Will thank you for your video. I was about to buy a new motherboard and your video saved me 200euros (or a new washing machine for 500 ~ 600euro). Your video encouraged me to open the motherboard according to your description.
I'm working at a company where we are designing and manufacturing circuit boards for heavy-duty components and tools for industrial use and I have good experience of both designing, soldering and inspection of PCB's. After I opened the board (on the backside) I found several components that had been loosened from their soldering and there were cracked soldering all over the board there they were “heavy” and big components (as you mentioned in your video). Most cracks were for the component under the heatsink. The heatsink is quit heavy and long and it is directly attached (screwed) to the component underneath, also the heatsink lays on the component, which in my opinion, it should be fastened/screwed directly to the board instead. I understand that the component which is attached to it will vibrate more violently (because of that heavy heatsink) and in the end the component will straining its “roots/legs” and that causes all cracks and misconnections. I wish it was possible to insert/post pictures to show how the cracks looks like.
There are several issues with design of this kind of boards:
- The first problem is that the manufacturer of circuit boards has stopped using leaded solder in manufacturing because the lead is hazardous to health. Lead is a soft metal and that made that leaded solder was quite flexible and stronger. On the other side lead-free solder is hard, and very fragile, and therefore in the end with all cracked solders and a dead device.
- The second problem is that the Samsung, or their board supplier, have chosen to cover the circuit board with a silicon-like glue to minimize the vibration effect and/or isolate the board against corrosion because of high humidity. They may have thought that they have found a workable solution, but the problem is that this “jelly-alike-glue” will not help any components to be fastened on its place, that heavy heatsink is not even covered with that jelly-glue, when the device vibrates, heatsink will vibrate more violently(just go on and try to vibrate gel and observe how the top of it vibrates more violently) in the root, and when it vibrates, all bigger and smaller components will vibrate together simultaneously.
on the other side, this jelly-glue goes off very easy from the board, which it shouldn’t. As I know how this process should be done, the entire production process has been wrong from the beginning. The board for instance have never been primed before gluing, which would increase the adhesiveness of the jelly-glue.
The solution will be, as you may find in Braun rechargeable Shavers for instance, is to cover the whole circuit board with melted glue or industrial hard glue. In Braun case, even the batteries attached to the board are covered with hard glue. - The third issue is the design of mainboard itself. When I start to re-solder the pins and connections, I realized that the components pin-hole are oversized and pads are undersized. The pads are there to solder (attached) the components to the circuit on the board. That means the components have too little support for that kind of force and vibration the board is exposed to. You may find this kind of boards in all cheap “one-dollar” China-products.
Summary: short and consistent, the board is designed and mentioned to malfunctioning. You may say it is another conspiracy theory, but how would Samsung and other companies survive if their products last for ever?
And this is the problem that occurs in the Samsung echo bubble products and eventually all other product with this solution will stop working after a few years. This is the result of a poor designed and solution for this kind of motherboard.
This is evidence of poor quality of Samsung washing machines or/even other Samsung devices that will stop working after 2-3 years. I think Samsung must take responsibility and replace the motherboard in goodwill/warranty, because this is a quality problem during manufacturing which Samsung must admit.
