I just got a problem with Indesit ICD661 dish washer (a small desktop model):

Something is rattling in the drain pump, probably some piece of something or so, sometimes the pump gets blocked and does not even start, just hums (it uses a permanent magnet synchronous motor, it relies to the impeller to be free for start).

The main question is: How to access the pump motor? I tried to remove the top cover and the plastic cover underneath the main door, but there is just something what looks like plastic base, covering all the sink assembly (filter, both circulation, as well as drain pumps,...)

Does someone have any hint or trick how to get there without disassembling the washer completely?

I just got a problem with Indesit ICD661 dish washer (a small desktop model):

Something is rattling in the drain pump, probably some piece of something or so, sometimes the pump gets blocked and does not even start, just hums (it uses a permanent magnet synchronous motor, it relies to the impeller to be free for start).

The main question is: How to access the pump motor? I tried to remove the top cover and the plastic cover underneath the main door, but there is just something what looks like plastic base, covering all the sink assembly (filter, both circulation, as well as drain pumps,...)

Does someone have any hint or trick how to get there without disassembling the washer completely?

I'm no expert at dishwashers, But listen carefully, It could be a broken part, or something chipped off of what you were trying to clean.
Could try a boroscope maybe? Or a vacuum.

Quote from: Medved on February 23, 2016, 05:07:08 PM

I just got a problem with Indesit ICD661 dish washer (a small desktop model):

Something is rattling in the drain pump, probably some piece of something or so, sometimes the pump gets blocked and does not even start, just hums (it uses a permanent magnet synchronous motor, it relies to the impeller to be free for start).

The main question is: How to access the pump motor? I tried to remove the top cover and the plastic cover underneath the main door, but there is just something what looks like plastic base, covering all the sink assembly (filter, both circulation, as well as drain pumps,...)

Does someone have any hint or trick how to get there without disassembling the washer completely?

I'm no expert at dishwashers, But listen carefully, It could be a broken part, or something chipped off of what you were trying to clean.
Could try a boroscope maybe? Or a vacuum.

I'm as well expecting some foreign piece of something had fallen there, I do not expect real damage either.
 
This pump design is used on cloth washers and many similar things and it uses to be by itself very reliable - no sealing of any moving parts allows very large margins there so it does not get stuck by itself, no leak problems, so no corrosion of the electromagnetic part,... Of course if some bigger object block the vanes, you have to remove that objecty and that is, what I'm trying to do...
But with cloth washers when you open the "filter" access port, you directly see the impeller, so it s very easy to clean it out. But here it is behind some bars in the plastic or so, so you can not access it without removing the pump.


Edit: I just managed to look there using small dentist's mirror, but there is visible just part of the upper half of the impeller. Tried to dry run the motor, but there was nothing seen. But the noise haven't occured with this experiment, so it could be the object has found it's way out of the pump... Or at least I hope so. I just tried to run normal program, if the problem will not reoccurs when the water is hot...

Picture ?

First time to me that a pump like that uses permanent magnet motor. The ones i see are all shaded pole induction motor

Picture ?

First time to me that a pump like that uses permanent magnet motor. The ones i see are all shaded pole induction motor

Some examples I have found o Google (practically the same concept with many makers):

http://img.diytrade.com/smimg/491180/23296046-1527778-0/Drain_Pump_for_Washine_Machine/1eaf.jpg

https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.isplc2006.org/b2b/pics/Drain_Pump.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.isplc2006.org/b2b/paraffin/3/&h=359&w=359&tbnid=0le0R_sQL_qz-M:&docid=Z9pMBVw6IIBWZM&ei=sG_UVpS1KMe2eImwr5AN&tbm=isch&ved=0ahUKEwiUzYWqsJ3LAhVHGx4KHQnYC9IQMwhHKBYwFg

http://img.hisupplier.com/var/userImages/old/balla/balla$7258529.jpg

http://www.hooverspares.co.uk/file/efACmSO/fb5f2dc4-f03e-4698-abdd-6058a7f8bb1b.jpg


The ferrite permanent magnet rotor is in the "wet" part together with the impeller (just on a simple stainless steel pin as the bearing, lubricated by the water itself). The rotor assembly is essentially just the ferrite cylinder, with plastic injected into it's hole forming the bearing and with many including directly the impeller blades, with some the impeller wheel is loosely coupled so the rotor may rotate freely about 180degrees till it takes the impeller with it (for more reliable starting, to eliminate the water drag for the first magnet start)
Around the rotor is a sealed plastic tube enclosing the "wet" part and separate it from the "dry" part, then around the tube is the core of the stator electromagnet (and obviously it is on the "dry" side...).

You may see practically all pumps depicted in these Google search results show essentially the same concept among all of the make and models...

I seen this design, but why the permanent magnet ? That would work perfectly with the ordinary shorted cage

Anyway, in most of such pumps that i seen, the impeller is screwed on the axis - sometimes with left direction screw thread (opposite to the direction of th3e pump spinning). If you have access to the edge of the axis from the front of the impeller, poke it in place and unscrew the impeller off

I seen this design, but why the permanent magnet ? That would work perfectly with the ordinary shorted cage

At first it does not corrode in the water - except the stainless steel it contains no metal parts at all. The induction rotor needs a combination of at least two metals, what would get dissolved in the salty water environment (the salts comes from the detergents,...). So it allows to place the rotor directly into the wet part.
Seconds it offers larger efficiency, so less losses, so allows to design it way more robust against e.g. stuck rotor (it dopes not overheat)
And the important: With this size the permanent magnet is cheaper than the rather complex induction rotor assembly (just plastic injected into mould with inserted ferrite piece). Because the thing is small, the rag material cost is less significant than the processing and assembly costs.
All the simplification above means way cheaper and in my experience (I've seen this concept in use since 90's) less problematic pump - this time it is the first time I have an issue with such pump. By the way it looks more like there is some manufacturing defect (some flange from plastic molding not trimmed properly,... - as usually, many chances to have something wrong with lousy production) - I tried to look there with a dentist mirror an have seen nothing foreign there.

Anyway, in most of such pumps that i seen, the impeller is screwed on the axis - sometimes with left direction screw thread (opposite to the direction of th3e pump spinning). If you have access to the edge of the axis from the front of the impeller, poke it in place and unscrew the impeller off

The motor usually does not contain any direction guide (no shielded pole,...), just the electromagnet poles are slightly "bended", so the magnet rests angled with no current. Then the rotation direction is random (therefore the symmetrical impeller design). So there is no thread at all. If the impeller is not already part of the single piece rotor plastic is just "snapped" onto the part with the magnet.

And the main problem I have (why I have started this thread in the first place): How to get access to that damn impeller assembly, when there is nothing like any cleaning hole (usually present in the cloth washers) or so...