Hi,

My Smeg dishwasher was stopping mid-program and after removing the
panels, I found the drain pump to have burned out.

I replaced the pump with a new one and the new one burned out too
after a week :^(

I've bought yet another pump and performed some diagnostics, prior to
trying to use the dishwaher, as there's obviously another issue
causing this.

What I've found is that the drain pump doesn't always start to spin-up
properly. To prove this, I put the dishwasher on the drain part of the
program and found that half of the time when I apply power, the motor
spins-up properly, then other times, it just oscillates. Left in this
oscillating state, it will just overheat.

It's as if a starter capacitor is failing. I actually tried changing
the main capacitor, which is a cheap component, though it seems that
the main capacitor is only for the washer pump, as this has made no
difference.

I'm really scratching my head now.

Any ideas appreciated.

Thanks

Chris

In article ,
chris-uk writes:
Hi,

My Smeg dishwasher was stopping mid-program and after removing the
panels, I found the drain pump to have burned out.

I replaced the pump with a new one and the new one burned out too
after a week :^(

I've bought yet another pump and performed some diagnostics, prior to
trying to use the dishwaher, as there's obviously another issue
causing this.

What I've found is that the drain pump doesn't always start to spin-up
properly. To prove this, I put the dishwasher on the drain part of the
program and found that half of the time when I apply power, the motor
spins-up properly, then other times, it just oscillates. Left in this
oscillating state, it will just overheat.

It's as if a starter capacitor is failing. I actually tried changing
the main capacitor, which is a cheap component, though it seems that
the main capacitor is only for the washer pump, as this has made no
difference.

They're usually shaded pole motors.

I'm really scratching my head now.

Any ideas appreciated.

I wonder if it's driven by a triac which is burned out in one
direction so it's getting DC (either when it should be off, or
when it should be on, depending if it's an open or a short)?

--
Andrew Gabriel
[email address is not usable -- followup in the newsgroup]