Why do manufacturers hide schematics inside their appliances? (1 Viewer)

[Dennis Nicholls]

My 2008 Maytag washer developed a problem: sometimes the cold water rinse cycle used full hot water by mistake.

I did some thinking and guessed that the problem was in either the 4 position temperature switch or the water inlet (solenoid) valve. It was most likely the switch so I ordered a replacement. New ones are backordered everywhere but I found a seller on eBay that had "open box" specials. It actually arrived new in a factory sealed bag, although the bag itself was shopworn. Kudos to him.

It was an easy part to swap out. Now my hot cycles have hot water, warm cycles have warm water, and all rinses are cold water.

When I opened up the control panel on top of the washer, I discovered a folded up paper copy of the washer's schematic. Why the heck is that hidden inside the washer? Why not with the owner's manual and other paperwork upon delivery?

I recall this happening with other appliances too.

 

[Clinton McClure]

That’s a first for me. I’ve never seen that before.

 

[Jay_Z_525]

Last week I had to replace the lid lock on our washer/dryer. Sure enough, folded into the middle panel, was that schematic. Taped in a little plastic sleeve.

 

[LeoA]

Perhaps it's for the repairmen that will be opening these up far more often than the owners, that have to deal with a myriad of different models and brands?

Many an owner would be hard pressed to locate their manual for an appliance, so perhaps this is a way to combat that issue.

 

[BobO'Link]

What Leo said - that's *exactly* why that's done. If you look at your furnace you'll likely find the schematic attached to one of the access doors - same reason. When electronics were expected to be repaired rather than replaced you'd find the schematic on the inside lid or other part that requires removal to get inside.

 

[David Norman]

That was always my guess since it makes no sense otherwise. Instead of having a separate SERVICE Manual like a lot of TV and electronics use to have, I guess it's easier just to put the relevant material where a repairman would most likely be first.
They could put it with the Regular Manual, but like LeoA said 95% of teh people I know either throw those away, shred them, misplace/lose them that seems to be an issue.

SInce everything else in online these days, I'm guessing it might be just as easy to put all that in the Cloud and let the Service Techs use a tablet to see the schematics if needed though in a lot of basements, laundry room, utility closets (and older repairmen) it might be cleaner and safer just to use the old paper hard copy

 

[jcroy]

Back in the day, the electric/electronic stuff I opened up which did not have the schematic diagram inside, were devices like tape recorders, radios, video game consoles, etc ...

Looking at the circuit board layouts, such a schematic diagram would be very complicated.

 

[jcroy]

Back in the day, the electric/electronic stuff I opened up which did not have the schematic diagram inside, were devices like tape recorders, radios, video game consoles, etc ...

Looking at the circuit board layouts, such a schematic diagram would be very complicated.

 

[jcroy]

For something which doesn't have complicated or high density circuit boards, the schematic wouldn't be as complicated and can be printed easily and pasted inside or in the manual.

 

[Scott Voth]

The other reason is if they included them in the operator's manual the enduser might be tempted to mess around with something that could kill them. I remember back when TVs had a picture tube and really back when they also had tubes in them the schematics were inside the wooden cabinet. Because of the high voltages in there you didn't want to be messing around with energized circuits unless you knew what you were doing. Also just unplugging the set shouldn't protect you because the large capacitors in there were still charged.