31-01-2016, 10:57 PM
So, if anyone has a modern Whirlpool that seems to work, but is taking far too long to dry because the heaters aren't working, check the "sensor bracket" just inside the door. You just have to open the door and look down - the two metal strips will be obvious. Undo 3 Torx screws (T-15) and carefully withdraw the assembly, disconnecting the wires as you go (unplug the mains first!). Don't lose the small plastic cover in the lint, like I nearly did!
Despite numerous searches, this didn't come up. Even searching with the benefit of hindsight hasn't helped.
This machine has so-called "6th Sense", which presumably refers to how it can tell when the clothes are dry. Lesser machines won't have this, so I presume the equivalent "sensor bracket" has no metal strips. Also, the secondary control box that connects to the bars is clearly something that could be omitted on cheaper machines, saving quite a bit of money.
At this stage, I'm actually unsure about the failure mode. Wet clothes should produce a conductive path between the bars, which goes away when dry, you'd think. So what about the lint? If anything, I'd expect the lint to provide extra conductance, so the heaters should stay for longer? Clearly not. I don't think the lint was providing a path to mains earth, but you never know. Perhaps the clothes themselves are providing a path to mains earth via the drum? Or perhaps all this is just coincidence, and maybe the machine will be back to its old tricks in a few days time? Let's hope not!
What's interesting is that I've seen replacement sensor brackets of a different design, that lack the 2 extra bits of plastic that you can see in the Amazon picture. Doesn't seem like a good idea to me, unless the design has changed to prevent lint getting behind the bracket. Mine was absolutely stuffed full - amazing really.
Anyway, for the sake of a tenner, I've fixed the controller (that costs well over £150 to replace), and for the sake of a few hours, I might have got to the bottom of the long-standing poor drying/no heating problem. Most "normal" folk would have just bought a new machine and be done with it - which saves the stress and inconvenience of trying to repair it - but at least I've saved it from landfill for a while yet. The machine is about 7 years old, so it would have been crazy to have thrown it away. That said, just in case, I did start short-listing suitable replacements - but I'm pleased that I've not had to find a few hundred pounds to buy one just yet...
Sorry for the long story - hopefully breaking it up into separate posts makes it less of a chore. And I hope the search engines are able to make sense of it, because I suspect that other machines must have similar problems.
Cheers,
Mark
Despite numerous searches, this didn't come up. Even searching with the benefit of hindsight hasn't helped.
This machine has so-called "6th Sense", which presumably refers to how it can tell when the clothes are dry. Lesser machines won't have this, so I presume the equivalent "sensor bracket" has no metal strips. Also, the secondary control box that connects to the bars is clearly something that could be omitted on cheaper machines, saving quite a bit of money.
At this stage, I'm actually unsure about the failure mode. Wet clothes should produce a conductive path between the bars, which goes away when dry, you'd think. So what about the lint? If anything, I'd expect the lint to provide extra conductance, so the heaters should stay for longer? Clearly not. I don't think the lint was providing a path to mains earth, but you never know. Perhaps the clothes themselves are providing a path to mains earth via the drum? Or perhaps all this is just coincidence, and maybe the machine will be back to its old tricks in a few days time? Let's hope not!
What's interesting is that I've seen replacement sensor brackets of a different design, that lack the 2 extra bits of plastic that you can see in the Amazon picture. Doesn't seem like a good idea to me, unless the design has changed to prevent lint getting behind the bracket. Mine was absolutely stuffed full - amazing really.
Anyway, for the sake of a tenner, I've fixed the controller (that costs well over £150 to replace), and for the sake of a few hours, I might have got to the bottom of the long-standing poor drying/no heating problem. Most "normal" folk would have just bought a new machine and be done with it - which saves the stress and inconvenience of trying to repair it - but at least I've saved it from landfill for a while yet. The machine is about 7 years old, so it would have been crazy to have thrown it away. That said, just in case, I did start short-listing suitable replacements - but I'm pleased that I've not had to find a few hundred pounds to buy one just yet...
Sorry for the long story - hopefully breaking it up into separate posts makes it less of a chore. And I hope the search engines are able to make sense of it, because I suspect that other machines must have similar problems.
Cheers,
Mark
