I have a front loading washer with a bad motor control board ($300 part). Upon inspecting, I think I may have found the culprit. It was difficult to get a good picture, and the compression doesn't do it any good, either. You can see the little metal part with char marks that seem to join two traces (it seems that the two traces each have a 1000 uF capacitor). The rest of the board has SM resistors, diodes, and transistors. I can identify them by their labels. The burnt component has several "sisters" that are either the same width or more narrow. The unidentified components look like they are taped to the PCB. I can't seem to find a schematic; I am sure the mfr would rather me replace than repair. There is a light to heavy epoxy coating all over the back (wet service); I haven't had much luck testing with my multimeter to see if similar components have any resistor or diode properties.

Any ideas?

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I searched for that and could not find anything quite the same, and without a schematic, I am probably just skipping rocks. The part does resemble a thin ribbon of wire. Some of the similar components are thinner and more narrow that the problem child. There are no markings on the part to tell me the amperage or speed (I even got out my readers to check). I am assuming the caps are pushing a fair amount of current from time to time.

Thanks for the help. No markings on that one either. Whirlpool wants to keep it secret apparently...

Thanks for the advice. I am not comfortable putting this back in the machine without protection from an over-current condition. Too much other expensive stuff under the lid. I am thinking about trying to reflow the solder, but I have my doubts that I can power through the char at the traces. Like I mentioned, there is a thin coat of epoxy everywhere that was applied after assembly. I have to grind a bit to get a resistance measurement. I will dope it up pretty nice and use my silver-containing solder. Worst-case scenario is that I kill the motor or the main control board and second worst is that I still have a busted motor control board.

Any idea what the resistance should be on the motor? I presume it is brushless and fairly stout.

It seemed to die right after an electrical storm took out the condenser on my A/C. I am a little bit worried that there is something else wrong (e.g. control board), which is further upstream on the circuit. The machine was plugged in but not running during the surge.

That being said, this seems to be a problem with these boards because Whirlpool makes crap with cheap components. It could be any number of issues.

I concur. I went to one of the for-profit appliance pro sites, and the best answer I could get is that the error code is *probably* from one of two ~300 parts. I visually inspected one of the parts and it looked pretty good, so I think I am going to take a chance.

BTW, I tried to re-flow the fuse ends and could not make a good electrical connection. The epoxy coating seemed to seep into the bond, and I assume I didn't have much time with the soldering iron on the board before I really screwed something up.