Always use and check your strain relief.

[A.Justice]

My Mother-in-law's dryer stopped working. Pulled off the back power panel, and found this. A combination of, what I assume is, corrosion from the moist environment, and a loose strain relief caused a hot wire to somewhat slip out of the crimp terminal, spark and melt under load, until it finally slipped out and shorted to ground against the dryer case. Yikes. That particular dryer was professionally installed.



I just went around our house and double checked all of our appliances for tight strain relief screws.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Our electric stove had a loose nut from the factory. Usually, a loose connection at the cord would be labeled installer error and they wouldn't cover it under warranty, but they had had so many reports of loose nuts from a particular manufacturing date range they realized they had bad assembly at the terminal block. If the installer didn't catch the loose backer nut at the time of installing the cord (and many wouldn't) then it would overheat over time and fail. Ours burned out the terminal block and fried some of the wiring. Thankfully it just stunk bad when it melted down. They covered everything with a profuse apology.

 

[rcrracer]

There are other problems in those images. Can you take some pics in the other direction, that include the cable and how it connects to whatever.

 

[Shimmy]

There are so many problems there that it is hard to call the installation "professional." No insulators on ring terminals, improper wire type, cord set jacket not present... the list goes on.

 

[SparkyJJO]

Um, that is a normal cord. That's how they come from the store. I know, weird, but it is.

 

[Shimmy]

Um, that is a normal cord. That's how they come from the store. I know, weird, but it is.

The outer jacket is what should be under the strain relief, not the individual conductors. I know some of the cordsets don't come with insulators on the ring terminals, but that doesn't seem matched to this dryer; the terminals seem to be too close together for uninsulated rings. Either way, terrible practice not insulating them.

 

[400bird]

What about the neutral (white) and ground (green) on the same terminal!

There's so much conversation here about neutral ground bonds in inverters and sub panels. Here's one in an appliance!

You should probably straighten that out. The drier probably just runs on 240, and doesn't need the neutral.

 

[Shimmy]

What about the neutral (white) and ground (green) on the same terminal!

I think that comes down to accommodating either a 6-50, 10-50, or a 14-50 cord. I think all the green wire connects to is the chassis.

 

[400bird]

I think that comes down to accommodating either a 6-50, 10-50, or a 14-50 cord. I think all the green wire connects to is the chassis.

Correct, the green wire should connect to the chassis. The white and green connected to each other is my concern.

I suppose it does depend on what's connected at the plug end. But, lacking other evidence, it still looks like the neutral and ground are connected.

 

[A.Justice]

I assume the dryer came pre-wired for a three wire outlet, and whoever installed it didn't remove the neutral ground strap or split the ground wire. It WOULD be grandfathered into code if the dryer was retrofitted to use an existing three wire plug. However, it's on a four-wire plug, and I've put the ground to chassis, and removed the neutral strap to bring it up to, what I hope is, code.

Code section is 250.140

Using an uninsulated crimp terminal seems to be standard practice for appliances, brand new OEM cords from home Depot at Lowe's don't have any sort of heat shrink. I cut the old ones off of a new cord and added my own marine grade heat shrink connectors though. The terminal block has been replaced as well.

 

[Shimmy]

Using an uninsulated crimp terminal seems to be standard practice for appliances, brand new OEM cords from home Depot at Lowe's don't have any sort of heat shrink. I cut the old ones off of a new cord and added my own marine grade heat shrink connectors though. The terminal block has been replaced as well.

It is ok as long as there is sufficient space for the crimps to be kept safely separated from each other. (Not good, just ok)

The OP installation was waaaaay too close together for an environment with damp lint. That is a serious fire hazard.

Mental note... check my fricking dryer connection.