20 don't support much aftermarket supplies other than the folks you found=20 or companies like mine where we service obsolete amusement machines (but =

not stoves or other home appliances).

John :-#)#

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--=20 (Please post followups or tech enquiries to the newsgroup) John's Jukes Ltd. 2343 Main St., Vancouver, BC, Canada V5T 3C9 Call (604)872-5757 or Fax 872-2010 (Pinballs, Jukes, Video Games)

"Old pinballers never die, they just flip out."

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I just had to jump in here because this is something very close to my heart. We used to own a GE refrigerator. I bought this in 1981 at a special discount when I was a GE employee. In 27 years we experienced one problem with it. The drain tube from the freezer got plugged up , (with frozen crumbs from the freezer), and would not allow the water to drain properly during the defrost cycles. This minor problem caused a bit of a leak at times. It didn't really affect the operation of the unit and we eventually fixed it, (sucked out the line with a turkey baster) and that was fine. The water however caused a small rust problem on the bottom of the box under the door. Personally I never noticed it but my wife, who notices everything was really upset over this.

Being in the consumer electronics service business I know how stuff is made today and I was determined to hold on to my old faithful in spite of the rust. However this became very important to her and when the kids offered to buy us a new refrigerator for our 25 wedding anniversary, well, what could I do? So we donated my old friend to the Boy Scouts and got a new LG. The Lg lasted just three years.

The serviceman told us that he would have to replace the entire sealed system and even with all that he still couldn't guarantee that he could actually find the leak or that it wouldn't leak again. Do you know how many times I've kicked myself in the ass for letting my old GE go?

I never listen to salesmen because they usually just tell you what you want to hear however an appliance salesman in Best Buy really put it in perspective for me when I balked at buying a service contract for my now, third refrigerator. You see I don't feel that we should have to pay what amounts to a ransom for the privilege of having something last more than three years. This guy was an appliance repairman years before he was a salesman. He agreed with me but added, "you have to realize that everything that's made today is CRAP. And so you need to protect yourself when you buy something new".

I've known this for years and have been preaching it to my wife for 33 of them. She's never believed me, until now. We have held on to most of our old stuff. Some of my TV's have manual tuners but they still produce stunning pictures. Our GE coffee maker was a wedding present. It was put in the basement every time we bought a new coffee maker and brought back out every time one of the new pieces of crap shit the bed and had to be tossed. This is now our last coffee maker. Now she finally believes me. But sadly the GE refrigerator is gone and it's not coming back. The answer is to not to cave in and buy new. "New" is synonymous with "CRAP". Hold on to your old stuff and fix it as long as you can. They just don't make em like that any more. Lenny

It's almost 19 years old, what do you expect????