Appliance Repair

Testing the Drain Pump Circuit

Name: Testing the Drain Pump Circuit
Uploaded: 2026-09-09T01:31:48Z
Duration: 2 min 7 s
Description: Learn how to identify wire colors and gauges on a GE washer schematic and use that information to test the drain pump circuit. See where to measure for 120VAC and how proper troubleshooting can determine whether the problem is the drain pump or main control board—before replacing parts.

Learn how to identify wire colors and gauges on a GE washer schematic and use that information to test the drain pump circuit. See where to measure for 120VAC and how proper troubleshooting can determine whether the problem is the drain pump or main control board—before replacing parts.

Hard Skills

Appliances

Electrical

Juan Morales

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Transcript

Now, you see pin number two is line, pin number three is neutral, and they say C20 and B20. What that actually means, if we look at the table over to the left, okay, the letter is gonna be the color of the wire and the number is the gauge. So C-20 would be, if we look at the table, right, C is actually brown.

And I believe the reason, the reason we do that is because C is, uh... or, or like chocolate is brown, so we basically say C is always gonna be brown. And, uh, the neutral line is B20, so that would be black, right? If you look at the letter B, it, it means black. Now, the gauge of the wire is gonna be 20, so this is essentially a 20-gauge brown wire and a 20-gauge black wire.

And of course, that's what you'll see. You'll see brown and a black wire. Now, in your world, it is not gonna look, um, like this, right? The, the board is not gonna have an open connector. It's actually, actually gonna look like this right here, okay? You're actually going to see a connector attached to the board, and there's your brown wire and your black wire.

So tho- those would be pin number two and three. And if you place your multimeter leads across pins two and three, and you start the drain pump, guess what you're gonna see right there? 120 volts AC. All right? And this is so great because now you can troubleshoot, right? If you have a no drain situation...

You know, when I was a tech, I would say, "Well, let me swap out the drain pump and the main board and call it a day." But I was actually maybe wasting money in, in parts because what if it was just a main board that wasn't supplying voltage? Well, if I measured it, then I would get my 120. But what if the drain pump was the one that was bad?

Well, I didn't really know that because I just swapped them out, and I just basically wasted a very good, you know, a perfectly good main control board for no reason whatsoever. If you are in property management, my friends, and you are swapping out parts and you're not troubleshooting, you are costing your company thousands and thousands of dollars.

Because swapping out parts is easy. Troubleshooting is not, but troubleshooting is gonna save you a ton of money in the long run. Believe me when I tell you this