No heat - sticking cycle

Dishwasher Repair
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1

Hi - I’m getting no heat from my dishwasher to either heat water or to dry (at any time/during the dry cycle). The element does not heat at any point during the cycle. The unit is running fine except that it is also sticking at about 6 o’clock on the timer. I think this has to do with the heat issue. I’m wonder if I have a faulty thermostat or heat element. I have not tested either. Any advice on this issure with this unit? The unit was running completely fine up until a week ago and no installation changes were made or done.

I guess I was hoping that the heat element would go on if I manually set it to the ‘dry’ part of the cycle (thus eliminating faulty element).

New to this, so any help/insight is much appreciated.

Thanks,
Matt

3

Here are your parts
http://www.appliancepartspros.com/partsearch/modelsearch.aspx?model=fdb421rfs1

Here is the tech sheet
http://manuals.frigidaire.com/prodinfo_pdf/Kinston/154295401.pdf

The heater circuit involves 3 parts.
Heat element (Item 1 in Section 4) should be 10 ohms approx.
Hi-limit thermostat (Item 29 in Section 3) should be 0 ohms
Timer (Item 3 in Section 1)

Best way to check the heat element and hi-limit thermostat is to remove power from the unit and use a meter.

If both are OK get back to us on how to check the timer.

If you do not own a meter, I would suggest you purchase a one. You can get a decent digital multimeter for under $20.00. You do not need fancy though it is nice if the leads are a couple feet long.
If it saves ordering one unnecessary part it has paid for itself and you end up owning a useful tool.
Most places will not let you return electrical parts so if you order it, you own it.
A couple things to watch when measuring ohms and continuity

  1. Always remove power from the machine otherwise you could blow your meter.
  2. Always disconnect at least one side of any device you are checking. This eliminates the possibility of measuring an alternate/parallel circuit path.
  3. When checking for closed contacts and continuity use the lowest scale (Usually 200 ohms). Then try higher scales. This scale is 0 to 200 ohms so if the device you are measuring is 300 ohms this scale would show an open circuit which it is not, you are just measuring outside the scale’s dynamic range.

There is a good STICKY at the start of this forum about it’s use.

4

Thanks.

Tested and the thermostat looks bad. I got an open reading and from what i’ve researched this should be closed until high temp activiated.

-Matt