Need Info on Kenmore Progressive

ranzim said:

Seems to be the pickups (brushes?) where the moveable part of the reel connects to stationary wires. If I wiggle or squeeze the moveable part of the reel, the resistance reading goes wild. I was going to attempt to disassemble, but I'm concerned about unleashing the spring.

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centralsweeper63 said:

But it could be mostly fixed for free.

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ranzim said:

You know that's something that irks me. I see it a lot in Electronics forums. I follow a five page post about the problem I'm having, and after all that reading about trial and error it just goes dead -- no conclusion. What's the point? I feel the whole idea of a forum is so that your path to the solution is now documented, and available for all to refer to. It becomes a reference book of collective knowledge. Ir saves people a lot of time and grief. I depend on Forums a lot.

Anyway Paul, I won't just consider posting my findings -- schematics, photos, conclusions -- I definitely will do it! I want people to benefit from my work, not just me. And Paul, thank you again for providing me with those videos. Each one had at least some piece of useful information.

With my success yesterday (with the red vac), I see now how I should approach the problem with the gray one -- without going the brute-force route. I'll dig into that as soon as I time to and report back.

RZ

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cheesewonton said:

Sears Parts Direct sells the cord with the contact ring attached. Accessing the contact ring might not require unwinding the spring. Or it might be one of those deals where you count the rotations as you let the reel unwind before disassembly. When putting it back together you assemble it with the spring slack and then turn the reel with the cord wound around it the same number of turns it took to unwind it.

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ranzim said:

Hey Guys. The Red vac is up and running. I fixed the reel problem. I had been thinking along the same lines as C,W, when I saw his post.

I carefully unwound the reel counting revolutions, until it was fully "relaxed". There is one screw that holds the actual reel to its frame. The spring is completely contained by a separately affixed plate on the other side of the reel. (Don't touch those screws!) Once the reel is off the frame, the contact fingers and slip rings are exposed and accessible. I tried contact cleaner, etc, and it made some improvement, but the resistance readings were still not stable. I was blessed to find a scrap of crocus cloth in my tool box, and I burnished the slip rings and the contact points of the fingers. I also carefully bent the fingers to increase tension against the rings. I did this in small increments several times -- re-assembling the reel (onto the frame) each time and taking resistance measurements -- until i got it to be rock solid. I wound the reel the "required" number of times, remade the opened crimp connections, and tested it out. Ran fine, even while I "played" with the reel. Fixed! Thanks to all for sharing your ideas and suggestions.

The above description is a little brief. I'm thinking of making a separate more detailed post on how to fix the reel -- complete with a few pix. What do you think?

Also, while I had the vac apart, I took pictures, and drew a wiring diagram of the whole thing. (I never did find the "tiny" wiring diagram.) Another separate post?

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ranzim said:

You know that's something that irks me. I see it a lot in Electronics forums. I follow a five page post about the problem I'm having, and after all that reading about trial and error it just goes dead -- no conclusion. What's the point? I feel the whole idea of a forum is so that your path to the solution is now documented, and available for all to refer to. It becomes a reference book of collective knowledge. Ir saves people a lot of time and grief. I depend on Forums a lot.

RZ

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ranzim said:

Hey people. Hope you all had a good holiday. Between the holiday prep and some plumbing issues, the focus came off the vac stuff. I finally did get to do some looking at the "gray" vac. It turns out that it's the kind with "Electronic Touch Control" on the wand. That's why it has that complex circuit board. It's actually a whole different animal. The wiring, even within the hose, is completely different. Because it is so different, I'm going to start a new thread for it. But first I want to do a bit more investigation on it. Anybody familiar with that kind? RZ

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ranzim said:

Hey CW. Happy New Year. Thanks for your offer of assistance. Sorry I never got back to you until now. It's that post-holiday cleanup/put-away that kept me off-line. Just for the record this "gray" vac is one with the cubby in the back for the Pet Powermate and three contacts from the hose to the canister.

I had already verified the motor was good. After studying that "fancy" circuit board (with two Triacs, and some ICs -- including a micro-controller) and taking some static (ohmmeter) measurements, I decided the circuit board wasn't the problem. So it had to be the hose/wand. Taking static measurements on the hose indicated a lack of continuity. I took apart the swivel elbow. The slip rings was covered with greasy lint. Cleaned that up, but measurements still not good. Then I took apart the handle (where the push buttons are), and found two of the three hose wires were not connected. They are supposed to push into these connectors that are crimped onto the wires in the handle. They didn't stay pushed in. I trimmed off a bit more insulation, pushed them in again, and gave them a tight squeeze with a crimping tool. Now they're solid. Redid my static measurements, and now they were sensible. Plugged the hose into the canister. put the line cord into an outlet, and pressed the On (labelled Carpet High) button. It roared to life. All the other buttons worked too.

I noticed one remaining issue. The On button sometimes only just gives the motor a kick, depending on how you press it.. This is the button that gets all the use -- probably hard use. Either the switch is worn, or there a break in the solder or the foil land. (I did notice the little circuit board with the switches flexes a bit when the button is pressed.) I'm going to re-flow the solder, or if the switch itself is the problem, swap it with the medium speed switch.

Thanks again for the help and support. By the way, I did draw a wining diagram, and made a table of what the static hose measurements should be -- including what the reading should be for each button press. I can post those once I clean them up, if you think it would be useful. RZ

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