Duet Water fill/Rinse issues

[stevet]

We have a WP WFW9150WW00 Duet which is just over 2 years old and it seems to have a problem when it comes to filling up to rinse after the main wash. That is to say, it will not fill with the normal amount of pressure into the dispensewr so the bleach is not dispensed nor is the fabric softener if used.The rinses are nearly non existent as far as filling with water.

The initial wash fill whether hot, warm or cold all work fine but when it goes to fill in the first rinse which dispenser the bleach, the water will trickle into the machine and there is never enough water to rinse the clothes. So then with each spin cycle, sudsy water is extracted and is flung against the door glass and seems to accumulate in the boot even though the boot drain holes are clean.

This happened about 8 months ago and I changed the fill hose which seemed to fix it but then it reverted to its old habit at which time I changed the fill valve which also fixed it until now.

It seems that it will return to normal pressure if we wait enough time to restart the machine like 10-15 minutes, but then the slow to no fill occurs again during the rinses.

I thought maybe somthing was clogging the drain trap causing the sudsy water backup during the spins or water was staying in there and causing the pressure switch to think there was water in the tub. That changed nothing after cleaning it out as well. We did a wash with warm water and extra rinse and nothing happened after the initial fill again.

So, would anyone want to venture a guess or a solution? Is it a valve problem, a control board problem, a pressure switch problem?

I am going to take the hose off the switch when I get home today and make sure it is not blocked in any way so I will report back later on that.

Hopefully I can get this resolved.
The lady of the house has already commented to the effect of "Yeah, talk me into another front loader the next time we look for a machine!"

Thanks
Steve

 

[runematic]

What type of fill hose are you using?  Flood-prevention type hoses are not recommended.  Also, check the screen on your water valve on the back of the washer.

 

[stevet]

Hoses:

I am NOT using the flood prevention hoses as I know thay will block the water if the valves let too much water go thru and the screens have always been clean as a whistle and I check them each time I work on the machine just in case something has gotten in the piping.
I also took the dispenser out and all the holes in it are clean, but I blew them out with compressed air anyway.

Now on to the next thing(s) to check!
Thanks
steve

 

[roscoe62]

@stevet

My duet is a wfw9400su01 and does the same thing on the white cycle.This cycle when chosen has an auto extra rinse.So I take the extra rinse off and it fills correctly to do the first rinse the same as the second rinse. I don't know what cycle your using but the extra rinse may be the culprit?

I hope you find a solution.

 

[stevet]

PROBLEM SOLVED AT LEAST 99%

This problem had me bugged when it first happened last year and again it started this year.

Well it turned out that the really cheap wiring connectors that clip on to the water valves are nothing more than very small and flimsy flat contacts that touch the leads to the coils, These were making intermittent contact with the lead posts and would lose their connections.

It was when I tested for voltage at the coils when they should be energized and by placing the meter leads on the tops of the connectors thru wich you could see the harmess leads, the valves would energize. Disconnect the test leads and the valves shut off!
So, lo and behold, if I simply moved the connector by hand they would work sometimes!

I removed the connectors and carefully pried the connectors up and rebent them so they would make contact and now the machine is working properly. Lots of cold water going to the right spots at the seemingly right time.

One small problem remains in that just before it drains for the first rinse in any cycle, the cold water comes on for a few seconds and empties into the fabric softener chamber and then it drains out the chamber and the machine goes into its first drain and partial spin. The next segment, then adds cold water to the bleach dispenser and it empties out now. It then adds water to the fabric softener chamber again later in the cycle.

It doesn't really bother us as we rarely, if ever use softener.

I will check what Roscoe said about the extra rinse option.

It could still be a control board problem but for right now, the machine is rinsing properly and the clothes are coming out clean and not reaking of detergent.

 

[glomain]

filling

its the pressure switch, turn the bottom one in bout 1 turn check fill if not enough hit cancel then turn in some more when it starts 2 fill,took a while 2 get it right, but it works

 

[stevet]

Still not working quite right!

