Old Dryer

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ptonsparky

ptonsparky

Tom
Location
NE (9.06 miles @5.9 Degrees from Winged Horses)
Occupation
EC - retired
I haven't torn apart a clothes dryer for years. My brother discovered his dryer was heating 30 seconds on 120 off. Every day, all day, most likely for several years. That's a good limit switch. He bought a new dryer.

IIRC, there is a centrifugal switch on the motor that is supposed to prevent the heater from coming on until the motor is up to speed. Is my memory correct?
 
Correct, however if the timer is manually rotated to most other parts of the cycle the heater will be energized via one hot leg. The other hot leg goes via centrifugal switch in the motor. Another possibility is that the centrifugal is welded shut, which could happen in theory as with any contact. Ive seen dryers where the heating contact in the timer welded shut.


As for the heater running on 120, sounds like its grounded which does happen when the heating elements sags in excess or breaks.
 
My brother did an autopsy on his dryer. Both the motor and timer contacts for the heater were welded shut. One of the wires to the light for the drum interior was worn thru to copper by the rotating drum. The drum, being on rubber wheels, was energized whenever the light was on. The single high limit in the element enclosure was the only temperature control. As far as he could tell, there was a spot for another, but it was never installed. IDK, maybe that was for the next model up.

He was lucky.
 
ptonsparky said:
My brother did an autopsy on his dryer. Both the motor and timer contacts for the heater were welded shut. One of the wires to the light for the drum interior was worn thru to copper by the rotating drum. The drum, being on rubber wheels, was energized whenever the light was on. The single high limit in the element enclosure was the only temperature control. As far as he could tell, there was a spot for another, but it was never installed. IDK, maybe that was for the next model up.

He was lucky.
Click to expand...

:lol:

GoldDigger, I'll bite: what is the difference between autopsy and necropsy? From what I gleaned, they are interchangeable terms, tho the latter seems to be more for animals than people.
 
JFletcher said:
:lol:

GoldDigger, I'll bite: what is the difference between autopsy and necropsy? From what I gleaned, they are interchangeable terms, tho the latter seems to be more for animals than people.
Click to expand...
The word autopsy comes from the Greek roots "auto", oneself, and "opsis" , to see.
It could either be seeing oneself, in which case human on human would be mandatory, or to see *for* oneself, which could include analysis of other animals or even inanimate objects.
It is common in scientific usage to use only necropsy, "seeing the body", for animals.
But common usage calls a lot more things autopsies.
Sometimes I get a little pedantic. (And that does not mean that I am a child molester!) :)
 
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