Susan Brown

[Susan Brown]

Hi William,

The first sentence of the question has important technical terminology: You’re testing a micro switch in a live, 12 V DC circuit. That tells you all you need to know – the switch is in a circuit which will have at least one load.

[Susan Brown]

Okay – just did that for you.

[Susan Brown]

Hi Anthony,
I see that you completed the Module – would you still like me to reset you?

Right – the board would not be a suspect

[Susan Brown]

Hi Gustav,
If any of the lessons require a tech sheet to answer the quiz questions, we will provide it. Any other tech sheets you need can be gotten from Appliantology. I notice that you sent in your Student Membership request, but it doesn’t look like you set up your account first, which is necessary before we can upgrade it. Please see Unit 2 of the Appliantology 101 course on how to do that, then let us know.

[Susan Brown]

With the right messaging to your customers, a few days here and there would not be a problem – they wouldn’t even have to know. They could just assume that you are so busy you can’t schedule anything until the following week.

For the couple of months stretch, that’s a little tougher. You would need to let people who contact you know that you are temporarily unavailable for service calls until a certain date. This means that people will have to call someone else, which means they might become that person’s customer in the future, too. But not always. We’ve seen techs who needed to pause their business due to injury or something like that, and plenty of their customers still contacted them in the future, even if they had to use someone else in the interim. If people like you, they will call back!

[Susan Brown]

Hi Rudi,

That’s an interesting and great question. My first thought is that this would be great to post at the “Dojo” forum at Appliantology, so you can potentially get feedback from other techs.

How long are you typically unavailable? Are you talking days or weeks?

(We have a booth at several trade shows a year, so I have an idea of the type of work you are talking about.)

[Susan Brown]

They do need to total 120v, but they will only have equal voltage drops if they have equal resistances. Remember, the voltage drop of a load is proportional to its resistance. (Thus the equation E = I x R)

[Susan Brown]

Yes, [answer hidden] What effect does the detector switch have on the circuits? In other words, what is its function?

• This reply was modified 1 year, 3 months ago by Susan Brown.

[Susan Brown]

Hi Ian,
Some of this should become more clear as you continue through the Module. Units 8 and 9 especially.

Here’s a quick summary.

L1 and L2 each provide 120v to the element. Because they are out of phase with each other (when one is negative, the other is positive), there will be a 240v voltage difference driving current. If the circuit is working (current is flowing), then you would measure 240v (voltage drop) across the element – from one side to the other, or “L1 wrt L2”.

If you measure 0v across the element, that means one side is open and no current is flowing.

When you have a 240v circuit where one side is faulty (open somewhere), it is hard to know which side has the fault because you’ll still measure the 120v (with respect to N) present at either end of the element, coming from the side that is “good”. (You don’t have this issue with a 120v circuit, since only one side is “hot”)

That is where “half-splitting” the problem – disconnecting one side – can show you where the fault is. The open side will go to 0v wrt N.

Does that help?

[Susan Brown]

You are on the right track. But why would the power for the Booster behave differently than for the Ignitor on its path to/from N?

[Susan Brown]

Hi Phillip – check your email. I just sent them to you.

[Susan Brown]

The triage tool is only as good as the tech using it, but AI is subtly put forward as the means to change a PCM into a real tech.

Yep! AI might make any type of tech more efficient, but does not change the type of tech that they are.

[Susan Brown]

Your comments make me think of our articles/videos about Dummy Directions and other problems with technical documents, which is why a tech needs to have this know-how!

Here are a few of them:

https://appliantology.org/blogs/entry/1259-video-errors-omissions-and-dummy-directions-in-service-manuals/

https://appliantology.org/blogs/entry/1260-master-samurai-tech-radio-episode-29-appliance-repair-triage-tools-or-dummy-directions/

https://appliantology.org/blogs/entry/1256-schematic-basics-lg-wall-oven-no-heat/?tab=comments#comment-2863

[Susan Brown]

Interesting… screens for the valves, or in the hoses? Do you have a part number I can look at?

[Susan Brown]

Hi Scott,

“The ignitor stays on the entire time the burner tube is ignited in a gas oven.” Not the entire time the oven is in use. Does that clear it up?

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