DIOGNOSTICS
Machine dead. Won’t turn on. Power good. Door light works. Door switch good. Belt good. Belt switch good. Thermister good. Thermal fuse good. Test both dial board on-off switch and go switch good. Conclusion. Bad main board.
COMMENTS
The LG DLG2302R is actually a pretty good machine. It is remarkably easy to take apart once you know the key, which is the top that slides backwards after removing three screws. It’s like a Chinese puzzle box. From then on it’s an easy disassembly but the screws are of all different sizes for no reason whatsoever. The sub units were apparently assembled in different facilities. It might be good to look at the instructions once in awhile when disassembling but the instructions are pretty useless, lost in translation or something. A few things I like especially well is that the drum is supported by two sets of rollers and the belt can be set using both hands and that’s real nice. Also the drum is symmetrical and can be turned around I think. There is some pretty good engineering in the unit but it has some serious drawbacks. I’m thinking that the technology of drying clothes should have evolved sufficiently by this time to avoid some really bad engineering mistakes. First of all the connections are almost impossible to remove without special care. The front panel has to be taken out before the connections are removed, something not addressed in the disassembly giude. The connections need to be carefully wiggled back and forth with pliers and disconnected slowly. For all the flair and computerized processing there are no built in diagnostics telling you what’s wrong. With all that advanced circuitry surely someone could have come up with codes that may show what’s failing. In my case since the main board blew it could not do anything but I had to be sure before paying out big money. In order to exclude everything else I had to disassemble the whole dryer and test the belt switch, the thermister and the thermal fuse and the door switch.
Why in the world did they cover the main board with silicone? I will never know but I think that some over zealous engineer decided to protect it from moisture. He probably never bothered to notice that the entire circuit board is well protected and away from moisture and that there is no history of a dryer main board dying from moisture exposure. These are very hardened components and with the silicone there is no possibility of testing or repair.
I suppose my biggest complaint about the unit is that it had very little use and should not have broken down so disastrously because my daughter often used our other dryer a 15 year old Maytag that has never failed and gets hard use. And of course the new machine went south just months after the warrantee expired, although I suspect a service guy may have cost me more anyway. Every other dryer I owned had worked for many many years before failure and it was usually for an obvious wear and age problem. I would give this unit a 2 on a scale of 5 for reliability. If they are going to make a machine that is robust, then the main board should be the focus of that reliability. It is obviously not the case with this machine. The main board is simply not adequately hardened.
ADDITIONAL
The sheer web availability of main board EBR36858802 leads me to believe that this is a common problem and that there should be common outrage in the consumer community much like the Maytag Neptune R11 main board problem. Anyway I would advise anyone who wants a higher end dryer to stay away from this model.