Washing Machine Solenoid Valves

http://img.tradeindia.com/fp/1/557/532.jpg
Motors price, or am I barking up the wrong tree entirely? Can't seem to open the darn things to see what's in em.

Originally Posted by Mulden

http://img.tradeindia.com/fp/1/557/532.jpg
Motors price, or am I barking up the wrong tree entirely? Can't seem to open the darn things to see what's in em.

The coil is wound with copper wire around a metal plunger, when the coil is energized it pulls the plunger upwards which then opens the water valve allowing the washing machine to fill.

The timer on the washing machine energizes the solenoid, the washing machine uses a water level switch, small diaphragm encased inside a housing which is attached to a small plastic tube affixed to the tub being filled. As the water level increases the water compresses the air inside the plastic tube which eventually pushes against the diaphragm. The compressed air when enough water has filled the tub will open a set of contacts inside the water level switch closing another to once again energize the timer circuit allowing it to advance to the wash cycle.

After the wash cycle we get the rinse cycle, the timer has cams inside and these cams now open and close the water solenoid to allow rinse water to enter the tub to get rid of soap. The rinse cycle is timer motor dependent, the length of the hump on the cam determines the duration of the rinse water.

A washing machine will have a hot and cold solenoid while a dishwasher will have only one. The dishwasher uses a float to determine how much water enters into the machine.

Dishwashers are hooked up to the hot water service of your house, after the machine has filled there's a heating coil which heats the water even more. The thing I have noticed with the use of a dishwasher and it makes for a good argument for the woman of the house to have her own is that folks who use them have fewer colds.

That super hot water kills germs, keeping the family healthy.

Your frost free refrigerator is another story, IMHO these are a breeding ground for germs and fungus. Inside there is a drain tube which carries the defrosted water down to a pan located near or above the compressor were the excess water is evaporated into the atmosphere inside your home.

A common complaint was water accumulating on the bottom of the refrigerator, the drain tube had clogged with mold. Before all the regulations on freon came to be a quick shot from the pressurized freon bottle from under the fridge would unclog the drain tube. Then you had to clean off all the crap inside the fridge that blew out of the line.

I always informed my customer that every 4 or 6 months a teaspoon of dilute bleach poured into the top side of the drain tube would eliminate the need to call in a service tech.

Re: your solenoid, toss them into breakage, your yard may ask you to remove the large plastic case that contains the valve. The older units had 4 screws the newer ones probably riveted just drill out the center of the rivet then use a pin punch to remove the remainder.

Not only an answer to the question asked, but answers to the unasked questions. I love reading your posts because of all the extra knowledge I get.

I can't believe how much Gus knows but, am always amazed at the detailed explanations. Thanks for your knowledge. I always throw them in with motors as well.

Man, I love this forum.
Thanks guys, you're all stars!

Those washing machine solenoid valves are one of my specialitys.
They have 25 grams of copper in each one. 40 = 1 Kg copper. Easy to find, mostly in pairs.

If its the same as in the pic, I lever it the top part of the band off with a screwdriver, then pull the solinoid out.
If its got a 2 peice metal band around it, I either pop the connections & pull the solinoid off, or lever the whole unit off & take it home to clean down.

The plastic is normally of 4 sorts.
Hard & brittle & easy to break.
3 peice & when you break the end off, the end ring breaks out & you can't get all the copper wire out.
Soft rubbery plastic thats a real pain to work with, I cut them in 1/2 with a axe or burn the plastic off.
Medium hard plastic, easy to break, but tears a bit too.

The wire, sometimes its a really nice phat copper wire that unravels itself almost.
Most of the time its normal copper wire, solder on each end, yahoo.
The rest of the time its 'Angel hair' wire, really really fine wire that loves running into cuts in your hands - ouch, a pain to remove as it breaks & also gets molded into the plastic bobbin, most you can get is 20grams each.

How I get into them is, wearing safety glasses of course, really easy to poke a eye out doing this.
#1. Shove two screwdrivers, 1 into each end, just the blade part, hold it so its horizontal, then bend the screwdrivers towards you & so the solinoid moves away from you, that'l break the casing.

#2. Or drop it on a metal spike in the bench vise & use a screwdriver like before.
#3 Cut it in 1/2 with a axe.
#4 burn the plastic off in a fire, thats not really that good, you need to get it real hot, which degrades the copper wire, then pull it apart to remove the carbon, messy.

Then I grab, say 4,hold them all in one hand, pull some of the wire out of each bobbin, wind it around some similar copper & start winding it out of the bobbin untill you have a ball of wire the size of a baseball.

Originally Posted by gustavus

The funny thing is on my 16th birthday which falls on Oct 5th the principal called me into his office and gave me two choices. My options, he would kick me out or I could quit school of my own accord.

I told him that I would quit and that he could reimburse me for my book rental fees, from this time on my education begins.

Back to appliance timers, the ones I'm familiar with are purely mechanical these are easily rebuilt. Usually its the contacts that supply heavy loads to the motor or heating elements that burn out.

On each non working timer that gets tossed you will find a set of heavy duty contacts untouched, people are creatures of habit, the lady of the house will alway wait until she has a full load before doing the wash. So the full load heavy duty cycle will have th most use on the contacts while the gentle load will have very little or no wear on the contacts.

Since the contacts are only riveted on you can easily salvage a good inventory of contacts from your discarded timers. No matter who the manufacture was of your particular timer it appears they all purchase the same style of contacts making them interchangeable.

Anyone with half an ounce of ambition could rebuild a timer from salvaged parts as most timers are built from the same design its the plastic cams inside that program the cycles.

For those with a higher knowledge of electronics tackling a newer timer would be a snap, usually the component that is gone will show up as a burnt item on the board, replacement parts can be purchased from places like Digikey Electronic Components Distributor | DigiKey Corp. | US Home Page

There are shops that even rebuild and recalibrate an old over thermostat for your vintage stove that your about to restore. Thermostats rebuilt, Thermostats restored*

At one time I even looked into repairing ammonia absorption fridges aka RV fridge, there's a market for the cores. I'm just giving this url as an example of whats out there. RVCOOL.COM - Supplier of rebuilt cooling units for Norcold and Dometic RV Refrigerators.

The point I'm trying to make is that you can do anything you set your mind to.Don't waste your time going to school there are plenty of opportunity you can take advantage of with out being certified.

Besides once you get to be good enough at what your dong you can challenge your ticket, its called Grandfathering a ticket, you'll have to write the test to get a trade qualification. About the only gain here is that you can now work alongside other tradesman on Union jobs.

The only trade i run into that protected its trade people was commercial refrigeration, I could still do domestic with out a ticket, but they covered the basis with the purchase of freon. But then if I was determined to continue repairing fridges from home I would reclaim my refrigerant from discarded units for reuse.

Ammonia Evaporator

There's no school like the school of hard knocks