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Well I figured I would post a recent problem I had with an electric dryer at home so that someone else may benefit from it.
I have a Kenmore Elite Quiet Pak II electric dryer. The other day it stopped working. By stopped working I mean once you pushed the start button and released it, the dryer would cut off. It would initially start and continue to run as long as you held the button down.
So my wife called a repair guy to come out and take a look at it since I didn't feel like fooling with it. The guy comes out the first day, flips the top up, looks at, flips it back down and presses the start button and it works. Service call was $50 bucks. Ok, the very next day it does the same thing again, so he comes back out, spends about two minutes on it (BTW, I wasn't home the first day, but I was the second time), and tells me that the start winding in the motor is bad. He then proceeded to tell me, that he would be glad to take the old washer away at no cost to me (as a favor) and sell me another one off of the back of his truck for $250 bucks!
After I picked myself up off of the floor from all of the laughter, I politely explained to him that I was an electromechanical engineer and that it was DEFINETLY NOT THE START WINDING!
Can you believe that guy?? I mean, even someone who has no idea what a start winding is would think, as the name implies, it is used only for starting...wouldn't they?! So if the motor is already started, but won't stay running, why on Earth would it have been the start winding? I asked that very question and he said "it's complicated, you wouldn't understand".
Needless to say, I escorted his butt right out the door.
Moral of the story, if it sounds stupid, it usually is.
Oh yeah, the must important part. It was the motor relay that was bad (after about 5 minutes of troubleshooting with a multimeter). It cost's $4.65 online and can be installed by teenager (no offense to any teenagers).
I have a Kenmore Elite Quiet Pak II electric dryer. The other day it stopped working. By stopped working I mean once you pushed the start button and released it, the dryer would cut off. It would initially start and continue to run as long as you held the button down.
So my wife called a repair guy to come out and take a look at it since I didn't feel like fooling with it. The guy comes out the first day, flips the top up, looks at, flips it back down and presses the start button and it works. Service call was $50 bucks. Ok, the very next day it does the same thing again, so he comes back out, spends about two minutes on it (BTW, I wasn't home the first day, but I was the second time), and tells me that the start winding in the motor is bad. He then proceeded to tell me, that he would be glad to take the old washer away at no cost to me (as a favor) and sell me another one off of the back of his truck for $250 bucks!
After I picked myself up off of the floor from all of the laughter, I politely explained to him that I was an electromechanical engineer and that it was DEFINETLY NOT THE START WINDING!
Can you believe that guy?? I mean, even someone who has no idea what a start winding is would think, as the name implies, it is used only for starting...wouldn't they?! So if the motor is already started, but won't stay running, why on Earth would it have been the start winding? I asked that very question and he said "it's complicated, you wouldn't understand".
Needless to say, I escorted his butt right out the door.
Moral of the story, if it sounds stupid, it usually is.
Oh yeah, the must important part. It was the motor relay that was bad (after about 5 minutes of troubleshooting with a multimeter). It cost's $4.65 online and can be installed by teenager (no offense to any teenagers).