"Nate Nagel" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

finally tore down my dishwasher today after getting sick of doing dishes
by hand and striking out on Craigslist. For those of you that missed the
first installment, a transformer exploded a couple streets over late
Sunday night or early Monday morning and blowed up some stuff in my house
(a surge strip, an electrostatic air filter, and my dishwasher.) I've
already ordered (online) a new power supply for the air filter, and
replaced the surge strip and the TVSS breaker that was in my main panel
(the "protected" light was out on one leg.)

Turns out that the failure of the dishwasher looks exactly like the
failure of the air filter; on the power supply board there is a
orangeish-yellow dsc-shaped component soldered onto the board about 1/2"
in diameter, and it appears to have failed with extreme prejudice. Am I
correct in assuming that this is a MOV? Could I just do a component level
repair of this rather than replace the whole board? I really hate this
dishwasher and don't want to spend a lot of money on it. If this is a
MOV, is value important, or simply "bigger is better?" I'm sorry for the
dumb questions, but I'm not particularly electronically knowledgeable
(made it through two EE classes in college and I think I've forgotten most
of what I learned) just trying to get this back up and running. If
Trible's had still been open by the time I got it apart, I probably
wouldn't be asking the question, but if there's a chance I could fix it
today...


If it is the MOV, you can just cut it out of the circuit and try the washer.
The mov is basically an open circuit and shorts out when a voltage higher
than what it is rated for hits it, then opens back up when the voltage
returns to normal. This is to protect the circuit board from voltage
surges. If they get hit with too big of a surge they may blow off the
board.

If the washer works, feel free to use it, but replace the mov as soon as
possiable incase you get another surge.
You may want to unplug it or cut off the circuit breaker when it is not in
use, especially if a storm is near.

The bigger is beter is still in effect. Keep the voltage rating the same,
but you can go up in the power rating.