As time has gone by, we no longer have pressure problems with the hot or cold water during any cycle, but the machine just does not know where to send the water when filling except for the hot water which will almost always go into the detergent compartment.It seems that the only time the water does the right thing is if I use the heavy duty cycle and then the hot and or cold water will go to the right spot at the intitial fill. The bleach and fabric softener compartments are never drained completely or more than likely, water gets into them when it is not supposed to. But at this point as long as the bleach gets dispensed somewhere before the first rinse or in the first rinse if that is correct, I am fine but would really like to get this fixed once and for all. Is it in the selector board or the control board? Is there a way to fully reset the control board to factory settings?

 

[DADoES]

 
Had a look at the parts diagrams for this model.  The hot and cold valves feed directly into the dispenser (different than the Duet I have which has hot and cold valves feeding the mixed flow through a flow meter then into a diverter mechanism on the dispenser to direct the flow into the four dispenser cups).

Your cold valve (#1) has two solenoids each with an output port, presumably feeding into either the bleach cup or the softener cup ... so any cold water input can seemingly only go to either bleach or softener.

Your hot valve (#2) has one solenoid and output hose on it, which presumably feeds into the detergent cup.

Which then begs the question of how does it do a WARM fill without also flushing either bleach or softener?  Seemingly it can't.

Being that your cold water flow apparently is the problem, maybe one of the solenoids is erratic or obstructed?

 

[stevet]

everything looks good, DADoes,

But still nothing goes right. I thought that maybe I had misrouted the cold water hoses when I installed the new solenoid but theya re as they appear in the parts breakdown. If you look closely at the picture of the dispenser, you can see the water channels. H is the hot water hose and c1 and c2 refer to the hoses shown in your parts diagram coming from the cold water valve.

You raised a great question about the cold water never reaching the right spot but it did at one time. My theory is that maybe the control board sends a reduced voltage to the coils at certain times and causes the valve to open less and thus the water doen't travel too far or further under full voltage.

C1 goes diagonally to the right channel and goes to the front of the dispenser to the fabric softener cup

C2 goes diagonally to the left to the front of the dispenser and mixes with the hot water in the detergent cup sharing the channel with the hot water

The middle channel leading from the 2 cold water nozzles leads to the bleach dispenser. I think the bleach gets dispensed when both colds turn on and force each other down the center and nothing gets to the fabric softener cup.

I wonder if anyone has a service manual for this unit or the whole line of the wfw9000 series that are 2-3 years old with the 4.0 Cuft drums.

 

[DADoES]

 
I see ... the flows mix (or not) in the dispenser housing and function as the diverter mechanism.  I figured I was missing some info point on it.

 

[DADoES]

<blockquote>One small problem remains in that just before it drains for the first rinse in any cycle, the cold water comes on for a few seconds and empties into the fabric softener chamber and then it drains out the chamber and the machine goes into its first drain and partial spin. The next segment, then adds cold water to the bleach dispenser and it empties out now. It then adds water to the fabric softener chamber again later in the cycle.</blockquote> That may be a "cool down" function that for some reason is aborted (water runs for just a few seconds). The flow (from C2) is likely intended to go to the detergent cup. Do you maybe have the wires swapped between the two cold solenoids, causing the momentary flush to spray from C1 into the softener cup? Bleach dispenses with both C1 and C2 spraying, so a swap would have no effect there. You don't use softener, so it wouldn't be obvious on that point if they're swapped.

 

[roscoe62]

@dadoes

My duet USE to add cold water at the end of the normal wash cycle, for some reason it doesn't anymore, and it doesn't add any water to the bleach dispenser in the second segment like it use to either.
If I put softner in the dispenser it usually spits it out during the fill phase of the wash cycle, like it was sick or something, so I just stopped using the dispense drawer and add the detergent directly to the wash basket and no softner.