On Sat, 03 Mar 2018 06:18:33 +0000, Johnny B Good wrote:

====snip====

Follow up to the report below:-

BTW, it looks like error '82' does mean the same thing, "controller
fault" since the motor triac (on the controller PCB itself) proved to be
faulty. I'm expecting its replacement to arrive by next Saturday at the
latest.

The Farnell order for a pack of five BTB16-700BWRG triacs that my lad
had put in the following day in the hope that they might arrive sooner,
arrived this (Tuesday) morning. The first Ebay order for the BTB16-800BWRG
still hasn't arrived. Assuming it does turn up by Saturday, that'll give
my stock of 'spares' a 25% boost.

I've repaired the controller board and reassembled the machine
sufficiently to run an initial test or two to decide whether the drum
motor is in imminent need of urgent attention (with four 'spare triacs'
to hand, why not?).

I'm glad I didn't bother wasting any more time and effort since the
motor ran perfectly 'sparkless' let alone 'arcless' on the high speed
spin cycle. I'm beginning to think the failure was just down to my son's
habit of overloading the machine, compounding this 'Sin' by choosing the
longest (90 minute!) and most expensive wash program to test that poor
defenceless triac to its limit and beyond.

Having successfully tested my handiwork, I finished reassembling the
machine with only *one* screw left over! A bit of head scratching led me
to partially disassembling the clip on the plastic control panel fascia
to locate the placement for this one left over screw.

I must have touched lucky the first time I'd offered the fascia up since
this second time round proved to be a lot more fiddly (there's a row of 5
push buttons and a bunch of light pipes which need to be finessed to
align them with apertures in the sub panel (light pipes) and the fascia
(button guides)). Anyway, I managed to reassemble it with not a single
leftover part in sight. :-)

The missus put a normal load through the machine without any problem.
However, a few hours later I heard a plaintive cry from SWMBI where I
recognised the word "failed". It seems our live at home son had put his
usual weekly wash (over)load into the machine using the 90 minute program
and it had given up, as best as I could make out, when attempting the
final spin cycle. Only after the XYL had redistributed the load did it
deign to execute a 'spin dry only' cycle. Not a machine fault so much as
"Operator Error" this time.

When I volunteered to tackle our 'youngest' about his cavalier attitude
to the matter of 'machine washing' his clothes, SWMBI (aka in this case,
SWMBO) vetoed this plan for fear of him 'being upset'. I think I'll have
to try a more subtle approach.

One that immediately springs to mind is to get him to print the
downloaded manual for the benefit of his mum. The 'gift'[1] from her now
estranged son may have been free but it came sans user guide so it's a
reasonable request and (who knows?) he might even browse it and learn why
it pays big time to not over (or, for that matter, under) load an
automatic front loading washing machine. :-)

[1] I took a couple of photos of the labels on the controller unit one of
which proclaims a date/time of "4/22/03 - 11:12:52 AM" which seems to be
an American date format (but doesn't state which timezone). Clearly. the
machine can't possibly be any older than 14 years and 10 1/2 months from
its manufacture. In view of the fact that it was almost brand new from
Currys when it was gifted to us, we've probably only been using it for
the last 14 years at most.

I've said it before but I think it's worth repeating, everything
considered, the machine is in a remarkably pristine state. The only hint
of its true age requires removal of the detergent tray to reveal a small,
5mm diameter rust spot on the front panel paintwork. If Zanussi are still
manufacturing their automatic washing machines to this standard
(regardless of "Badge Engineering"), I can't recommend them highly enough.

--
Johnny B Good