Replace your Maytag Neptune door latch wax motor #12002535 continued

Today, we are going to talk about some of the modifications I read about folks doing due to the wax motor failures and if I recommend them. 

I will start with: 1. Adding a small (250 milliamp) fuse in the wax motor 120 VAC circuit. Response: I don't recommend adding a fuse or any other machine control board modifications because it is a documented fact that the original Neptune 12002535 wax motors were defective and will fail eventually. I've sold the new wax motors for over two years and have had no failures in the field or defective wax motors from Maytag. The new wax motor has the black actuator pin. 

2. Replacing R11 with a flame resistant resistor. Response: Replacing R11 with a flame resistant resistor is OK but not really necessary, again, because Maytag has corrected the wax motor failures and R11 should never burn again. 

3. Replacing R11 with a larger wattage resistor. Response: I don't recommend increasing the replacement R11 wattage size for a couple of reasons. First, a 3 watt 3.9K resistor would burn up if you put 120 volts across it. You would need around an 8 watt resistor to have some safety margin for power dissipation. Second, physical space on the board is also limited as the R11 connects directly across Pins 1 and 2 on the Q6 triac. This may create some mounting difficulties... 

These three items are the most common modifications I read about folks performing. I would recommend that you tell everyone you know that owns a Maytag Neptune front loader about this important door latch wax motor issue. You can save them a lot of money and washer down time if they replace it before it fails by ordering it from www.neptunewaxmotor.com. In the next post I will explain more about this 12002535 wax motor and I will show you some photos of a wax motor that got a little too hot and melted down...

Until next time...