Our front load washer (2008 vintage) has stopped working and I'm trying to narrow down the issue.
It is a GE wcvh6400j1ww.
The GE front load washers use a 3 phase DC motor to spin the tub. The issue I was having is it worked fine and then the following morning, I loaded some wash and it appeared to start but when I came back an hour later, it had obviously stopped.
Normally if you try to start a wash cycle, it locks the door and is supposed to rotate clockwise several revolutions and then rotate the other direction several revolutions then it unlocks the door waits about 5 seconds then locks it again and starts. This is to check that the washer isn't overfilled and has weight to pop the door open.
Now it only rotates clockwise but does all the other procedures, starts filling with water for about 15 seconds then stops and drains itself and stops.
There was a service pamphlet under one of the panels that showed how to run some diagnostics test. It had a stored error code of E54 which means problem with the motor or motor inverter. None of the motor diagnostics will spin the motor.
According to several sites I looked at a bad inverter board is the most likely culprit.
There are two different versions of the board depending on when the washer was made. One is referred to as the metal inverter and the other as the plastic because of the housing. Many sites list the plastic inverter as a compatible replacement for the metal inverter.
On ebay the metal one is about 1/2 the price of the plastic one. I have the plastic one but I took a chance and bought a metal one.
Everything connected up fine but whenever the motor relay clicks on, I hear a high pitched sound from the inverter similar to what you might hear coming from a high voltage lighting driver, and the motor does nothing.
What I'm trying to figure out is a good way to test that either board is attempting to push appropriate current to the motor.
The cable going to the motor has 6 wires.
On the board the wires are silkscreened like this:
1. Yellow - Tach 1
2. Yellow - Tach 2
3. Red - W
4. White - V
5. Blue - U
6. Black - Motor Frame
The black wire connects to a spade connector on the frame of the motor.
When I connect a volt meter in AC mode to the two yellow wires and spin the tub, I can get up to about 4 volts. So to me, that seems to indicate it is working.
I'm not exactly sure how to test the other parts. I don't know if W, V, and U are standard terms for 3 phase DC motors or not.
I have noticed if the motor is not trying to spin there's 35 volts AC appearing on each wire when I reference to earth. But 0 volts between the wires.
Also which was somewhat concerning to me is the inverter is always electrically hot. The relay on the control board only switches neutral. So I can have the washer powered off and measure 120VAC from the inverter input to ground. When the relay clicks on, the inverter then measures 120VAC Live to Neutral.
So what I'm guessing is the inverter derives its standby power from Live to Earth since I do have a yellow and green wire screwed to the frame of the washer and the motor gets power from Live to Neutral.
As for differences between the two inverter boards. The Metal one (which is the older variant) has the tach wires go directly from the motor to the control board and completely bypasses the inverter board. The Plastic one has 2 yellow tach wires go from the motor to the inverter board but then only 1 yellow wire exits out to the connector. The second yellow wire is not pinned up on the plug on the inverter but both wires are pinned up on the control board.
Anyway back to the main issue, seeing if the motor is being powered. So I have red, white, and blue wires going into the motor and a black to the motor frame. How should I test for voltage? Should I be checking for DC PWM between the wires, DC referenced to the motor frame, or AC referenced to something?
There's also a warning on the washer that says "Shock hazard, some components are intentionally not grounded" I'm guessing most likely the motor.