The Marble and the Dishwasher

I used to be a hardware person. I then lived through the 'hybrid' years, when hardware mixed with software, and knowing how to read, disassemble, edit, compile, and program a 2764 EPROM would enable you to do most things. After that we have the current era, where software is all, and hardware seems to increasingly be little more than a platform to run code on.

But sometimes hardware and engineering do come in useful. Like yesterday when the dishwasher stopped working...

Nope, nothing blocked, no build-up of lime-scale, no broken timer mechanism. Much simpler than that!

The mains switch wouldn't lock in the On position, and so no power was getting to the electrics. A little bit of experimentation showed that something inside the switch had failed, and all that it needed was a little bit of pressure on the switch, and 'normal service' would be restored. Which is why I went looking for a marble.

A glass marble. The one I found was blue glass, with a swirly yellow bit in the middle, but that isn't important here. Armed with the marble and some clear tape (aka Sellotape, but that would be advertising) I placed the marble where a 'pressing finger' would go, taped it in place, and the dishwasher was working again. A victory for hardware, or for bodging - it depends on your point of view.

The picture shown here is with the switch in the 'Off' position, but you should be able to tell that from the position of the marble and the tape...

Of course, with a 13 year old dishwasher, getting spare parts isn't always possible, and I was intrigued that they didn't ask if I had a marble and some sticky tape, but they didn't, and so that was that. Time to start looking for a new one.

Of course, the marble is still fine, undamaged by its ordeal (or lack of), re-usable, ready to be pressed into service as an emergency general purpose fix-it device. What? Don't tell me you've never mis-used a marble?

( Glass marbles are available from toy shops. Sticky tape is available from many stationery shops and office equipment suppliers. Repairing dishwashers with this kind of advanced and highly technical equipment is done entirely at your own risk, and this article in no way recommends the use of marbles and sticky tape for any sort of repair. Do not try this at home. )