Electric Dryer diagnostic help

Well, in this guy’s defense, what you described is a GE Slimline loadcenter. I wouldn’t put one in a house I wanted to be hit with Jewish Lightning. They’re that bad.

I would budget for a replacement, but I wouldn’t pry the thing off the wall for no other reason than someone said it is too old.

Now, a Federal Pacific loadcenter, those are always good for a fire damage claim. FHA won’t underwrite a loan for a place with an FPE loadcenter.

 

Spent the last 2 hours trying to troubleshoot a Maytag dryer to no avail... It's electric, model HYE3658AYW. Won't start, pressing the momentary start switch it sounds like an electrical buzz/hum from the motor. The usual suspects all seem to test ok- the 2 thermal switches right before the heating element, the heating element itself, the door switch makes the light come on/off in the drum. Belt is ok and with the drum removed the motor seems to spin by hand with minimal resistance. Really hoping it's not a $300+ motor...

 

also found and checked the cycling thermostat, timer resistor, and breaker on the motor housing- all good. Clues on how to test the motor itself ?

 

Check the motor capacitor.

 

Thanks. Where might that be? Only thing I see on the motor is the "auto-resetting breaker" right next to the main connector.

 

don's see any capacitor listed on the "motor +drive" schematic for my model

 

Cap may be integral to the motor. Without knowing the pacifics of it, if there’s no cap in the wiring diagram or parts list you’re probably looking at motor replacement.

 

I'm afraid so- I can see all around the motor pretty well and not seeing any cap. Now to decide whether a $200 motor makes more sense than a $100-150 used working dryer...

 

If you're handy try wiring the motor to an electrical cord to bypass all the other stuff so you can isolate it
The motors are usually 120 vac, double check the nameplate to be sure

 

Not in an electric dryer. 240v motor.

 

Mine is 120
The element is 240
It's an old dryer, not sure if that matters

 

That don’t make no sense.

Old dryer circuits didn’t have a neutral. If there wasn’t a transformer in the dryer to generate a neutral, it would have to use the ground as a neutral, and that’s a big no-no. No way that would pass a UL lab.

New dryer and range circuits are 4-wire with a neutral, but that code was put in because people were using them for multi wire circuits and using the ground as neutral.

 

When you buy a new dryer, and you will eventually, buy a Speed Queen, no matter what it costs you.

 

Go on Amazon and by a new heating element that is a kit, dirt cheap and has all the sensors as well. Just swap them all.

 

All of what you say I agree with but here's the motor, says 120/60
https://www.amazon.com/Whirlpool-279827-Dryer-Drive-Motor/dp/B00DM8JA5S

 

I wish the motor for my dryer was $65... but you are correct that it's 115V. This is the cheapest one I found https://partsdr.com/part/w10410996-dryer-drive-motor?model=HYE3658AYW, ordered it and a new belt as PM. As I mentioned earlier, the heating element and other sensors look/test good and the rest of the unit is in nice shape.

 

Replace the power cord.