https://www.repairtogether.org/ is involved and there are links that give locations and times, though I don’t have it at the moment.

The process ATM already requires signing a waiver. If you bring a toaster for repair, you first sign that you won’t hold them accountable if the repairer destroys it. What you’re talking about is an expansion of that. They probably would have to mention basic safety precautions but I don’t see that as a show-stopper, at least not in non-litigious parts of the world.

That’s not at odds w/what I’m saying. The hands-off consumers can coexist with hands-on consumers.

I think if you ask them, they will explain a bit too

Yes but that’s ad hoc and generally limited to what I spontaneously bring them.

I’m saying they could get more leverage out of the movement if they say something like: “on date X, we are teaching refrigerator repair in the parking lot. Bring your broken fridge or just yourself.”

But the fact is, not everyone is made out to repair stuff. Some just don’t “see” it, others lack an true interest, and that’s just fine. Bottom line is things get repaid instead of simply wasted and replaced.

Indeed, I’ve noticed many consumers do not take an interest in learning. I have no issue w/that. The goal is only to save appliances from e-waste. But I’m saying they could save more from being wasted by having training sessions too.

I think the big incentive for everything rats do is survival. They know very well when they are not inside my walls and they are outside roaming for food, they are at great risk from predators (like birds and cats). This is why aromatherapy fails. Rats have a highly sensitive sense of smell and so if mint insense or a diffuser of mint oil is running, it’s quite intense for them and is said to be a repellant. But in reality it fails as a repellant because rats will tolerate a lot when the alternative risks death.

I don’t know why my walls are of particular interest, vs the neighbors walls. Maybe the neighbor has a cat. I wonder if I should try running a diffuser with strong odors inside the walls on the off chance that they have a better shelter to choose from. OTOH, I suppose I don’t want moisture from the diffuser accumulating between the walls.

I appreciate the insight. It sounds like no solution then… and I need to do a major renovation before insulating the roof.

I’ve seen two things that seem wrong to me though:…a) rats don’t move stone. They can destroy mortar but even then only if it’s weak from what I know.

Rat teeth never stop growing. They will scrape and chew through concrete along with anything softer than concrete, like mortar. They cannot get through glass and metal. So one technique for patching a hole is to mix concrete with broken glass. The broken glass will stop them. But if they are determined enough they would just attack the next brick. There are many bricks in the wall.

I assume you measured 5V in reference to the machines GND.

Indeed. It was in fact the 0v pin on the washing machine that is next to the RX pin.

When I meter gnd against 5v on the adapter, I get 5.15v. So both the adapter and the DMM are fine.

I heard that connecting two DC supplies together would have no problem if they both output exactly the same voltage. Of course we would never have an exact match, but the only strain on either side of the connection would be from the difference between the 5v from the adapter and 5v from the washing machine.

So I’m tempted to conclude no damage was done and the serial port was sabotaged at the factory.

(edit) The w/m also gives 5v. Turns out my alligator clip was bad. So the port may be fine.

I had the two 5v pins connected (from 5v on the adapter to the 5v pin on the washing machine). I had it that way for maybe 10 or 15 min until I was told not to. The USB→TTL adapter was a little warm when I disconnected it. Now I wonder if I damaged the washing machine port because when I meter the 0v against the 5v, there is almost nothing there. Did I damage it, or did the manufacturer disable the serial port before it got to me?

I appreciate your insights but struggle to reconcile the following with what others say (youtubers and folks in an electronics chat room):

I doubt many people use eeprom to save any kind of error. … It is far more likely that the script is just a state machine and is reaching an error state because of some missing or bad signal that it needs to continue running the script.

I asked EE folks how would a controller board sense a fault? Does the controller take resistance measurements on the components? The answer was “highly unlikely - that would be far more sophisticated and costly than what would be realistic in a domestic washing machine”. They said fault detection is based on logic. E.g. if the tacho sensor does not have increasing feedback despite increasing power to the motor, then the controller can detect from that that there is a fault. Or if the water has been filling for a long time and the pressure sensor is not detecting a pressure increase, the machine would know from that activity that the inlet valve has a problem.

You seem to suggest that the script reruns from a clean state every time and that a “bad signal” would be re-detected each run, which then implies that the machine would repeatedly attempt to fill with water, tumble, drain, etc. But that does not seem to be what I am seeing. The machine will be powered off & unplugged for days, and when powered on it instantly flashes that there is a fault (which is likely only known after attempting to run the various components). This is consistent with what a Youtuber said: the machine (not my particular model but speaking generally) stores the fault code. From there, the machine is trapped in that state until the error code is cleared by pressing a secret sequence of buttons.

Some leaked tech docs for a different model (same make) mentioned that if a fault occurs 8 times, it then becomes stored in memory. This seems consistent with what I observed. I repeatedly attempted to run the machine. Not sure how many times. Motors would run, failure hits, and then it quits. After doing that so many times (which I regret), the behavior changed. Now the machine will not even attempt to run because it is apparently trapped in an error state.

So everything seems to point to the error code being stored in EEPROM (which I believe is embedded in the ATmega32L chip). And not just the error code but apparently a count of failed attempts to run a program.

I don’t intend to modify the program. I am just looking to reset the state of the software to get it out of the fault state.

Normally that can be done by using the buttons on the PCB to enter a secret combination code to:

• enter diagnostic mode
• run various functions/cycles which normally run as part of a program
• see the error code
• reset the board

When the software detects a fault (such as a broken pump), it saves the error code. Then if you fix the pump, the software doesn’t know the pump has been fixed. So the board has to be reset to clear the error code.

