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$33 Homebrew Dishwasher Controller

A plug-in programmable replacement for the stock controller for a Maytag 300 Quiet Series dishwasher.

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My dishwasher died so I built a NodeMCU based wifi-accessible control board for it for $32.50. Didn't even require any soldering. It works great. Full writeup here:

https://sifter.org/~simon/journal/20200706.html

dishwasher.ino

Source Code (first pass, quick hack but works great).

x-arduino - 20.64 kB - 07/11/2020 at 07:15

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schematic.png

Dishwasher Schematic

Portable Network Graphics (PNG) - 46.97 kB - 07/11/2020 at 07:14

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bastiaan.clement wrote 07/14/2020 at 06:45 point

The thing is you learned a lot now and gained skills. Next time something brakes down you know more on how to handle or fix it.

Now you can make little improvements to the dishwasher program. Its impressive what you did! Gives me hope for myself :P

For example, the last stage of the program is the proces of drying.... it strikes me that you have a enclosed environment with a heating element and keeps heating until it is dry, it would go much faster if you could vent it. I know the humidity needs to go somewhere.

But with your custom program it is opening doors for tweaking and improvements. :)

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Simon wrote 07/13/2020 at 21:27 point

Yeah, the control panel was going to be $150, plus the time to find, order, and install that.  But that would just have gotten me an ordinary dishwasher.   Now I have one that properly cleans and rinses the dishes (it's definitely working better than it ever did before), and lets me glance at my phone to see time remaining (and water temp, to verify everything's still working as desired), and which I can update at any time if I decide I want a new feature.  (And no more failed washes because somebody hit the wrong button(s) and didn't notice.  The new UI--or lack thereof--is a boon.)

For someone building with the advantage of my mistakes (and parts list and files) it would be a weekend project...

I definitely wasted a lot of time shopping for parts and tools, looking for the schematic to the dishwasher (posted here to save others that trouble), and looking for connectors that don't exist, but much of that time is lessons learned (and tools and parts acquired) that will save me on future projects so not a total loss.

Not sure how it would pen out for others, but as someone who's frequently annoyed by bad design decisions and wishes I could change them, it's well worth the time for me to have a personally tailored and programmable appliance.  I'm really tempted to build my own thermostat now--it's practically identical hardware to the dishwasher controller, without the connector hassles or high voltage, so should be really easy, and I loath the one I have right now...  (And, me being me, I have issues with all the "smart" thermostats I've considered.)

I guess the fact that I'm considering doing it again answers your question.  ;)

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Dan Maloney wrote 07/13/2020 at 17:11 point

At $33 this had to be vastly less expensive than a replacement control board from the OEM. But what about the time and effort? Do you feel like you came out ahead? I would say so because you appear to have added capability and probably learned a thing or two. Just curious about how you feel about the experience.

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