Spent 5 years flipping breaker switches before I checked the actual wiring diagram

I was doing a call on a 3 year old Samsung washer last Tuesday in a rental property near Springfield. Customer said it kept tripping the breaker mid-cycle. I swapped out the control board, the motor, even the main harness before I finally looked at the wiring diagram that came with the unit. Turns out the neutral was sharing a terminal with a ground in the junction box from the original install. That was a $400 mistake on my end before the customer even paid me. How do you guys normally catch stuff like this without blowing your own time and money? Did I just miss something obvious here?

3 comments

3 Comments

linda5002mo ago

Amp meter and half hour of patience would've saved you both time.

claire_wells872mo agoOG Member

Ha, sounds like you found the short cut the hard way.

craig.sage1mo ago

Randy from my Sunday poker group had a similar thing last fall with a dryer that kept killing the breaker. He spent close to three hours testing every component, even replaced the thermal fuse which is a pain in the neck. Finally his helper just looked at the plug and noticed it was partially pulled out from the wall, not even making full contact. That simple check would have saved him the whole afternoon and the cost of a fuse he didn't need. Sometimes you just gotta start with the basics before you go swapping parts, you know?