Hi. About a year ago we obtained a new clothes washer with fancy electronic controls.
Over the past few months we’ve noticed occasionally (apparently with increasing frequency) that the washer will stop mid-cycle and flash an error code. Restarting the machine typically fixes the problem.
We’ve observed that this behavior seems correlated with power “flickers” that happen in our house fairly often (and perhaps more often than in the past). Whenever our A/C comes on, the lights dim for half a second and then recover. In fact, when the neighbor’s A/C comes on, our lights flicker. Other times there isn’t an obvious reason.
Is it possible that our washer’s woes stem from some fault in our house’s power supply or even farther up the line?
If so, what options do we have? Whom would we call to diagnose the problem?
Call your power company. They will be able to read voltages at various points along the distribution grid. It is possible that the transformer feeding you, your neighbor, and perhaps other consumers has grown undersized owing to increases in demand. In any event, they will determine if the problem is theirs or yours.
Early PC chips like the 6502 were originally developed to control washing machines etc.
Computers don’t like power surges, and they get very upset it there is a momentary outage.
Since your neighbours can trigger the problem, there is something wrong up the line.
Hmm… a few years ago my Bosch dishwasher ceased working, it was out of warranty, but I had bought an extended warranty but had no evidence.
The repair guy made a great play of testing the power supply before even looking at the machine. Which might be relevant in your case.
It turned out to be a blown FET, the guy started looking nervous and shifty when I ID’d the component and started sniffing it. In hindsight I reckon it was probably a known design fault, possibly under recall, and he preferred £200 from me to a fixed rate.
I’m suspecting that there is a bad connection developing somewhere. A certain amount of “flicker” is normal whenever a heavy load is switched onto your electrical system (like the AC turns on), and the fact that your neighbor’s AC can do it to is probably just a result of the fact that both of your houses are fed from the same transformer. You’ll also get flicker periodically during the day as the power company switches things on and off (they often switch banks of capacitors on and off to compensate for the general inductance of household loads, for example).
When the flickering gets worse, that’s generally an indication that something is going south. The most potentially dangerous problem is that your ground is degrading due to corrosion, and the voltage in your house is fluctuating dangerously because it’s losing its ground reference. I’m guessing that whatever it is, it’s a fairly local problem. I doubt that it goes up further than the transformer that your (and your neighbor’s) house is connected to.
I second the recommendation that you call your local power company. This may be the first indications that something is about to fail, and it could fail in a rather spectacular way at some point. Someone could get electrocuted, something could catch fire, or the transformer could explode and send pieces of metal flying for hundreds of yards in every direction. Note also that the fault may be located somewhere that you are financially responsible for its repair.
I would also complain to the guys you bought the washer from. While electronic controls are more succeptible to this sort of thing, it still seems to me that the controls for this thing are far too sensitive to power problems. Brownouts and power spikes are a fact of life. The thing should have been designed to withstand them (IMHO).
I once lived in an apartment where the landlords had converted the place from a small factory to a bunch of subdivided apartments. Naturally, my chums and I were among the first to move in.
They had not bothered to step down the voltage from 220 to 110. We fried a water heater element every MONTH in that place, and light bulbs lasted an average of two weeks.
Check your outlets with a voltmeter, or have them checked by a reliable electrician.
Thanks for all the advice. I wondered whether to start with appliance repair, an electrician, or the power company. I guess the power company is a good place to start, but will keep the possible ground problem in mind.
Folks, this is electricity we are talking about here. Let’s not send our erstwhile OP on a snipe hunt that might ultimately earn him a jolt. Standard wiring for N. American homes uses a 3 wire, single phase system. Because there are two live wires some people mistakenly refer to it as two phase. It isn’t. It does, however, have multiple legs.
It is 120V from either live leg to the ground. They aren’t out of phase with each other, though. They both derive their potential difference from the same primary input, and their voltages cycle in unison.
Let’s not have the guy accidentally grab a live wire in place of ground searching for a mysterious missing phase on the other side of the breaker box, hmm? If either leg is unbalanced in voltage (different than out of phase), the other leg is going to be out too. This is evidence of a ground fault, and it is not something to mess around with. It’s best to call an electrician.
You’re correct about the terminology, but I knew what he meant–I probably should have corrected him, but it didn’t seem all that important. Besides, one need not go grabbing wires to find a circuit on the other leg. Just find out by trial-and-error; flip a few breakers with lamps plugged into various outlets. I agree it’s probably not a problem with a single leg but it’s not all that unlikely, either. Nevertheless, it couldn’t do any harm to try and it might solve the problem until a more suitable, permanent fix can be performed. I also agree that an electrician should be called, regardless if switching legs works or not.
