Dishwasher not drying (paging Napoleon?)

I'm not the original owner, but if I had to guess it's probably ~10-15 years old. I had to replace the control panel as soon as I bought it 2 years ago, and it's been great since then.

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are you using rinse aid?

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No.


So I had it all apart last night, checked the element and thermostat, thermal fuse is good, and I didn't see any obvious failure signs on the circuit boards. The latch switches seem to be working (though I'm not sure why there are two of them), and other than the lack of heat it seems to work fine. It runs for a long time, uses the detergent, and the dishes are relatively clean.

I also cleaned out the drain, and since I have two children there were several popcorn kernels, melted straws, etc. in there. But the blade wasn't jammed up or anything, nothing seems to be damaged.

I put it back together this morning and it's running right now. I did clear the error yesterday, ran it again, and the error came back. I have of course cleared it again, so when it finishes this time hopefully it is magically fixed.



Edit: It has worked through the water heating cycle (has indicator light) at least twice now, so fingers crossed that something I did helped. I've read that after the element and thermostat, other potential causes of this problem might be a clogged drain or finnicky latch switch, so I will see I guess.


Edit2: So it finished and the dishes are hot and dry, and the error flashing didn't come back. I wish I knew exactly what caused the problem, but at least I didn't waste any money buying the wrong part.

Glad it is working. Something I did that has helped is clean mine about once a month. Run a cycle on the hottest water with a cup of vinegar on the rack. I use a 2 cup Pyrex measuring cup half full. Follow that with a short cycle, but sprinkle baking soda all over the inside first. And get Jet Dry or whatever brand drying aid, not the rinse aid. Jet Dry is about $15 on Amazon, since I can't find it locally. Grocery stores only seem to carry the Rinse Aid. The bottle lasts me about 6-8 weeks, and we pretty much run the dishes every night.

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Thanks for the tips. I'm definitely going to be more diligent about cleaning it out now that I know what ends up in there. And I hope the heating issue was caused by slow draining.

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Yeah, I removed the drain cover area on mine, and while it wasn't filthy or filled with stuff, it wasn't spotless either. I scrubbed that out with a nylon brush then ran the cleaning cycle. My issue was that they weren't drying up top, and then it turned into them not being fully clean. Took a couple of cleanings, but finally got the nozzles clean on the upper sprayer and it has been much better. There is still some stuff, like lids for toddler cups, that don't get completely dry, but the cups and stuff up top is mostly dry now when I pull it out. Also if I can open the door a little when the cycle is over, the steam can escape rather than settle back on the cups.

On that model. Most likely a bad relay on the PCB. Usually pull it and test the relay with a 9 volt battery. A lot of times the solder just burned out and the relay is good.
I doubt its the heating element with those ohms. It could also be a thermal fuse, some machines have a thermal fuse on the heater circuit.

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Two latch switches, one for neutral one for power.
If one fails, jump the neutrals and use the working switch for the black wires.

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Old bump update in case it could help anyone else.

The dishwasher has mostly worked pretty well since I started this thread, except the flashing light and unfinished cycles have been happening more regularly (maybe 1 out of 3 washes lately). I had always suspected the switches, so I would just work the latch a bit before each run and it was usually alright. I've noticed it hasn't been cleaning as well, but I chalked that up to a recent change in detergent.

Anyway, I finally decided to get back on it and I pulled the switches. I put my meter on them, and while they both "worked" I could get them to read a few ohms before they would click back open. I know it's only $1 in parts, but being impatient I disassembled them and sanded the contacts a bit (they were kind of rough). Put them back together and now they read only either 0.0 ohms or open, no in-between. It's running right now so I'm not 100%, but I'm pretty sure that solved the problem.

Side note and question about the less-than-clean dishes: might be my imagination, but it sounds like it's running with a bit more gusto than before. Is it possible or likely that the switches were putting up a few ohms of resistance and sapping power from the pump?