Hello!

We had a water pressure problem in my house and in trying to figure out what was causing the problem, I first ran a recycle, no problems. Then I took the hood off of our water softener, which in this model houses the electronic panel that controls the thing.

I was very gentle and never jostled it, and unplugged it before I did so. I'm gonna try to put some images here:





So when I plugged it back in, the display on the unit was dead and I can't seem to figure out what the problem is. If the circuit board is fried, I don't know how it happened. I'm wondering if someone knows what could be going on here, or if from these photos it's possible to tell if something doesn't look right?

Is there anything I can check besides just looking at it? And if it's just the circuit board, how hard is it to find one and install it myself (as you can tell, I don't know anything about this).

Thanks in advance

Chris

Does this unit have a plug-in transformer for it's electrical supply? Have you checked the electrical outlet, to see if it has power?

Yes, the first thing I did was make sure the outlet is working.

It has a wall wart:



and nothing else on that line until it wraps up inside the unit and connects to the circuit board on the two red connectors shown on the bottom of the circuit board in this photo:



I checked these connections and I also unplugged and re-connected the bigger red thing above it with 6 wires attached. There is nothing loose or hanging that I can see.

A voltmeter or 24 volt test light is going to be needed to check for power on those two red connectors.

I have this to check batteries. Will it work or do I need a completely different tool?



Thanks so much for your help

That will work. Turn the knob to 50 volts ac and the wall wart should provide an output of 24 volts.

So I put the red and black tips on the spots where the power cable plugs into the circuit board? I assume I have to pull those red covers off, yes? And if so, I won't shock myself, right?

Thanks again

Unplug the wall wart. Unplug those two red connectors and then put the tips of the meter cables inside each one of those connectors. Make sure the. Meter is set to 50 AC volts. Plug the wall wart back in and see if you have 24 volts on the meter.

OK, managed to do that with a little help from my wife. The line went right up the center of the gauge, which if I'm reading it correctly is 24 volts.

So this tells us that power is getting to the board. Does that right away indicate that I need a new circuit board? Could any of the other connections be wrong and/or fixed?

Thanks again

If you can get the cover off the circuit board, check and see if there is a replaceable fuse. The front side of the board does not have a fuse. The fuse would probably look like one of these.

Hi Steve - I'm posting one image of the top (screen side) and two images of the back (one in slight relief so you can see how far stuff sticks out). It seems to me that the red things on the circuit board are too small to be fuses, no? Also doesn't look like they can be popped in or out easily





Thanks for your help

No visible fuses on the board. All that corrosion/residue on the board is bad bad bad. Also there looks like a bad connection(see photo). I would disconnect all wires that you can and clean the board with a toothbrush and rubbing alcohol. You will probably need to replace the board.

Thanks so much. Honestly if I can find this thing on ebay or somewhere else, it looks like it wouldn't be hard to replace it myself. Am I crazy? It looks a lot like the how-to video shown here:

[www.youtube.com]

Boards are available from multiple sellers. Your board looks like part #7335163, but that's listed to fit a WHES40.

Thank you - yeah I've been trying to dig around for the paperwork. I think you're right and that the model is WHES40. It also looks like the installation doesn't require me to solder since the connections are made lower along the line



Edited 1 times.

Steve is right on about the corrosion and cleaning with alcohol. I have almost 60 years experience with all types of office equipment. Water and drinks being spilled in machines and roof leaks and water damage from fires with circuit boards were major problems. Sometimes the cleaning and drying resolved the problems. You may get lucky. The components on the board have a letter and numbers to identify them. R is a resistor, C is a capacitor, Q is usually a transistor, CR or D are diodes and rectifiers, J is a jumper, SW a switch, SPKR is a speaker, and F is a fuse. I see F1 and F3 close to the bad solder connection that Steve has mentioned. There should be an F2 somewhere also. Even those tiny black surface mount components can be a fuse. A check with your multimeter set on ohms will show continuity if the fuse is good or nothing if it is bad.
With the corrosion removed you should be able to see more of the component labels.
Soft drinks were the worst spillage, the acid could actually penetrate under the paint on top of the circuit traces and eat the trace away. The sugar in the drinks turned to syrup and locked up key buttons. Black coffee caused the least problems.
Clean the board and dry with a hair dryer. Test the fuses. It might just start working again if the fuses are good. If the solder joint feels loose when you wiggle the wire, it will need to be resoldered using a low wattage soldering iron and rosin core electrical solder.

Thanks so much to both you guys. I did scrub it with rubbing alcohol and a toothbrush and I was surprised at how little of the stuff came off.

I plugged it back in and got nothing. I'm gonna order another one but here's what I can see on the board:



When I Google this with Whirlpool I get a lot of suggestions (other numbers) but no match. If I say "must contain 7275892B" it gives me literally nothing. You'd think just by chance something somewhere in the world would be called that. Like I said I can't really tell what model we have but it's a Whirlpool. I'm looking for the paperwork which is somewhere in my wife's filing cabinet (I think) but in the meantime, is there a better way than Google to figure out what newer board is compatible with this one?

Thanks again

Try brushing a small area with distilled water to see if it will dissolve that white residue that looks like salt. Maybe try white vinegar and rinse with distilled water. Blow excess water off with compressed air and dry well with a hair dryer.
F1 and F3 look like varistors that were in the Sharp fax machines I serviced. They were in the circuit from the telephone line and would sometimes be damaged by surges during thunderstorms. They are much faster to react than normal fuses and protect the rest of the circuit.
I wonder where F2 is?
The number on the board is probably not the part number used by GE, Kenmore, and others that sell that softener. Search for a parts breakdown by the model number on the softener tag.

call 1-866-986-3223 as per your pics

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