Another obscure laundry model memory

[arbilab]

Drying methods came up in Deluxe and it reminded me of a dryer I think I remember from no later than the 60s. It had a blue light inside that ran when the dryer did, presumably some ultraviolet to mimic the ozone smell of line dried. No guess to brand but gravely doubt it was Westinghouse, we had those. You know, the ones where lint glommed between inner and outer tub and you had to pull it out with a bent clotheshanger, that was my job.

 

[combo52]

OLD DRYER WITH O ZONE LIGHT

That sounds like you are describing an older WP or KM dryer where some lint would accumulate between the rear of the drum and the bulk-head.

 

[golittlesport]

...or maybe a Frigidaire Filtrator.

 

[arbilab]

Never had to maintain a Kenpool/Whirlmore to that level. Sorry, the comment about lint buildup was oblique to the question. Def an issue with 50s Westys, would get to where it didn't run. Lint would literally lift the basket off the drive puck.

Just about the blue basket light.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Some models of the pre-1957 GE dryers also had an ultraviolet bulb. In the 1956 model we have, it was originally replaced with a solid cake-type air freshener, but was easily converted back to operation with an "ultraviolent" bulb because the lamp holder still had the second socket with a conductive plug to complete the series circuit so that the drum light would still work.

Hamiltons, of course, had the Sun-E-Day UV bulb.

I think John or someone posted about the location of the UV bulb in older Maytag dryers

I don't think Norge ever had it. There was too much airflow in them anyway for the ozone to be noticed.

 

[arbilab]

Thanks Tom. So long as I wasn't imagining it, I'm at the age where I question memory. Seems not too bad an idea, wonder why it disappeared?

 

[tomturbomatic]

Early dryers were low airflow models, many venting through a 3" rather than the more modern 4" duct. So the UV bulb was there to help do away with odors that the dryer might not have been able to get rid of, along with maybe the funny smell of hot soap which was the washing product in use when Hamilton invented the first dryer in the 30s before Bendix came out with the automatic washer which did not do such a great job of rinsing out soap. It was also there to give the small benefit of sunshine in outdoor drying. Sunlight contains UV rays. They can break the bond between the two oxygen atoms in a few of the diatomic molecules of water and create a triatomic molecule that is very reactive. This not only produces the ozone smell, the fresh smell some notice in line dried laundry, but a bit of bleaching so this was also to replace a bit of that brightening. Ozone is irritating and poisonous. About the time that this was discovered about ozone, most dryers were changing to designs incorporating high air flow so it was not so much needed, could not be noticed and manufacturers saved money in construction by eliminating the bulb and the double socket lamp holder.

 

[arbilab]

Ozone has become one of those "regulator's excuse to take your money" issues. Ozone is good but freon destroys it so you have to pay 4x for freon. Ozone is bad so you have to buy ethanol which increases NOx the major component of smog but ethanol has a bunch of lobbyists.

If your dryer makes ozone does that make you a criminal or a savior? Is it possible for an incandescent bulb to make ozone? Not that I know of.

I throttled the gas down in my last dryer because it singed the detergent fragrance and smelled awful. Ozone is used as auxiliary disinfectant in spas. It's the primary disinfectant in bottled water, a huge volume product, and the ozone is manufactured not captured.

I'd like a UV fluorescent in my dryer and in my central return duct. But I'd probably get arrested.

 

[gmmcnair]

My grandmother's Philco Bendix had one of those lights....that might be another brand. Memories are vague because I was all of three but I remember what she called her "lilac light." I liked it because it had the window in the door and you could watch. The Frigidaire 1-18 dryer she replaced it with in 1972 was a huge disappointment to me. (How did I remember that?)

 

[tomturbomatic]

it depends on where ozone is

At lower positions in our atmosphere, it is a pollutant and irritant. High up in our atmosphere it protects the earth from radiation. A dryer is not going to influence this one way or another. Refrigeration techs working on refrigeration equipment who would use a blast of freon to blow dust and dirt out of condenser coils released harmful amounts of freon into the environment as did scrapping refrigeration equipment without pulling the freon out of it, but we did not know about freon's dangerous side then.

In answer to your question, if the incandescent light produced UV rays, it could produce ozone or are you bitching about compact fluorescent and LED bulbs?

 

[arbilab]

Gotta wonder, if ozone is bad for you (it is) why does it smell so good? Most stuff that's noxious rather announces itself (not counting CO).

