Tom McQuinn wrote:

I have a Kenmore electric dryer. It was starting to take a long time to
dry a load of clothes. After searching Google groups for answers, I
spent a torturous afternoon cleaning the 4 inch vent (from middle of the
house with two 90 degree turns). I never did get the flexible vent
brush all the way through but I do believe I finally crushed all the
lint together from each side. Then when I jammed rags around an
electric leaf blower nozzle and blew out the clogs they left an ejecta
trail 20 feet into the yard. At this point the exhaust vent honestly
seems pretty clear. When I go outside the airflow feels practically as
strong as it does straight out of the dryer.

It is working a whole lot better but still doesn't work as well as it
used to. It seems to get hot enough. But the timer advances before the
clothes are dry. If not for this I think you could put a full load into
it and come back to find dry clothes.

Thankfully, Sears has exploded drawings available:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?M25D12DDC

And the legend:

http://makeashorterlink.com/?V58D21DDC

In reading through the dryer troubleshooting section of repairclinic.com
I see a reference to the timer only advancing when the unit reaches the
proper temperature (seems hot enough to me) AND the moisture sensor
tells it that the clothes are drying.

When I look at the exploded drawing, item 34 (very top of the drawing,
center of the page) is called 'electrode sensor'. Does anyone know if
this is a moisture sensor and, if so, do you think it could be worn out?
Dirty? Time to cough up the cash for a service call?

I do know that the timer did not used to advance this way. It might
have run a long time if you were drying something big and heavy but when
it stopped the load would be dry.

If I'm on the wrong track here, thanks in advance for any ideas that
might help me get this machine working well again.

Tom
--
NewsGuy.Com 30Gb $9.95 Carry Forward and On Demand Bandwidth

That sensor electrode is basically two metal bars, when wet and
therefore conductive laundry rubs against them the control senses this
and retards the timer to allow more drying time. If the contact bars
have become dirty so that there is an insulating film over them then the
dryer could cycle too quickly. It's also possible for there to be a bad
connection in the wiring from the sensor electrodes or a bad control,
but simply cleaning the electrodes is an easy thing to try.

It's a fairly "creative" war to sense the moisture content of the
laundry, but it works reasonably well. I think only some of the very
newest dryers actually have "real" sensors to measure the moisture
content of the exhaust air.

Pete C.