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Dead Washing Machine


Gyn_Paul
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No, it's not the dead state of the machine I need help with (not yet anyway) it's more the fact that there's 9kg of wet washing in it!

So does anyone know (short of the Manchester screwdriver + brut force option) if there is a secret way of opening an Ariston/Hotpoint Aqualtys washer.?  The machine developed a short some time towards the end of its cycle - probably between empty and spin, judging by the fact there's no actual water in it - which took out the whole house at four in the morning, so obviously I can't plug it back in and press 'stop'.  I did imagine there would be a timer (discharging C, perhaps ?) which would release the child-proof lock thingy, but - no - it's been mort now for some 4 days and it remains resolutely immovable.  I can't deal with it at the moment (producing and doing the sound design for a play which goes up next week) in fact I won't have a moment to myself until Sunday 10 dec, by which time the washing will be VERY moldy-smelling if I can't get it out.

Help !

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On mine - which might not be exactly the same - there is a removable plastic panel at the base of the front of the machine. I hook my fingers underneath and gently pull and the panel detaches. Inside there is - in my case - an orange plastic toggle which, when pulled, releases the door lock.

Sometimes 2 or 3 tugs are needed on the toggle if there is a quantity of water in the drum.

Sue
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Have you isolated the machine, unplugged it or tripped the breaker?

 

Normally a few minutes after the mains power is removed you can open the door wherever it was in its cycle, there is a wax capsule that does the timing without mains power.

 

My commercial machine has a nylon strimmer wire to pull to open the door if the wax capsule fails, it involves removing the soap dispenser housing to access it.

 

Tha wax capsule timers are a safety device to prevent someone opening the door while the drum is still spinning.

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Yea !

Thank you all. Under the panel at the base. At first sight there appears to be nothing there but the sump plug. But when you get down on the floor you can see a YELLOW (in the case of Ariston) tab which unlocks the door. Just as well there was no water in it, or I'd have had a face-full of very cold possibly soapy water.

Right. The damned thing can sit there until the play's over.

many thanks people

p

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Gyn Paul

 

If you want to repair the machine it might be very cheap and simple, my domestic one would make a huge bang and trip the breaker and ID, then be OK, then do it again, I thought it was the element because it did it more on hot washes, turned out to be the RF capacitor had exploded and was disembowelled and every now and then the alu tape would touch metal and make fireworks again, 5 seconds to remove and worked fine without it, £2 for a new one to replace later.

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I'm sure your right - much easier to deal with a catastrophic failure than a damned intermittent fault. It's about 10 years old so it's possibly chaffed wiring shorting, or the heater element going short-circuit (though unlikely given when in the cycle it died). Those sort of things are a doddle to fault-find compared to a circuit board nightmare. If it's the motor, though, then they're so expensive it's not worth the time and effort getting it out and a new one in. 21st C. built-in obsolescence and all that. Despite it being in the middle of the night, the mains failure woke me up and I got to the machine (by a process of elimination) in a couple of minutes, and there was no smell of burning, or hot mica circuit board, nor any water on the floor.... we'll see when I have the time to work on it. Unfortunately it has a plumbed-in gas tumble dryer sitting on top of it, so taking the top off will be preceeded by a good deal of furniture removing!

[quote user="Chancer"]

Gyn Paul

 

If you want to repair the machine it might be very cheap and simple, my domestic one would make a huge bang and trip the breaker and ID, then be OK, then do it again, I thought it was the element because it did it more on hot washes, turned out to be the RF capacitor had exploded and was disembowelled and every now and then the alu tape would touch metal and make fireworks again, 5 seconds to remove and worked fine without it, £2 for a new one to replace later.

[/quote]
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Sometimes it's quicker and easier to replace the whole control board, being a Hotpoint it's probably a very common one and likely easily found on the net.

You need to pay close attention to the numbers though, just one digit can make the difference between working properly or not

I replaced a blown up control board in the cooker a while back and although it's a French FAURE brand it had a Hotpoint control board, as I recall it was only around €30.

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