Washing Machine Help Forum

[arjc]

I have a Zanussi WJS1197W Washer Drier which has just started tripping the earth leakage breaker at apparently random points in the cycle, including right at the very end of the final drain cycle (final drum motor movement?). I don't have a high voltage megger, but have checked some of the obvious components for leakage to earth using a standard multimeter.

The heating element is >40M to ground, but one of the drum motor (SOLE 20584.024) windings (red / blue, poins 6/7) is reading about 65k to ground and varying. I'm guessing that is not normal, but without a schematic of the motor I can't be sure there's nothing internal to the motor fitted to cause that.

Does this look the likely problem to the experts? Any solutions other than a new motor.

Thanks,

Andy

[Penguin45]

Definitely the motor. You could try removing it and cleaning out all traces of carbon dust deposited by the brushes and see if that improves matters, otherwise you will have to replace the drive motor.

Power off first, of course.

Penguin45.

[arjc]

Thanks for that Penguin45. I came to a similar conclusion shortly before getting your reply as I turned the drum and found that the resistance between winding and earth varied wildly.

I've now taken the motor apart and found that there is only 70 ohms between the commutator windings and the spindle so that's dead. Only getting away with it not tripping immediately because one of the bearings looks like a good insulator, but the other one looks to be the source of the intermittent path to earth. Other than that, the spindle is isolated. I don't imagine that it's normal for the motor drive shaft to be live to mains (happy to be corrected) so I think the machine is for the dump now it's 10 years old and a replacement motor is £100 or so - presume you can't get just commutators.

Bosch a good option for replacement?

[arjc]

Just as a belated follow-up to this post, the engineer in me took pity on the poor old machine and I sourced a (used) replacement motor from Germany for about £70 shipped compared to about £115 best price over here and have fitted that. The machine is all well again - until the next thing!

Thanks for your help Penguin45.