Washing machine tripping fuse

ThisIsWeird

movilogo said:

The model is Bosch Classixx 1400 Express. It is over 12 years old. 

When I first connected, I could hear water filling up and the drum started to rotate. I thought all good. Then after few minutes it tripped the circuit breaker. After that whenever I tried to start it, it trips even before drum rotates. I can't explain the tick or click sound because I never heard this before. In fact for an entire decade I never really paid any attention to this washing machine as it always just worked. 

All speculation at this stage, but a few minutes delay like that might point to when the heating element is told to fire up - and blowing. Having blown, it now leaks to earth, and this could well give an instant response from an RCD, even if the element itself isn't being powered - a leak via neutral, I think it's called.

BUT, whether your specific RCDs/RCBOs are sensitive to both live and neutral leaks, I just don't know.

If it's just a heating element, then it's likely worth fixing. But we simply do not know. What about all the drum checks I asked about? :-)

EssexExile

I tried to find a local domestic appliance repair man recently but couldn't find any. I then used one of the national companies (pretending to be local on Google) which just pass the work onto a local man. It worked fine and now have the local man's number for next time.

movilogo

The drum rotates fine - no special type of resistance when I rotate by hand. If I push it front to back then it moves very little. To me it seems normal. The machine switches on fine and display shows time remaining. Only after it fills up with water and just before drum starts to rate, it trips. It had plenty of water inside which I drained manually via front pipe. 

grumbler

movilogo said:

Only after it fills up with water and just before drum starts to rate, it trips.

I think it was suggested above that it may be the heating element that is faulty. It's worth trying some modes that don't involve heating, e.g. rinsing, spinning.

ThisIsWeird

grumbler said:

movilogo said:

Only after it fills up with water and just before drum starts to rate, it trips.

I think it was suggested above that it may be the heating element that is faulty. It's worth trying some modes that don't involve heating, e.g. rinsing, spinning.

I think he has. :-(

ThisIsWeird

movilogo said:

The drum rotates fine - no special type of resistance when I rotate by hand. If I push it front to back then it moves very little. To me it seems normal. The machine switches on fine and display shows time remaining. Only after it fills up with water and just before drum starts to rate, it trips. It had plenty of water inside which I drained manually via front pipe. 

Sounds good mechanically, then.

If it powers on, and doesn't trip anything until the motor engages, then leakage via the element is more unlikely too.

It could be narrowing things down to the motor suppressor, or similar, but it would be good to know what is making it actually trip - current or earth leakage, and no easy way to check without the equipment.

Sometimes if you stand close to the breaker as it trips, you can see and hear a 'flash' to indicate it's a 'power' thing - ie a 'short' drawing too much current. Any chance of trying this? A fat breaking spark can make a percussive 'foo'* sound as well as the clunk of the breaker; an RCD break would just have the 'clunk'. Lights off in the CU cupboard - and flash as it happens?

*This needs to be said in a percussive and very brief manner - not foo as in food, but try spitting it out. Yes! Exactly that sort of sound!

subjecttocontract

Have you tried cleaning the filter ?

movilogo

Don't know what a filter is. I drained water. I also tried to open the circular cap besides emergency drain pipe (at front of WM) but could not able to rotate as it was so tight. 

I got it checked by an electrician who confirmed circuit is fine so fault lies with WM. Unfortunately he was not qualified to do check the internals of WM. I shall contact couple of WM repairer tomorrow and if they advise not worth repairing then time to get a new WM. 

macman

I' guessing that, since it was moved without the transit bolts, the drum has swung about in transit and caused some damage, which may result in earth leakage, causing the breaker to trip? Simple enough for a white goods engineer to test it.
Otherwise the coincidence is just too great.
Transit bolts are there for a reason.

victor2

macman said:

I' guessing that, since it was moved without the transit bolts, the drum has swung about in transit and caused some damage, which may result in earth leakage, causing the breaker to trip? Simple enough for a white goods engineer to test it.
Otherwise the coincidence is just too great.
Transit bolts are there for a reason.

Or it could be that the fault was there for some time, and the old house didn't have RCDs to detect it and trip.