Electronic control update
After posting this thread, a few folks have asked how my "adventures" with the electronic control on this dryer have been going. After nearly 3 months of experimentation and tweeking, I think I have finally achieved HOH electronic dryness control "nirvana".
My goal was relatively consistent "nearly dry" clothes on the "Regular" setting. What I mean by this is that there may still be the slightest bit of dampness in the seams of jeans, in the heaviest part of towels and the elastic bands of heavy socks and underwear. On the Wash-n-wear setting these items are either completely or nearly completely dry.
What ultimately worked was using the original electronic control with a new Dayton PMPC-6.8 6.8uF 250V Precision Audio Capacitor with one of the drum wire baffles disconnected. I bought a set of 4 of these capacitors with the following ratings: 4uF, 5.6uF, 6.8uF, & 8.2uF. I dried various loads using all of them and the machine was still consistently overdrying with the exception of the 4 uF. The problem with this one was that the Air Fluff time had dropped to about 4 minutes.
The next step I took was to remove one of the drum baffles from the sensing circuit and start a new round of experiments. According to John (Combo52) this was one of the tried and true "field methods" for dealing with this problem. It seemed to do the trick. With the 4 uF the load was only damp dry on "Regular" and with the 8.2 uF it was nearly completely dry. So, I tried the 6.8 uF and that seems to be about perfect. The "Air Fluff" is still a bit on the shy side of the factory spec of 9-12 minutes. (Right now it's around 8-1/2). I can live with that.
There seems to be a good deal of mystery surrounding what rating of capacitor Maytag originally speced on the wire-baffle HOH (pre-1968) dryers. The writing on the old capacitor made no sense to myself or to a handful of electronics people to whom I showed to to. There seems to be general consensus that the bar-baffle HOH dryers (1968 and later) originally had an 8 uF capacitor on them. That, however, was often increased by the addition of a 1 or 2 uF capacitor in parallel if the customer complained that the dryer was under-drying.
I thought I'd post this info here for anyone who is looking for info on these electronic controls. They are a marvelously simple and effective example of "Space Age" technology applied to home use.
