I am going to discuss what we have typically found wrong with Dyson digital Airblade motors (such as in the AB01 and AB03) when repairing these machines.
As there isn’t much information on the internet yet about Dyson Airblade repairs, but over time we at Dyson Medic hope to address this.
Dyson have traditionally been quite secretive about Airblades; they offer no repair information, no exploded drawings, no part numbers and are even reluctant to supply simple consumable spare parts without a serial number and a pint of blood.
The spares supply networks that exist for the trade to obtain vacuum cleaner spares are not served with Airblade spares. Parts supply is currently limited to a handful of quite determined appliance dismantlers and grey importers.
Indeed, Dyson have recently point blank refused to supply the after-market trade with simple things such as filters even. So dont expect any assistance from them at all with Airblade repairs or spares. But fear not, all is not lost.
We recently covered how to get inside a Dyson Airblade hand dryer. In this article, we are going to discuss what typically goes wrong with the motors.
Having opened up your hand dryer, the motor is located inside a bucket assembly that looks like this.
Getting inside that is a simple latter of a few screws. Once inside, we find two major components, the digital motor itself that looks like this.
And a printed circuit board (PCB) that looks like this.
The PCB is marked with the part number: 11943-01-01. It is the same board on both AB01 and AB03 models.
I recently had the opportunity to play about with half a dozen apparently non-working motor bucket assemblies, and together with cross testing each component with units I knew to work, I drew the same conclusion on all. The weak point is not the motor itself, it is the PCB.
On all the half a dozen I tested, the digital motor itself worked fine when coupled with a PCB known to work. However, none of the PCB’s worked at all on a motor known to work. This non-scientific test, albeit with a low number of units, tells us that in all likelihood, we need to focus upon this PCB as the likely source of motor bucket assemblies that do not work in the future. Looking at a digital motor in bits, there is really very little to go wrong with those.
Please note: This PCB in the motor bucket assembly is not to be confused with the other PCB that goes in the black box by the side of the motor bucket assembly.
Examination of the PCB’s I had show most to have failed in the same place. Observe the burn marks in the circle in the photograph below.
The opposite side of another board is shown below, also with burn marks.
Those four little aluminium components on the board seem to be the weak spot. On most I looked at, one (usually an outer one) had burn damage. Its a fair bet this is the reason they don’t work.
Here is the part you knew was coming: Dyson will not supply this part on its own (in fact they pretty much won’t supply any part as we already touched on). You may very well think that is built-in obsolescence……..
We couldn’t possibly comment. 
So at this point, you have two options. Replace the whole bucket assembly (you can get one >>here<<) or have the PCB repaired by a specialist.
I have just sent six of these off to a PCB repair specialist today, so in the near future I will be able to update you with information about if they are repairable by a competent person.
Other repairs and troubleshooting will be the subject of future posts. Its a work in progress…….
Resources:
You can get reconditioned and new Dyson Airblades >>here<<.
You can get Dyson Airblade spare parts >>here<<.
You can read further Dyson Airblade repair topics >>here<<.
You can read other Dyson Medic topics on Airblade hand dryers >>here<<.
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