KUDA22ST KitchenAid Dishwasher --> Repaired Its Weakest Link

[schwab]

Our dishwasher Kitchenaid KUDA22ST3 is repaired and running again.

Details of its failure are in this archived thread:
http://www.automaticwasher.org/cgi-bin/TD/TD-VIEWTHREAD.cgi?42234

The dishwasher failed because the control board has P1 and P2 molex plastic female connectors to the dishwasher's wire harness male connectors that had a single terminal that was charred/burned and lost connectivity for the motor's power.

CoreCentric Solutions of Chicago inspected the board and pronounced it "unrepairable" as they had no plastic connectors for this 1991 vintage board. By policy they do not bypass/work-a-round failed connectors as they cannot provide a warranty.

I was then able to take the "unrepairable" board to a local electronics shop VY Electronics in Rochester, Minnesota, were in 30 minutes Jeff bypassed the connector by soldering a separate wire directly to the board that I then connected to the correct wire of the harness with a better gauge connector. The dishwasher has run fine since.

I understand the control boards of this KitchenAid dishwasher series often fail at the motor connectors/terminals and/or heated dry connectors/terminals between the control board and wire harness because so much current is going through a "weak link."

My interest in going through all of this was to keep the dishwasher going as it has a custom cherry wood panel which matches the rest of the kitchen cabinets/woodwork.

Hope this info may help someone with a similar problem someday.

Tom Schwab
Rochester Minnesota

 

[Iowegian]

That's interesting about the Molex connectors.

MCI professional tape machines used in recording studios (equal to Ampex and Studer back when studios used multi-track tape machines) tended to have lots of problems with their Molex connectors. There were dozens of circuit board cards in those machines with Molex edge connectors - beds of nails.

We used to joke that "MCI" stood for "Many Connections Intermittent".

 

[tolivac]

Sony-MICI tape machines-have worked on many myself in radio stations and at the agency where I now work.didn't have so much problems with the connectors-but with the TU and supply reel motor drive transiistors shorting out-causing a "spinner" the machine's reel motor spins on turn on-the side that has the shorted transistor.And capstan motors went bad-esp the ceramic shaft ones-the shaft gets broken.and yes-parts failing on the boards.the device with Molex connectros we had a lot of problems with----RAM audio Co. mixer consoles.their Molex connectors failed ALL of the time.Studers are a different story-Apex and Sculleys "kings" to me-less problems and when there was---easier to fix.Studers just have too much circuitry and mechancal "gee wiz" gadgets in them.Well,some studios STILL use analog recorders-reason--analog archives better than digital-and actually easier to recover.The Library of Congress archives and transcribes,converts digital material to analog for long term archivial purposes.