I’ve done similar to a part on my dryer’s control board, and a GPU’s vram. In both cases, there was no diagnostic needed because the part showed some kind of physical damage. You would be surprised how often things can be fixed for 1% the cost of replacing.
You got it correct there. If it’s junk, open it up, and take a look. It might be obvious. Given the rising cost of stuff like GPUs, this could become more relevant.
I had a mouse chew through the ignition wire on the ignitor on my propane furnace, which blew the board out. It cost me like 400 to do it myself after a repair guy just charged 100 to diagnose it then help3ed me over text swapping everything out. Could have been 2000 for an official repair company and way more for a new one.
Oh that’s a good one. I had a coal stove that had an idle timer (mechanical clock) to keep the fire going when the thermostat wasn’t calling for heat. It stopped working and the factory said they don’t make them anymore, but I could special order a thirty party replacement for $250. I replaced it with an Arduino, a relay shield and a 20 line program for < $10. If I was more electrically inclined, I could have powered it from the stove’s power. Instead, there is a USB cord sticking out the back =]
I could stand to have a look at my washer/drier. The washer works perfectly well, but the drier does nothing at all. It runs, but doesn’t dry. It came with the house and they’re usually expensive to run, so I’ve never really worried about it. But I live in England, where rain is our default mode, so it’s a pain to have washing up on racks in the house all the time.
Does it get hot at all? The heating element is just a coil of metal that can break. They can break easily if you put clothes in it that are too wet (like dripping). Once it breaks, it severs the current, so no heat. There should also be a fuse right next to it. These are all simple continuity checks if you have a meter.
I’ve done similar to a part on my dryer’s control board, and a GPU’s vram. In both cases, there was no diagnostic needed because the part showed some kind of physical damage. You would be surprised how often things can be fixed for 1% the cost of replacing.
You got it correct there. If it’s junk, open it up, and take a look. It might be obvious. Given the rising cost of stuff like GPUs, this could become more relevant.
I had a mouse chew through the ignition wire on the ignitor on my propane furnace, which blew the board out. It cost me like 400 to do it myself after a repair guy just charged 100 to diagnose it then help3ed me over text swapping everything out. Could have been 2000 for an official repair company and way more for a new one.
Oh that’s a good one. I had a coal stove that had an idle timer (mechanical clock) to keep the fire going when the thermostat wasn’t calling for heat. It stopped working and the factory said they don’t make them anymore, but I could special order a thirty party replacement for $250. I replaced it with an Arduino, a relay shield and a 20 line program for < $10. If I was more electrically inclined, I could have powered it from the stove’s power. Instead, there is a USB cord sticking out the back =]
You sound a lot more electrically inclined than I, if I had help it would be easy enough.
I could stand to have a look at my washer/drier. The washer works perfectly well, but the drier does nothing at all. It runs, but doesn’t dry. It came with the house and they’re usually expensive to run, so I’ve never really worried about it. But I live in England, where rain is our default mode, so it’s a pain to have washing up on racks in the house all the time.
Does it get hot at all? The heating element is just a coil of metal that can break. They can break easily if you put clothes in it that are too wet (like dripping). Once it breaks, it severs the current, so no heat. There should also be a fuse right next to it. These are all simple continuity checks if you have a meter.
Driers are simple machines. I suspect a dead heating element. It’s probably visually broken.