Whirlpool dryer heater failure

My Whirlpool electric tumble dryer AWZ241 has failed. Last Friday, the house's circuit breaker tripped when it was turned on. After resetting the circuit breaker and trying the dryer, it did not trip again. The dyer runs but does not get hot. I guess that the heater and / or an internal fuse has blown.

Any other guesses of possible explanations?

Anyone know how easy this will be to fix?

I am not quite sure how old the dryer is. At least 5 years. It came with an offer of an extended 8 year guarantee but we did not take it. Anyway, it might be as much as 8 years old.

I have a good collection of tools (including a multimeter), access to a reasonably good spare parts shop, good understanding of electricity, and some experience of working of these devices. For example, I have successfully changed the drive belt of dryers and repaired the door switches. I have not yet had any cause to open up this one.

Reply to
jwlawler
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I just checked the local spares shop. They could get me a new element in a day and it would cost =A335. So, provided that is the fault and it is not too hard to change, it seems worth doing. Now, I need to work up the energy to take the thing apart.

Reply to
jwlawler

It's very likely the heating element is the problem especially if the dryer operated normally the laser time it was used. Replacement should be straightforward. However, it's worth checking the thermostatsm and of course for lint buildup which can lead to overheating.

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Reply to
Sam Goldwasser

Thanks. Yes, the dryer was working apparently fine last Thursday. I will check the thermostat as well when I have opened it up. Where might lint build up except for the filter just inside the door? I have already checked and cleaned this. There was little on it at the time of failure, we clean it regularly.

-- Sean =D3 Leathlobhair

Reply to
jwlawler

Pull the element and look at it, if it's bad, it'll be obvious.

Reply to
James Sweet

Lint can build up anywhere in the airflow path...significant cause of accidental fires. Check the entire exhaust path, both inside and external to the dryer.

jak

Reply to
jakdedert

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Thanks again.

I was busy last night and will be busy again tonight but I should be able to take it apart Wednesday. With some luck, I will have it working by the weekend.

-- Sean =D3 Leathlobhair

Reply to
jwlawler

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Thanks. As I said in another post, I hope to take it apart tomorrow night. If the element is bad, I can order a new one on Thursday and hope to have it working by the weekend.

-- Sean =D3 Leathlobhair

Reply to
jwlawler

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Something else to think about as a possible cause.

Several years ago my sisters drier stopped heating, but kept running fine.

After several attempts at repair we found that one side of the 220 volt breaker was bad with about a 300 ohm resistance. Thus, there was no power to the heating element, but since the control circuits and motor ran on 120 volt that was by chance connected the the good side of the breaker everything looked "fine"

Just one of those sneaky things that goes wrong.

If you have a voltmeter you can check the outlet to see if it is working. But do it with the drier plugged in. That will load the circuit and verify the breaker. If the heater is bad, you will still measure the 220 volt value.

Dave

Reply to
Dave22

LOL and I read it and didn't even notice until you pointed it out.

Reply to
James Sweet

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Thanks. That is a worthwhile check.

I am in the UK where things are a little different. The supply is

230V (*) only. I expect that both the motor and the heater run directly from it. Of course, a similar problem of this sort could still be the explanation.

I should manage the test and survive. As a kid, I repaired old valve TVs with live chassis. They rectified the 240VAC (*) supply and hence ran at 340VDC. You would get a nasty shock if you were not very careful.

(*) Not a mistake, the UK standard used to be 240V. Most of the rest of Europe was 220V and we compromised on 230V. I think that the tolerance of the new standard was large enough that nothing really needed to change.

-- Sean =D3 Leathlobhair

Reply to
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Se=E1n_O'Leathl

Lots of people make such mistakes. When I look at my own "typos", I sometimes want to lie on Dr. Freud's couch.

This are not, strictly speaking, typos. As people get older, they're more likely to type the wrong word. I don't know why this is.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

Indeed, you`ll find that most places in the UK still get a healthy 240 volts. Ron(UK)

Reply to
Ron(UK)

HeHeHe... With me, the word "laser" is generated by a single nerve impulse and the fingers do the rest. :)

--- sam | Sci.Electronics.Repair FAQ:

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+Lasers | Sam's Laser FAQ:
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Reply to
Sam Goldwasser

Reminds me of one of my biggest pet peeves, when people spell it "lazer", UHG, I don't even know why it bothers me so much, it just looks stupid.

Reply to
James Sweet

A friend of mine in Manchester monitored his line voltage for a few days. It dropped as low as 223 and went as high as 249, I dunno what the allowable range is but that struck me as quite a wide variation.

Reply to
James Sweet

And that's the way most people pronounce it -- with a Z sound, rather than S. It's "laser", not "lazer".

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

It`s 245 at the moment here, according to a fluke 77. slightly lower according to a nondescript chinese 'yellow' cheapy

Ron(UK)

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Lune Valley Audio
Public Address Systems
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Reply to
Ron(UK)

"William Sommerwerck" wrote in news:4tudnVp6jYlfazTanZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@comcast.com:

Perhaps because "Light Amplification by the Ztimulated Emission of Radiation" does not make much sense.

--
bz    	73 de N5BZ k

please pardon my infinite ignorance, the set-of-things-I-do-not-know is an
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Took it apart tonight. It was easier than I expected. Unfortunately, the next step, the diagnosis, was harder than I expected. So, a bit of humble pie; I though that understanding the electrics would be the easy bit.

Three wires: black, red, and brown come from the controller to the element. The red and black go to little devices which might be thermal cut-outs mounted on the side of the element. If they are cut- outs then it is a puzzle that they are in both lines. The outputs from these devices go the element itself. The brown goes directly to the same element terminal as the red indirectly goes. What's going here, is the brown a feedback to the controller so that it knows whether the cut-out is passing current? But, if the other one failed it wouldn't know.

Now the real puzzle. I don't know the power of the element but I would guess at least 1kW and at most 3kW. So (at 240V), the resistance should be a dozen or so ohms. However my meter thinks the resistance is infinite even on the 20MOhm setting. So, this would suggest the element is dead. However, the meter cannot detect any voltage between any pair of the red, black, and brown wires. Surely there are not two simultaneous faults: the element dying and something wrong in the controller? A final explanation is that the controller runs the motor for some time before sending power to the element. Is this likely? I ran the dyer for about a minute with the meter connected to the red and black wires.

-- Sean =D3 Leathlobhair

Reply to
=?ISO-8859-1?Q?Se=E1n_O'Leathl

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