As an engineer, when ever a problem in any machine pops up suddenly and disappears without any action taken, half of me is incredibly scared while the other half is pretty happy it isn't my problem anymore.
By any means, faults are annoying, but faults that just disappear on their own are just fat more unnerving as you KNOW that there soon could be a fault, but never when and how.
I am back home till tomorrow so I was abled to use our Whirlpool HP dryer again.
It had that weired bug for the past several months (probably a year by now) where the sensing was suddenly just entirely unuseably inaccurate.
It all started right about when it displayed an error code twice that related to a supposedly stuck heat relay.
Though this dryer shouldn't even have a "heater relay" per se..
On Cottons, anything beyond Eco with dry level adjusted up would never finish.
Mix with reduced level would dry quite a bit after bone dry.
Easy care extra dry suddenly dried cottons spot on and super delicate would just lengthen all drying to max.
The initial time calculation however was always far to short.
So we adapted to that often just using timed drying or sensing with really low drying level settings or running a drying setting and just takeing out the laundry as we went then cancelling the cycle.
Which was fine; with it being heatpump you would just select the longer time you would estimate as it can't really overheat a load and the fine increment settings for timed drying helped a lot.
But out of the blue my mum reported that things just went back to basicly normal a few weeks ago.
It still overdries a tad, but by far more accurate and way more simmilar on each specific cycles to before the anomaly. (Example: Cottons Eco plus was perfect for one layered items, Mix and Super Delicate would dry cottons with multiple layeres well when adjusted up, Easy Care Extra Dry minus would dry thin items verry well etc.)
Now I don't know how the sensing on this exactly works as it only has 1 sensing bar in the drum, but I do know a new PCB would have been close to 200€ if not more.
I mean, how, what, why?
I don't think a bad connection - be it soldered or plugged - would just fix itself.
A broken component won't just suddenly return to normal status.
So all I can come up with is that some component broke further nulling the effect by pure chance.
If that is a positive or negative thought I am not yet sure...
On a side note here: The dryer should be 4 years this spring and though HP dryers underwent a huge efficeny, simplicity and price optimisation in the meantime, it is still a good value IMO though performance is far from perfect.
It dries just as fast and just as gently with basicly no signs of wear except for replacing the foam filter every 2 or so years.
I don't think it will get much past 2020, but it's price over a condenser payed it self back probably some time last year.
that drying is an art for a machine and engineers.
Too many variables (water hardness, room temperature, load, detergent/softener, mains voltage....)
Does the machine constantly monitor the level of dryness or does it intermittently check?
We also perceive dryness so dryness could range depending on opinion.
Wiping the insides out with a isopropyl alcohol to de-grease the sensing paddle and also wiping the track that the carbon brushes skate over too helps.
I am an opener. If I feel like things have gone on too long then I open the door or I open the the condenser flap. Have a feel whats of whats going on.
Comes to the Rescue!
