I have this washing machine for a while. I already repaired it a couple of time but for another error code (was E11)(Long story short for this one, it was the thermal sensor of the dry function. It disconnecting itself after a while with vibration. Cut the two red wire a bit and reconnect them. End of of story. I did 3 time for this machine. link to a picture)

model : 60W435D GO W 485 D

Service manual : candy_gow485d-1-01

Now it’s a new error code. After the main electrical panel of my apartment shut the washing machine down, i re-activate it. Relaunched the washing cycle. And go back to my very very important stuffs i do usually in my life. But my “boss” said to me : Honey, the washing machine trying to say me something strange ! I have to go working, could you fix it before the end of the year ?

EPZ01 :

I don’t want to get a new washing machine. This one working great, get a god job, and is easy to open and everything is easy to disassemble. So a rapid search on internet give me tracks to follow. Some people speaking about brush of the main motor. I said to me, let’s do this, it can’t hurt.Get the motor out of the machine, remove the belt, 2 bolts with flat washer, one ground cable (earth) and one big connector (stator, rotor, tachometer, temp sensor ?… )

The copper connector of the rotor, before and after. Use a bolt (10mm diam.) And with a hammer “carefully” insert it inside the main axis of the motor if it like mine you have just the space to insert it. If not find a way to make your motor turn. User your preferred home’s rotating machine to make the motor turn and with a paper sand with a very thin pitch clean the contacts of the rotor. Don’t forget to clean graphite powder from your motor and specially between etch contact. ( Because *SPOILER* i think it is a part of the real problem following)

So i put everything in place right after that and TADA …. Nothing work. The washing machine get his panel working but motor never move in any direction, no matter what cycle I chose. For sure it had real problem behind the main electrical panel shutdown. This kind of things don’t cut the power of a device for make you a surprise joke ! So i followed the wire of the motor and find the real problem.

The electrical card who contain a coil, and bridge voltage rectifier had a very hot moment. Cleaning. And testing the bridge… One part of the bridge is in short circuit. Order a new one and during this time rebuild a part of the PCB and remove the dead one. You can see the difference on my multimeter from a almost good junction voltage threshold and inexistent one. this part of the bridge is just a kind of wire…

I don’t get the schematics but it think it the card for the stator power (this motor don’t have magnets. because magnet it not enough for this kind of power. So the “magnet” is a big coil powered by DC current. So you need DC current. instead AC current you have from your wall. And a lot of them. I think it the purpose of this bridge rectifier.

Next episode when I’ll have parts to fix this up. Now i have to end my laundry by hand.

EPZ02:

This night I said to myself : “hummm are you sure this little powder did this. Maybe your motor is out of order. You’ll wait for a component, wiring it and make it blow… check your motor first”

So watch a better way to for check a motor to make it work ?

As expected, stator is powered by the card who almost caused a fire in my apartment. Note the two white wires.

With a few research I finally found a way to make it start. With this Current/Voltage values motor gently start. If I want to invert direction I have to keep the middle point of the stator in place and change from one side of the stator to other.

Stator : DC 3.5V – 2A, Rotor : DC 7.5V 400mA

 

EPZ03 :

After I re-soldered the big bridge rectifier and put everything back in place, i launched a wash cycle and everything works fine. Fun fact : the stator was power with AC current. This kind of motor are very interesting for the wild variety of power source it can eat !

So fixing this cost me about 3 hours and 5 € in component. If i had to buy a new washing machine it’ll cost me between 300 to 900€  and 3 hours of my time (benchmark, order, waiting for delivery man, open up new one, installing and understanding how it work). This fix was profitable.