Am I the only one who ditched OEM control boards for universal ones?

Last month I walked into a job with a busted control board on a 7 year old Whirlpool dryer in Austin. The OEM part was $180 and 3 weeks out, so I grabbed a $45 universal board from the local supply house instead. Took me an extra 20 minutes to wire it up with the diagram, but it fired right up and the customer was happy they didn't have to wait. Has anyone else had a universal board fail on them after a few months?

3 comments

3 Comments

dakota_nelson431mo ago

Woah, wait, you got a universal board working in a Whirlpool of all things? In my experience those things can be real finicky with certain brands, so that's kind of impressive. I've had a couple universal boards come back after maybe six months, but honestly the cheap ones usually have a simple fix like a bad relay you can swap yourself.

gonzalez.reese1mo ago

Did you try swapping that relay yourself, @dakota_nelson43?

angelar571mo ago

Nah, swapping relays on those cheap boards works sometimes... but you gotta be careful with Whirlpools cause they do that weird voltage sensing thing. Had one come back three months later and it wasn't the relay, it was a cracked solder joint from the factory.