Compact Dyers are one of the most important inventions of the twentieth century. Nearly every home-owner has one and there isn't a better way to dry your laundry, although you'll see people arguing for using clothes lines on a nice summer day. Being as vital as they are to modern life, it's important to understand how they generally work.
Mostly everyone knows how to use the machine: you check the lint trap, you load up the machine, dial up your settings and start it up. Since the modern compact dryer is so reliable, problems are rarely encountered with them unless its owner does not provide the necessary routine maintenance.
The main component of a dryer is its tumbler: This is what rotates the clothes around inside of it. This is powered by a simple belt and electric motor setup. One of the most common issues with compact dyers is belt damage. If the clothes are no longer spinning inside, this may be the issue.
The heating element can be gas or electric powered, but this generally just works like a toaster oven or a blow dryer minus the fan. It uses super hot wire coils to heat up the air and entropy takes it into the main loading area. If your dryer is spinning but isn't actually drying, you most likely have an issue with the heating element.
Because of all the dust and random particles that cling to clothing even after a wash, the dryer needs a system of venting it outward. If it didn't have this: dust could get into the heating element (possibly causing a fire), your clothes would eventually get dirty from a cycle, and the entire machine would just stop working. This problem is fixed by using a lint trap/filter and a fan to act like a centrifuge for the air; with the circulation it removes the dust/lint out of it and shoots it into a tube which exits outside of your house.
Older dryers will have actual gearboxes connected to their cycle switches and newer ones are electronic. This will gear ratio for the tumbler and the voltage settings for the heating element. The main reasons these options exist is for drying thermal sensitive materials, and for the option of using less energy to dry a smaller load. If something goes wrong with the panel, you won't get any response from trying different settings.
Compact Dryer
How a Compact Dyer Works
