Why can't electronics on new washers & dryers be tougher?

I see these newer dryers and front-load washers have what I assume to be some kind of IC control circuitry and from what I've seen my suspicions about this being a likely point of failure appear to be correct. LG warranties the motor for 10 years but the circuit board only for 2. I'm betting it's expensive to replace too.

For as many years as this technology has been around, why can't the control circuitry be made more bulletproof?

Reply to
brassplyer
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cost, manufacturers use OEM ONLY boards, so when they decide a model is obsolete there are no other parts sources.

Reply to
bob haller

It would probably cost them $10.00 more per washer/dryer. The company bean counters look at it as a cost of the whole company output. If the manufacturer builds a million units, it would be another ten million in production costs.

I repaired a problem with an electric clothes dryer equipped with digital controls last week. The dryer was acting weird and would not behave itself. It turned out to be a loose connection at the circuit breaker. The arcing of the bad connection was putting electrical noise on the power circuit and the electronics and digital displays were going nuts.

TDD

Reply to
The Daring Dufas

There are companies who will repair washing machine modules at very resonable prices. here in the UK one such company is QER in Workington.

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Ron(UK)

Reply to
Ron

For long life look at Commercial units, they cost double but our last set lasted 35 years , until they fell apart from rust. Nothing is made like it used to be, but look at the prices from 10-20 yrs ago, prices are nearly the same so corners are cut.

Reply to
ransley

The obvious solution to this problem is to buy laundry equipment with conventional electro-mechanical controls. (Assuming they're still made.) My GE washer and dryer are over 10 years old, and I expect them to last at least another 15.

Reply to
William Sommerwerck

That's why we are sticking with older style (still available) electro- mechanical control appliances. Also keep around useful bits and pieces of items that may go wrong! Presently for example, we are using a well used dryer that cost, some years ago, one dozen beer (then about $16 Canadian). Guy advertised it; called him up asked him what kinda beer he liked and was there within the hour on other side of this small city in my pickup. He and I got it up some rather steep basement stairs (I'm in my mid 70s!) and asking him why he was getting rid of an ostensibly good dryer he said "The wife wanted a new dryer/washer pair"! Got it home, downstairs by myself and plugged it in; although my neighbour always ready to help. It's worked fine ever since, although I did change the plastic hose to a metalized one; apparently insurance companies have reported older plastic ones can sometimes cause fires! The only repair need at time was to remake the electrical connection of the cord on the back before pushing it into position. It had not, originally been done very well and the outer shell of the rubber cord had sprung out of the anchor/connector at the dryer. Our 20 to 25 year old top load washer washer was rebuilt some 5+ years ago using the tub out of a relative's washer that had transmission problems (something to do with a bad batch of steel back then?). It also needs a look at one contact on the timer, it occasionally does not complete the last two-three minutes of its spin cycle. Got a spare timer from an identical washer on hand anyway. Finally replaced the venerable (30 years?) dish washer. It worked OK but was really noisy and getting quite grungy, with a free one, which needed only one minor repair (open solenoid coil on water inlet valve) not as quiet as the most modern ones but it washes better than the one it replaced. We are on our third/fourth used stove; but the main point is that none of these appliances have electronic controls and my level of technology and spare parts allows for repairing them at low/zero cost. New electronic control 'boards' etc.are reputed to cost in excess of $70? One can currently get a complete used appliance for less than that! If the electronic control board goes faulty in a microwave appliance it is usually necessary to scrap the whole thing. Know what you are doing though. DC voltages of 5000 and microwave radiation that can 'cook' human flesh and eyes are present.

Reply to
stan

It can be tougher!

If you ever go to an automobile wrecking yard, take apart something electronic on a vehicle which has to do with safety. Like an anti-lock brake electronic control module or an airbag monitoring module or the airbag crash sensors. These things are built like a tank!

Then take apart something which does not have anything to do with safe driving, and if it breaks, will not cause any safety issues. Like electric door locks, power windows, power trunk release, etc. These are all a piece of junk! And the switches which control these things many times will not be sealed. This allows dust to get in and the switches stop working after a period of time.

They want things to break, When things break, they get added revenue from repairs. Some people will purchase a new vehicle instead of having these things fixed. It means money for the dealers and manufacturer!

