Another exploded LG WaveForce...

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Folks are speed crazy these days-hi revving car engines-higher speed wood routers-5,000RPM 10" table saws(usual is 3,000)And hence high revving spin speed washers.Never mind that they tear themselves apart along with your clothes.And another hi speed dental drills---120,000+ RPM!open wide!Gunsmiths also like the high speed dental drills for gun engraving.
 
Thomas - because American consumers tend for the most part to be gullible. If they are "told" that is what they need, then that's what they want. No offense guys, but I dont need a 60" television. I dont have a large living room and my 34" widescreen is plenty for me. Formula 1, hockey and football are plenty big. Plus I still have a Panasonic CRT Tau HDTV. Crystal clear picture. No loss of picture from any angle, no burning of screen, no lamp to replace. And, I dont want a car that parks itself or has an electronic transmission, or a push to start ignition.

I dont know where its all going to end, but I definitely dont like the trends.
 
This machine has been the best G.E. anything I have ever had but sense it's made by L.G. I think, cause it looks just like one just smaller.The heater is below the wash plate at the bottom and takes forever to heat.That is one thing I love about Europe 220V but here most people still think 110-120 V is safer but it's not.Well in my book it's not I watched a friend die from a lamp and a chain wrapped around his hand and he just froze.I was like 9 and thought he was playing but no he died..
 
To Thomas:

> Why do people still want to have 356246346567453564563646 RPM spins?

Personally? I would love to see a machine which spins at 356,246,346,567,453,564,563,646 RPM.

That would be 5,937,439,109,457,559,409,394 revolutions every second.

The G forces on your clothing would be so extreme, your clothes would be torn apart by the holes in the tub and would be quickly sucked through to the outer tub.

In other words, at the end of the spin cycle, the machine wouldn't have anything clothing left in it. Any clothing left on the bottom of the tub (If it didn't get ripped) would have had pressures so extreme placed on it that they would be turned into diamonds...

I suppose that's one way to take care of dirty clothes...
 
Come to think of it.. can you imagine the kind of noises a machine spinning that fast would make? The inner tub would be well past the speed of sound.. not to mention the amount of current the motor would be drawing...

My thinking was, you'd need an electric motor the size of a house to drive the tub that fast...
 
um...excuse me?......

like i did not see the LG Bashing on here... either A.i got lucky or B. they all got lemons. i happen to have a WaveForce in my home and it is great. no trouble at all. one to two years of reliable service-that is what we have had. no issues. the HE3T it replaced...not so much. i believe LG is a great brand.
 
Hey Jared,

I personally don't have anything against LG myself, but I thought I should clarify why people are doing the bashing...

Just some advice.. If you ever decide to wash a comforter (Or for that matter, Any kind of bedding) in your machine, always make sure to use the bedding setting.

The people with the detonated machines seem to all be washing bedding on the normal cycle. I think it's because the machine tries to ramp up to a high speed spin as if there was normal clothing in the tub, but fails.

The LG bashing is because the engineers who designed their machines decided to scrimp on a component which could prevent this kind of thing from happening.

Yes, it is user error that is causing the problem, but like anything, it is my humble opinion that no machine should "self destruct" because a user made an error.

Instead, any electronically controlled appliance should take an "Adaptive Failure" approach. Adaptive failure is when something happens which causes an abnormal situation, so the computer takes the best action to try and preserve the functionality of the machine without completely disabling it.

An excellent example is a pinball machine with rollovers with spell "SPECIAL". If all of the rollovers are spotted, the player scores a free game. Let's say that the letter "A" rollover stops working... Players would be unable to spot all of the the letters, hence nobody could ever get a free game.

If the software was designed with adaptive failure in mind, the machine would notice that for the last 20 plays, nobody has ever spotted the "A", which would be a statistical anomaly. So, the machine would throw an error code and would disable the "A" rollover, allowing players to spot every letter except for that one to get a free game.

Unfortunately, the functionality of the machine is diminished, but only in the players favor and to the disadvantage of the machine operator. The machine is still very playable and can still continue to take in income, rather than the machine having a big "OUT OF ORDER" sign on it and being shut off, which would result in the machine not taking in any income at all.

A fatal error is defined as when something happens that the computer cannot cope with whatsoever and as a result, it completely shuts down the machine and throws an error code. This not only breaks functionality of the machine completely, but renders it useless until the problem is corrected.

