DIY Washing Machine Motor Repair

The washing machine motor is the heart of the unit, the most important organ, without which all the others will not work. Of course, when the motor burns out, you need to solve this problem as quickly as possible, but buying a new part can be quite expensive. Actually, like buying a new machine. But what if you can repair the washing machine motor and give it a second life? Let's see if this is possible, and if so, how?

First, the "engine" needs to be removed

There are three types of washing machine motors: inverter, collector and asynchronous. At the moment, most washing machines around the world are equipped with collector motors, so we will consider the entire procedure using their example.

Naturally, you need to start by disassembling the washing machine and removing the motor itself. Disconnect your home assistant from all communications and position it so that you have free access to it from all four sides. Get to work.

• Remove the panel that hides the utility lines. For front-loading machines, this is the rear panel; for top-loading machines, this is the side panel. Unscrew the bolts and slide the wall down.
• Find the pulley (the large wheel next to the drum) and the drive belt that goes onto it. Grab the belt at this point, turn the pulley and remove the belt. The procedure is similar to replacing a bicycle chain.
• Remove the wiring from the motor.
• Using a socket wrench or other suitable tool, remove the screws holding the motor in the socket.
• Remove the engine. It is held on by straight pins, so you need to take it out by slightly rocking it down and forward. Experienced craftsmen lightly tap with a hammer to make the task easier, but it is better not to risk it, you do not want to accidentally damage the part.

Usually, the dismantling process is easy for users. Now that you have the electric motor in your hands and in front of your eyes, you can start diagnosing.

Test run of the extracted engine

It is necessary to start the engine in test mode. To do this, find a source of alternating current with a voltage of 220 volts. Connect the rotor and stator windings in a series circuit and connect the alternating current source to the remaining connectors.

You will be very lucky if you find a powerful car transformer, with a power of more than 500 watts, with its help it is very good to feed the circuit. The revolutions of the operating engine will be easier to control. Fuses with a current of 5-10 amps can be included in the circuit for greater safety.

When the engine starts to rotate and picks up speed, check for strong sparking at the point where the brushes and the collector touch. If there is strong sparking, the electric motor is most likely faulty. In general, the brushes, collector lamellas, as well as the rotor and stator windings are the most vulnerable parts of the motor, which most often fail.

We check engine components with a tester

If the cause of the malfunction lies in the rotor or stator winding, this can be identified by the specifics of the engine operation: the power is weak, extraneous noises appear, and during the test run it gets very hot. A multimeter will help to check this guess. It must be set to measure resistance. Now do the following:

• Find the engine passport, where the reference measurement values ​​are given. Then sequentially apply the multimeter probes to the rotor lamellas. The discrepancies in the values ​​should not be more than 0.5 ohm, and the values ​​themselves should correspond to the reference values. If there is a deviation, there is an interturn short circuit,
• If there is no passport, you can try a tactile and olfactory method of determining the malfunction. If the resistance in the lamellas is insufficient, the current increases, which leads to heating of the lamellas, you will feel it with your fingers. At the same time, a characteristic smell of burning will appear,
• If, on the contrary, the resistance goes off scale during the test, this indicates a break in one of the windings,
• Now, using the same scheme, you need to ring the motor stator. Measure the resistance between the winding contacts,
• Now you need to check the short circuit of the windings to the stator housing. Apply one probe of the multimeter to the iron part of the stator, and the other to all the contact rings in turn.

If the stator is operating without interruption, the resistance value will be very high, most likely reaching hundreds of Mega Ohms.

Are the slats intact?

The rotor lamellas are held on by a special adhesive material. When the rotor jams or a short circuit occurs between the turns, strong heating occurs and the lamellas begin to peel off. It is also possible that the contact in the rotor section has broken.

Sometimes small nicks appear on the lamellas, which causes the brushes to wear out faster and spark heavily. The reasons for such a breakdown may be the rotor jamming or the start of washing with the drum flaps open in vertical loading machines.

Are the brushes intact?

The brushes are part of the motor, so they need to be removed for diagnostics. Let's look at the algorithm of actions using the example of a Bosch washing machine with vertical loading. Bosch manufacturers use standard collector motors in all their models, so the information described below will be relevant for the vast majority of washing machine owners.

• Remove the engine and position it so that it is convenient to work with.
• Older motors had brushes under the top cover, so you had to remove the motor to get to them. If your motor is like this, mark the location of the retaining screws on the housing and stator with something before you take them apart. You can use a bright marker or scratch the marks with something sharp.

If you mix up the sides during subsequent assembly, you will only run the car and find that the tachogenerator coil burns out. The tachogenerator is responsible for the engine speed, and the coil itself is wound on a wire as thick as a hair. If you make a mistake, the voltage will be supplied not to the brushes, but to the coil, which will cause a burnout.

• In modern engines, the brushes are removed without disassembling. Find the side of the electric motor opposite the shaft. There you will see special platforms, each with one wire connected to it. To pull out the brush, remove the terminal from the platform by prying it with something sharp.
• On the platform you will see two small niches. Move the platform to the left so that the recesses coincide with the metal sides-holders of the brush.
• Use something to lift the brush and remove it.

Now take a close look at the product. New brushes are about 35 millimeters long, while those that have been in use for a long time are 5-10 millimeters. Based on this data, determine whether your brush is still fit for service.

Engine Troubleshooting

All the above-described problems are quite accessible for DIY repair. In the guide below, we will go from simple to complex, and we should start with the brushes.

There is no point in describing the installation process in detail, as it is intuitive. In extreme cases, repeat the steps described above in reverse order. However, as for the details themselves, a few words should still be said about them.

Almost all brushes produced in factories are glued, and few people manage to find original spare parts in retail stores.

But there are plenty of solid elements from third-party manufacturers on store shelves, and this puzzles ordinary users. Moreover, on the Internet, some craftsmen actively persuade to use glued brushes because of their softness, but it is simply impossible to verify in practice whether this is true or not, so you should not worry: take what you can find.

The next most difficult repair is the rotor lamellas. If the problem is neglected and the lamellas are peeling off too much, the rotor cannot be repaired. But if the lamellas have peeled off by only +- 0.5 mm, then turning will help.

• Fix the rotor securely to the machine.
• Start the machine.
• Make alignment by thickness.
• When the procedure is finished, it is necessary to perfectly clean the gaps between the slats so that not a speck of dirt remains there.
• Next, ring the lamellas for resistance with a multimeter. If the short circuit still does not disappear, repeat the cleaning procedure until it is completely eliminated.

What should those do whose lamellas have peeled off more than 0.5 mm or have come off completely? You can safely get rid of the old rotor. It is practically beyond repair. In rare cases, something can be done, but you cannot do without special expensive equipment. As for the stator and rotor windings, you can still repair them, but it is not economically feasible. You cannot do it yourself, you need to look for a person who will agree to rewind the winding, but he will charge such a price that it is easier to buy a new engine and even pay a specialist for installation.