Hi I'm Josh from eSpares. And in this video
I'll be helping you to diagnose control and program
issues with your dishwasher. The first thing were going to look at is
if your dishwasher is completely dead. The first thing to check
is where the power is actually getting into the dishwasher so
unplug it from the socket and plug something else in such as a hair dryer
or vacuum cleaner
or anything just to make sure that there is power at the socket.
Now once you've established that is the case we can move on to
looking at the plug and making sure that the fuse
in the plug hasn't blown so I'm just going to
take the back of the
plug of the dishwasher. And then grab
a multimeter. place that onto the lowest resistance reading
and just have a quick check of the resistance of the leads on your meter
despite shorting them together and on I'm getting a reading this
about 1.7 ohms.
So if I just place the probes
onto the fuse either end, and I should get
a similar reading if the fuse hasn't blown.
And again I'm getting about 1.7 so that shows that the
fuse is OK. Now when you've established that the fuse in the plug is
OK
the next thing to do is check for continuity between the plug
and the control board in the dishwasher. Now in this particular dishwasher
the control board is housed at the top
on the inside of the door. But it can vary from one model to another so in
yours
it may be at the bottom of the door or it may be
on the side at the back of the dishwasher. So you may have to
look around to find it. So i'm just going to start by
unscrewing the screws around the inside the door so I can get to the
control board inside.
Okay so here we have the
Control Board inside the door. Now i'm looking
for continuity between the
plug and the control board so I'm going to be checking
how the power comes down through the live and neutral pins on the plug
Its then going to come possibly through an on off switch if your
dishwasher has one.
If it does make sure the switch is turned on for this
and it then goes from the switch into the Control Board.
Now the way the I'm gonna be testing is looking for a short circuit
on the meter. Now of course normally a short-circuit is a bad thing,
but in this case the short-circuit shows that and there is a connection
between the plug and the board. So I'm going to start by
placing one of the probes of the meter onto the
live pin of the plug. I'll just closed the door to make it a bit easier.
And then grab the other probe of the meter
and place that onto the
brown pin here.
And because I'm looking for. short-circuited it should read
around about a couple of ohms possibly less.
And again I'm getting about 1.8 that
So now an established and the power is getting
from the plug to the control board but not getting any further
and that would probably explain why the dishwasher is dead
and it's because the control board is faulty. Now if when you do this
you on getting the reading on the meter just try moving the probe
on the board around all the different wires until you do get a reading of
course when you do get a reading
that would show that the power is getting to the board the board is faulty
and may need to be replaced.
On the other hand if moving the probe around
still doesn't produce any reading then that would indicate that there is a
fault between
the plug and the board and its most likely to be
in the wiring. The next fault we will have a look at
is if you're dishwasher is blowing the fuse when you turn it on.
Now in most cases this is going to be caused by the presence
of a short. And that can either be in the control board
or in one of the components elsewhere in the dishwasher
in most cases it's actually going to be in the heater.
Now we can test for short just by
using on meter to test across the live
and neutral or live and earth
pins on the plug. And again a short is going to show up
as less than a couple of ohms. Now if you do get
the reading of a short circuit, try disconnecting the heater
and then testing again on the plug to see if the short is gone.
And if the reading is a much much higher
and that would show that the short-circuit is likely to lie
in the heater. And you can confirm that by testing the heater
itself. For a working heater the reading should be somewhere between
twenty
and fifty ohms. So obviously any reading that is significantly outside if those
would indicate that the heater has developed a short-circuit
and you'll need to replace it. Now with a look to power problems let's move on to
look at program problems
and fault codes. The control board in most
dishwashers respond to faults in the appliance with a
fault codes. And this can be through a combination of
lights or letters and numbers.
However manufacturers use different fault codes
for their dishwashers. So it can be just as beneficial to watch the dishwasher
and see when in a cycle it stops to determine
when the fault is occurring. The first point to which he might get a fault
code is when you turn the dishwasher
on. If water is leaked into it the dishwasher may register this
as a flood. And you will hear the drain pump whirring continuously as it tries to get
rid of that water.
Now you can check to see if there's any sort of leakage by
just by tilting the dishwasher onto its side.
And watching to see if any water drains out the bottom
and if it does just take the base of the dishwasher
and have a look inside at the pipes for any damage.
It may also be that the detergent is simply foamed
too much and that's caused the leakage. Whatever happens just get rid of
any water or anything that is causing it to leak
and then put the base back on and turn the dishwasher on again to see if that
resolves the problem.
Now when you turned your dishwasher on and closed the door to start the cycle
the first thing that happens is the drain pump turns on.
Any liquids that's run of the glassware or the crockery into the
machine is drained away
and that takes about 20 seconds. After that the
inlet valve turns on and the dishwasher starts to fill
with water until it's just below the
door seal. Once it's hit the correct
level and the wash pump turns on and that's when you hear that familiar whoosh
noise as the water is
sprayed around the dishwasher. After that the heater turns on
if required. And shortly after the heater turning on your hear that very familiar
clunk noise as the dispense a draw
opens and lets the detergent into dishwasher.
Now failure to complete any of those parts of the process
will result in the dishwasher stopping and displaying
a fault code.
The rest in the wash cycle consists of washing
draining and heating followed by the drying cycle
now some dishwashers use a fun in the drying cycle to circulate air
around the cavity and help the water evaporate
of the crockery. While other dishwashers rely simply on the residual heat with in
the crockery
for the water to evaporate of. Now one final thing to consider
if you need to replace the control board in your dishwasher.
Many manufacturers make their control boards so that they have to be
programmed
when they are fitted. Now this is possible for you to do
but it may require purchasing additional equipment
and this can be expensive. So for that reason if you are replacing the control
board
you may prefer to use a fixed price repair service such as Repaircare
who can do the fix for you.
If you need help with diagnosing other folks in the dishwasher see our other
eSpares videos. And spares for dishwashers along with other appliances are
available on the eSpares website. Thanks for watching