Asko Washer Washes & Rinses, but won't Spin!

[spinless]

Greetings,

We have an Asko Washer, a compact front loader model W6984. It agitates, rinses, and does everything one would expect, but it won't spin. I have checked the belt, I have opened the little coin catch area, and nothing so far. We are 3 hours away from any reliable tech so I'm trying to sort it out myself. I replaced the motor control unit a year ago for a different issue, and it's been working fine until about 2 weeks ago.

Thanks,

Peter.

 

[henene4]

Does it tumble normally? Does it try to balance the load at all when it should spin? Does it execute any interim spins? If you select a spin only cycle, what happens?

A fault like that doesn't usually happen on a machine with such an advanced computer system like that.
Usually, there would be no tumbling at all or it might try to spin and fail to balance all the time.

Edit:

Did a quick search for parts list and I don't see any sign of a separate vibration sensor or such.
And the motor appears to be a pretty standard inverter motor.

So if it tumbles, fills, heats and drains as normal and just doesn't do anything in the spins at all, that's beyond any general trouble shooting of mine.

 

[launderess]

If washer has a brush motor then not spinning could very well mean carbon brushes are worn down and need to be replaced.

 

[henene4]

That machine has a 3 phase brushless motor and corresponding inverter board.

If there was any motor or board issue related to that, it would be all or nothing so to speak.
The most "sometimes works sometimes doesn't" I've seen in that regard was on a friends Miele W487 (basically the first ever home machine with a 3 phase motor and inverter). That machine would sometimes abort spind with very heavy loads and throw an error code - but only on the final spin, and only with stuff like towels.

 

[gizmo]

I have two suggestions.
option 1... Check very carefully that you haven't selected any sort of "no spin" option by accident. See the following page from the user manual so see the symbols that would show on the screen for a no-spin setting or cycle:
https://www.manua.ls/asko/w6984/manual?p=20

To test this, you could also test the machine on a program 13 - Spin only.

option 2... This is a suggestion based on faults I found years ago on a couple of Askos I salvaged/repaired. Many years ago - much older machines than yours. The machines I rescued were unusual in having TWO separate pressure switches, they measure the water level by measuring the air pressure in a chamber that starts off full of air (empty of water) but as water enters the washer during fill, the air above it is trapped and gets forced up a fine hose to a pressure-sensitive switch, when the pressure is above a critical level the switch flips over, the fill stops and washing begins. after the wash, the water is pumped out and at another critical point, the switch flips back to its original position. In the Askos with TWO pressure switches, the spin is inhibited until the second pressure switch has reset back to LOW Water Level - this is to make sure that the machine doesn't try to spin till almost all the water has been pumped out. It is a good "self preservation" function for the machine.

In both the machines I rescued, there was a build-up of gunk/dirt in a tiny T-piece where the single lower air hose split into two hoses, one to each pressure switch. Both machines would not spin because the second pressure switch never reset to LOW. The machine always "thought" there was excess water in the drum and refused to spin, even though it had been pumped out. Cleaning out the tiny T-piece (more of a Y-piece) fixed the problem. Both machines had long lives afterwards.

Part of the cause of the second issue is cold water washing, which is very common practice here in Australia. You need to do regular HOT washes to get rid of build-up in the machine - at least once or twice a month. So check the pressure switch (or switches) and fine air pressure hoses in your machine, and check they aren't blocked. And do a VERY hot wash to clean out the air chamber.

 

[spinless]

Spins at 400, sometimes.

Great suggestions all! Thank you. I will follow up on them. As a new development, frequently when set on 400 in the Spin function, it works. It doesn't seem to always tumble the laundry back and forth like usual, but it is spinning it out at least the last 3 cycles. It won't work on a higher spin speed. I know it was said here that there is no unbalanced load sensor, but there would have to be, wouldn't there? Is it possible that the shock absorbers are worn out to the point that the drum is sagging and tripping that sensor, and it's less apt to on the slowest speed? (400)

 

[henene4]

It senses OOB situations via motor data.

If the load isn't 100% balanced, each time the drum spins around once, the power the motor needs fluctuates.
The control can sense that data and calculate an approximate OOB situation.

For that it distributes, speeds up to a certain speed (usually somewhere between 100 and 200 rpm), stays there for a bit while checking, and if it is balanced enough, it spins.

See this video:

At about 20sec it distributes, then waits, than at about 45sec it decides it's balanced enough and spins.

That's why saying it does nothing at all during spin was so weird.
If it would decide it's to unbalanced it would just keep distributing, sensing, aborting the spin and retrying.

After a certain number of trys it would limit the spin or just not spin at all and end the cycle.

But it would always do the distribution routine - without it, at least that machine has no way of checking for OOB situations.

 

[spinless]

Now No Rinse or Spin

I am building our house so it took me a bit to get back to this. I checked the tiny hose as was suggested that goes to the pressure switch. All seems clear. As noted above, there were a couple times recently when it ran through 2 complete spin cycles, then it stopped doing them again. Now if I run a wash cycle it will not do a rinse or a spin. I tried the spin on it's own cycle and the machine just sits there making noise as if it's pumping water out or trying to, and I think I can hear the shifts that indicate the drum should be tumbling one direction or another, but no movement. On the wash cycle it skips rinse and just stops at that point with no fault message or anything. If I try to run a rinse cycle on it's own, it sits and makes sound the same as on the spin cycle but does nothing.