An excellent example of a "Fatal" error is the infamous BSOD, or Blue Screen of Death, which Microsoft is so famous for.

The problem is, software in washing machines is only a relatively new thing. Computers have only been in washing machines since 1978 and there is a lot of new technologies which are completely unproven yet.

It is easier for a developer to write an error routine which produces a fatal error which stops the machine than to write a routine which allows for adaptive failure. (The solution for most consumers when it comes to fatal errors is to power cycle the machine and hope for the best. That's not the best solution.)

Now, what LG should have done was place a $12 accelerometer on the outer tub and monitored what the tub was doing when the machine engaged in a spin cycle. If the machine noticed that the outer tub was banging from side to side, it should know that there is a problem and reduce the spin speed.

In this case, what I'm seeing is that the machine is destroying itself, not realizing that something bad is happening and when the computer does finally see an anomaly, it just produces a fatal error saying, "By the way, I have a problem! The tub is unbalanced!" ... but this is only after the machine is in pieces. :( This is kind of like closing the barn door after all the horses have run away.

If the developer had programmed in an adaptive failure routine, the comforter would still be dripping wet at the end of the cycle, but at least it would be clean and the machine would still be intact.

In that situation, the owner of the machine would scratch their head, wonder why on Earth their comforter is still wet and they would either read the manual to find out why (Yeah right) or they would call LG's technical support, only to be told, "Did you wash your comforter on the normal setting?" ... at which point in time, the consumer would be educated as to why that's a bad idea.

So, this is a classic example of three different things:

1. A new technology comes out that is untested and has imperfections in it.
2. The software developers who wrote the code didn't think of everything.
3. The hardware engineers didn't put in the necessary components to stop this from happening.

This is an excellent example of when the hardware does not stop the software from doing something stupid.

Google for "Therac-25" .. This is an excellent example of when software isn't designed properly and the hardware isn't designed with the right safeties in place to stop the software from doing stupid things.

(To make a long story short, people were killed because the X-Ray operator used the cursor up button to correct a setting. A software bug transformed the X-Ray machine into a death ray without the operators knowledge. A hardware interlock would have stopped this from happening.)

 
Thanks! I think these LG machines are another Therac-25. (Except without all of radiation induced deaths... I can't even think about what the heck would have to be going wrong with a washing machine for it to be producing lethal levels of x-rays.)

Personally, I wish I could get my hands on one of these machines for very very very cheap, get a videocamera and a tripod and put up a video on youtube of the washer destroying itself, after "Innocently" making the mistake of washing a comforter on the normal setting.

I would personally mail a DVD of it to the CEO of LG too if I could.
 
All bashing aside, just to summarize, I don't believe that any appliance should ever "Self-Destruct" if it is used with improper settings.

The QA people should know that users will abuse and misuse their products, when they blow up, there will be lawsuits. (Even though technically, it is their fault.)

I think instead of complaining about it, we really should make our voices heard and mention quite firmly to the right people, "Hey, you made a mistake, fix it." instead of saying, "You suck. lulz..."

In saying that, I'm going to bed. :)
 
Self-Destructing LGs

I am sure they are well aware of the problem and if they don't do it on their own I hope the Feds will force a recall and LG can pay back a little of the money into our economy that they stole by dumping there junk in the first place. When LG and Samsung first came into the market around here they signed up lots of independent appliance repair companies and then refused to pay them the agreed apron rates after they did the repair work. Needless this left left a bad frist impression that they have done nothing to fix to this day. Every day we have people calling to get this junk repaired and every company is telling the customer the same thing NO call LG or Samsung and you can pay through the noise for their Factory approved Service. I think that is one of the reasons we see so many LG, Samsung, Bosch and Miele appliances on the scrap pile after a few years.
 
Miele doesn't pay either John?

That surprises me.

Qualin, that post about the Therac machine is frightening but all too typical with new technology that is not overseen by one person stepping back and looking at the whole picture. And in the judgement no one stated there should also be hardware controls in place, all they talked about were the bad software controls. You are right hardware controls still have their place to prevent user errors and mechanical failure errors. Thats why all this electric steering in cars scares me!
 
Meile Dosn't pay for Warranty serice

Jon I actually don't know what Meile pays for warranty service, I was trying to say that many folks get fed up with repair costs and just get a better priced more practicable machine. Just think of all the people that once owned a MB, BMW, Audi Etc. Etc.
 

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