I have a problem with a fleet of fluorescents the size of the incandescent fleet, liberating mercury. Also, I use dimmers extensively and CFLs won't tolerate that. No problem with LED lighting, bring it on. That's all well out of our hands though.

The blue bulb in the dryer, was fluor or incan? I think you can get a little UV out of an argon discharge lamp and there is (was) such thing but can't figure how incan could do that.

 

[whirlcool]

I remember my Mom had a 1948 Kenmore dryer that had a blue light at the back of the drum. I always thought that was weird. I don't know if it was a UV light.
That dryer lasted 20 years before it was replaced!

 

[tomturbomatic]

The solid bulkhead of a WP dryer I have has a little half circle of perforations under the round light lens that were for the UV bulb if it was a TOL model and had the special light holder with the second socket for the UV bulb..

The UV bulb is a mercury vapor bulb which is why the inside of the glass will usually have some tiny dots of mercury, but it needed the ballast of a 120 volt 40 watt bulb in series with it to work. An incandescent-type bulb that generated UV rays was the big floodlight type bulb that Sears sold with the adjustable holder as their cheapest type of sunlamp. It had to warm up a bit before it produced the UV rays, but I don't know what was inside the bulb.

 

[tolivac]

the Sears and GE "Sunlamp" bulbs had an outer envelope made of Quartz glass to pass the UV rays generated by a Quartz arc tube containing argon and mercury.An incandescent filament inside the sunlamp acted as a ballast.It also provided the "heat" effect that some users of these liked.The Sunlamp above did not need an external ballast and could be used in any unballasted socket.These bulbs are still sold today but come in a fixture with a timer to meet safety regulations.-to prevent sunburn if someonne fell asleep under tha lamp while it was still running.Sperti sunlamp fixtures had a replaceable quartz arc tube-and a heating element as a ballast.Again the unit had a timer.Forget what the date was when sunlamp fixtures were required to have timers.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Thanks for the look inside the sunlamp bulb. I had both the bulb and the tube types.

 

[arbilab]

What I don't know about arc lamps could fill a book about arc lamps, despite working on arclamp fixtures for 2+ years commercially. Curious critters, those. Well more than one way to do it. All had iron ballasts, electronic ballast was optional on one. It raised the flicker rate so the fixture could be used with television and film without strobing. It could also be used from 100V to 250V without operator intervention, plug-n-play.

Back to the dryer, do seem to remember the blue light coming from behind holes rather than behind lens. Likely a Kenmore pair, those were fairly ubiquitous. I only remember seeing one Filter Flo and one Frigidaire each as a child and as an adult. Oh, and that Bendix Economat!

 

[tomturbomatic]

The blue light would not be behind a lens because it was the gas it produced that was desired and needed to be introduced to the atmosphere, not so much the blue light. It's not Kmart inside the dryer.

 

[tolivac]

The short wave UV radiation acted with the oxygen in the air to generate ozone.If we had an outer bulb that blocked the SW UV rays then no Ozone would be generated.some cinema projection lamps are made like this.but the heat they make still has to be vented.Cesium is added to quartz outer bulbs to block the SW UV radiation.I recall a TV studio that used core and coil ballasts on their arc lights-but the power to run the fixtures was synced to the stations sync generator.No strobing.this was before the electronic ballasts.I have a couple of 400W metal halide "grow lights" that use electronic ballasts-these are NEAT-they will run pulse start metal halide,probe start metal halide and High pressure sodium bulbs with no adjustments.Same with the primary voltage-they are self adjusting no need to select transformer taps as on a core and coil ballast.

 

[tomturbomatic]

I have that type of ballast for a large light fixture that has both metal halide and high pressure sodium bulbs. Man, is it heavy. There are two different plugs for the cords running to each bulb. It was the only way to get Ginger (Hedychium) to bloom up here. Tropical plants are sensitive to the strength of the sunlight's rays as much as they are to the length of daylight hours. The Ginger would only come into bud as the days were getting shorter, it having taken that long to get them to produce the buds in our weaker sunlight. Unless they were put under the lights the buds stopped developing.

As for the shielding of the glass, I vaguely remember a story about a gymnasium where the outer shield over one of the lights, mercury vapor I think, was broken and before they got it replaced, people were reporting sunburn-type symptoms. I was very careful to have the timer set so that my grow light operated while I was away from home because of the strong UV rays.