A while back (quite a while, if I’m honest) our dishwasher started to behave in a manner which I considered was unfortunate. It’s on a timer, so it’s meant to run overnight, which it was doing. However, having finished the cleansing of the dishes, it would dry them and then with concerning frequency, it’d trip the RCD. This was irritating in a number of ways.
The fridge is on that circuit.
The upstairs lights are on that RCD.
The media server is on that RCD too, and it really doesn’t like people taking its power away without warning.
Also, obviously, there was the concerning fact that…it was tripping the RCD, there was clearly a fault. But an intermittent one.
I’d have actually been happier, at the time, if it had completely died, rather than this irritating initially once every few weeks, then once every few cycles, then fairly much every cycle failure because it mean that I ‘really should’ look at what was wrong with it. Because it might both be within the bounds of my repair skills, and within the level of effort I’m willing to put in for a 15 year old dishwasher that doesn’t have its own internal timer.
Although, the final few test cycles I did demonstrated that even with it switched off, it could trip the RCD, which indicated that it was either the cable or this side of the power switch, which gave me more hope for finding the fault.
Despite that, I must admit I spent much time dinking on ebay checking out the cost of second hand dishwashers. It turns out they’re not quite cheap enough to cross the line of “well, fuckit”. Especially since the amount I was willing to spend is pretty low (although for something a bit more hardy, like a Miele, I’d’ve gone a bit further, but not apparently sufficiently far).
Anyhow, today we finally dragged it out from its resting place and having yanked the covers I spent some time staring at it. Mainly. I found that the ‘flexible’ cable that goes to the front panel is getting a bit worn; I think I might want to fix that. But eventually, I managed to yank the mains filter:
Hrm, this thing that’s a bit melty, and who’s potting compound has cracked, I’m slightly suspicious of it.
So for a tenner I’ve a new one winging its way to me. Which unfortunately means pulling the machine out from its resting place again… but hey, maybe it’ll work again. Which will reduce the mammoth washing up sessh’s back to their more normal frequency and free up more working on the house time. Because I really should finish painting the trim, ideally this century.