Actually I have seen many lower end products be better quality and the higher end products have all sorts of things which are designed to break and need service. I think they do this thinking lower cost product buyers don't have the money for repairs, but higher end product purchasers do.

Reply to
Bill

Having had to have the DME (Porsche-speak for ECM) on my 944 completely resoldered a few years ago to allow the car to run reliably, I am amused by your post... I guess Bosch is not the end-all be-all of reliable electronics manufacturing.

nate

Reply to
Nate Nagel

I recently saw on Craig's List one Whirlpool/Kenmore direct-drive top load washer for free that said it needed a new clutch. I saw another one for free that said it needed a new motor. Either of these are easy repairs on a direct-drive. If I had room to store them I would have gotten them for my daughters (if they ever move out).

Reply to
Ulysses

I had to replace the circuit board on my RV furnace. The old one looked like it was basically just underbuilt. The circuit paths were very narrow and all the components were the smallest values possible. The replacement board from a company that just makes circuit boards was much beefier plus was a better design as far as function goes.

I don't get it because they could spend a few more bucks on the electronics and make it more reliable and simply charge a few more bucks for the appliance. Instead they get a bad reputation.

Reply to
Ulysses

Its the "walmart syndrome" at work. People are trained to think that price and not value is all that matters. So manufacturers do their best to make cheap stuff to meet low price-low value demands.

Reply to
George

Yep. In consumer electronics, for every dollar added to the cost of a board, the final product ends up costing about $4 more at wholesale, and perhaps $6 to $8 more at retail. Needless to say, keeping costs in line is fairly important to the manufacturer. Minimal design and component selection is epidemic everywhere. Having worked on some of these designs in the distant past, I can assure you that the choice is make it cheap or it won't sell. I called it the "NBC" (Nothing But the Cheapest) effect. However, think positive. The only thing that has prevented electronics from hitting rock bottom in quality are the various regulatory and certification agencies, which demand a minimal level of quality to insure the survival of the user, not the product.

Drivel: One of my friends is a rabid advocate for enforced quality in product design. He wants minimum Federal quality standards for consumer products along with mandatory lifetime testing, mandatory warranties, and litigatory relief. His theory is that if the US can't compete on the basis of price, it will need to do so on the basis of quality. Sounds like a plan. However, he recently rebuilt and remodeled his garage and bathroom. Instead of the highest quality contractor, he went for the cheapest and lowest bid, with predictable problems and over-runs. When I suggested this might be a bit hypocritical, he got very angry claiming he couldn't afford the best. Welcome to where theory meets reality.

Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

$$$

Reply to
Bob Larter

Well when you get right down to it, why does it need circuitry at all? It's a motor and a heat element. They do that to make more money. How would they make money if the damn dryer lasted 25 years like they used to?

Reply to
Steve Barker

That's a good plan, but hard to implement. When my washer last died, the problem was a riveted switch/relay assembly that's no longer made; I was able to patch in a relay in parallel with the defunct component, because the schematic was printed on the box.

It wouldn't have been easy to trace the fault without the schematic, and it would have taken a lot of remachining to fix 'just like new'. The fault was with conventional controls that were mass-produced in complex assemblies. My replacement relay was a tiny gold-plated aircraft/military part, with four times the capacity of the original.

So, for repairability, you need (1) conventional controls (2) conventional (no surprises inside) components, preferably labeled (3) documented functional blocks, so you can determine what function failed.

Reply to
whit3rd

I used to repair similar circuit boards often replacing the parts with beefier ,better quality parts. I worked myself out of a job. The particular boards I was repairing were only used by a reativly few and once I made my repairs/mods they almost never failed again. Part of may also have been that my customers realized I wasnt actually troublshooting the board, rather I was repacing everything on the board with better parts. They could do that for themselves.

Jimmie

Reply to
JIMMIE

If you collect enough of them, your daughters will HAVE to move out! ;-)

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

Are you sure they aren't using Lucas?

Reply to
Michael A. Terrell

| > Having had to have the DME (Porsche-speak for ECM) on my 944 completely | > resoldered a few years ago to allow the car to run reliably, I am amused | > by your post... I guess Bosch is not the end-all be-all of reliable | > electronics manufacturing. | | | Are you sure they aren't using Lucas? | Old joke:

Q: Why do the English drink warm beer? A: They have Lucas refigerators.

Reply to
iws

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