The button sequence codes are secret and known only to the manufacturer. They are very protectionist. In Europe, law requires them to make the codes available to other 3rd party technicians – but only in the 1st ten years and they can also charge a fee. Consumers get no access under any circumstances.

My thought was theoretically a pro independent repair service would not want to pay every manufacturer for the secret info for every model they repair – so perhaps they would attach to the USART serial port and have a way to see errors and reset the board. But if it’s as you say, then the USART is disabled and useless to repairers. Which means I’m stuffed because I cannot buy a replacement card for my machine.

If the serial port is not disabled, you conjecture that it is likely a read-only non-interactive mechanism. That still may be useful. I was able to find the secret button combination that is likely giving me an error code which I can guess the meaning of based on leaked docs for other models, but I’m not satisfied with that. I would be useful if I could get more verbose or supplemental info about the error state.

There is some chatter about GE washing machines (not what I have) include an rj-45 port and that they released some kind of open source thing called the green bean which adapts USB to serial. On the one hand, it suggests that not all manufacturers intend to prevent communication with the PCB. OTOH, this actually seems to not be for service use but for sending notifications to the user.

The MCU is an ATmega32L, which seems to be well documented. I was able to fetch a 300+ page document and a 12 page overview of the specs.

I appreciate the guidance. But I think I can rule out insulation breakdown because I just removed the cover to the tacho generator and the ring magnet was broken in two pieces.

i just see a blank page where an article would go. There is a giant ad at the top and typical garbage down the sides and at the bottom, but no text in the article to read.

(edit) is it just an image? I have images disabled so I wonder if that’s my issue.

Thanks for the feedback! So I guess I should buy a megger. Wow… not cheap. I think I see these at local 2nd hand street markets. I often thought “what strange multimeter… so few functions” but I didn’t realize what I was looking at. I will look for something that dials “500V” and has fewer modes than a multimeter, and ideally a “MΩ” printed somewhere although it looks like they won’t all print that on the device. I should probably learn how to test the megger itself so I buy something that works.

I suppose I could try to bring the motor into an appliance repair shop and pay them to test it with a megger.

As far as diagnosis of the whole machine-- suppose it’s true that I have an insulation failure. The control panel LEDs light up correctly when powered on, then when I try to start a program the start button just blinks. Does it seem viable or likely that faulty insulation would cause the controller to behave that way? I get the impression that the blinking LED means the controller detected an unspecified fault of some kind & refused to continue, which tempts me to think that the controller is functioning correctly – unless it’s a false positive of a failure.

I really want to avoid replacing multiple major parts because I don’t imagine I can return special ordered parts.

(update) At the street market I saw something like this for €100:

https://www.tekcoplus.com/cdn/shop/products/gain-express-gainexpress-Multimeter-SM-852B-set_1024x1024.jpg?v=1553658696

which was apparently a lousy price. I also saw a megger for €160 that looked kind of like this:

https://cdn.globalso.com/hvhipot/GD3128-Series-Insulation-Resistance-Tester2.jpg

I guess that’s what I need. It’s probably a good price for what it is, but not justified for my mission.

Right but I think that safety capacitor (SC) is the last thing I care about. IIUC, I could perhaps even simply bypass the SC because it’s merely improving the power quality/safety. It’s not worth buying an SC unless I can fix whatever is broken. If I could get the machine working, I could then of course consider replacing the SC as a final protective measure – but I’m not even sure anything is wrong with the SC.

The task at hand is testing every essential component of the washing machine, starting with the motor and tacho. I would like to understand what happened with the SC and motor though. Did I wire the motor wrong which caused the SC to flash and produce bad output for a moment? I don’t want to repeat that. I could power the motor directly without the SC, but if the motor is doing upstream damage then I guess I wouldn’t want my breaker box on the chopping block.

I appreciate the explanation. Interesting to hear the term “was motor”, which I always thought of as a valve but I guess the fact that the wax moves a valve it’s sensible to call it a motor. IIUC, it’s similar to thermostatic shower mixers, but with a floor temp of 5°C.

It did not seem to struggle to spin. It seemed to have the muscle to spin with a load and water, but crapped out after ~2 seconds every time. Then after trying a few programs it died harder, so nothing happens and it just blinks. I can’t even start a program now. I wonder if the motor driver board would break progressively like that. (edit: I forgot to turn the water back on after hooking back up, so the condition did not deteriorate… it’s back where it was [starts to spin then quits]).

Thanks for the tip. I try to focus on that component. I wonder if I can send raw power to a couple terminals to test the motor.

I appreciate the feedback.

The rapid spin that happens in the wash cycle is with the tub full of water. It does not drain it at that time, which is bizarre. So it’s not trying to dump water. It’s a cheap Beko so I don’t suppose it would necessarily be as smart as other machines. When I forcibly cancel the program by holding the start button for 3 seconds, then it drains as part of the termination sequence. In the spin-only program I can hear the pump for a second between spin attempts, but it’s a dry tub in that test.

No matter what program I am running, it makes 4 or 5 attempts to high-speed spin the quits with a blinking start button light. But every task seems fine. Fills with water without issue, drains without issue, spin looks good until it gives up. It’s just opting to do the wrong task. I guess a sensor of some kind could be the culprit. Youtube is a piece of shit lately with Google’s protectionism but I might try to see if I can reach videos on this machine.

Beko is a popular cheap brand. Not sure about part availability yet. It’s a Beko wmd 26125 T.

Found repairportal.beko.com but it’s broken for me. Though archive.org’s 2022 copy of that site suggests they have spare parts.

IRC for Android ← antithetical to privacy
IRC for linux PCs that can be hardened and routed over Tor ← privacy respecting

This thread does not belong here.

I don’t have one yet. But I would love to play with using it as a radio pager.