Washing Machine Help Forum

[caramba]

Hi

I have posted on this before - still puzzling me.

Typically, if left for a week or so, my AEG LAV62800 will do a proper wash. Then on a second or third wash, it starts to play up. It just stops, usually during an agitation period: for example, part way through the wash agitation; during the second of the three rinses in the rinse cycle; etc. Periods stopped can range from 15 mins to much longer. Then it might jump violently, then stop and error message; or it might turn gently, stop and message; or occasionally it will continue without stopping. The message is a motor fault code.

Sometimes it will get to the end of a programme and not go to zero and click off. The display shows 1.

The motor spin seems to work fine.

I have checked quite a lot. In the early stages I found a dirty PCB, cleaned it off, and all the contacts, and thought I'd cracked it. But I hadn't; the improvement was temporary. No component is visibly damaged; the triac looks ok. I've checked cable continuities. I've cleaned the hose system. Pump is ok, pressure switch checks out, heater is ok, thermostat is ok. And so on.

It feels like an electrical fault associated with the motor. That is, it seems always to happen when agitation is under way, or expected, or possibly when extended agitation is expected. Yet there's no problem with spin.

I wondered if a motor capacitor might be breaking down. Might that be it? And where is it?

Thanks a lot for reading this.

[Martin]

It feels like an electrical fault associated with the motor.

It sure does and I would guess that the thermal cut-out in the motor windings could be the reason? It cuts out then resets as it cools again.

[captaincaveman1]

I think it could be the motor tacho either loose from the motor or becoming open circuit once it warms up

[caramba]

Thanks very much for helpful suggestions.

[caramba]

And I meant to say - what about the capacitors? Are they a possibility, i.e. what kind of symptoms do faulty capacitors give? And are they found on the PCB these days? Thanks again.

[captaincaveman1]

It wont be a capacitor on the board at fault it has to be with the motor

[caramba]

Thanks again

[Seamy]

Brushes probably worn & the motor is overheating, the 1 on the display leads me to think the door interlock is not unlocking. So you may have 2 faults to sort out.

[caramba]

I did wonder about the door lock. Do they exhibit different kinds of partial or intermittent failure? In particular, could they halt the machine for a varying period during a wash, then suddenly recover and make the machine jump?

On the possible motor problem: load distribution works in wash and rinse, as far as I can tell; load tumble is (I think) the fault period in wash and rinse; and spin always works. If spin always works, can the motor TOC nevertheless be a possible problem?

Thanks for your contributions.

[Seamy]

Worn brushes would cause poor contact, motor would overheat & go open circuit, when it cooled down it would continue at where the programme was, possible jumping into action. They tend to overheat & go open circuit more on wash than on spin.

Door lock would likely not be causing the machine to halt, but the 1 min' fault you describe is normally caused by the appliance finishing but not going to zero as the door interlock has not unlocked when it should, common fault on AEGs'