Front loader spin protocol

[retro-man]

Question for the experts here. I have a set of Whirpool Duets about 5 years old. Over the years I have noticed something that maybe others have or have not. During any cycle, but I used normal regularly, there are spins between wash and rinse and spins again after the next rinse before the next rinse and final spinout. During the normal part of the cycle when washing and subsequent rinses, it has no problem balancing and goes right into the spin sometimes a bit off but none the less. When it hits the final spin after the final rinse sometimes it takes forever to balance the load and complete the cycle. Why does the 1st 3 spins have no problem but the final spin does. I have read statements on this site from people all over the world, with a variety of manufactures that are having this temperament on the final spin. No one I have notice has mentioned the other spin programs being as long to balance. So my question are there difference parameters for the final spin that are not included in the other 3 spins? Anyone have any facts or info on this, or am I just imagining this. lol

Jon

 

[appnut]

Jon, I have similar issues with my November 2011 duet.  My guess is that the final spin is programmed to be extra sensitive because the final spin speed can be extra high.  Interim spins between the washes and rinses don't reach as high a spin speed in my observation.  I've also notice the Normal/Casual cycle has less spin issues, but I don't use that very often because of the lower water temps and lower amounts of water. 

 

[yogitunes]

yeah, some are programmed that way.....which may be the oddest thing, and in your case, the interim spins are basically a few seconds, no point in actually making sure its fully balanced, versus the final spin....

even my Neptunes, at least the 3000 series, claimed to monitor oversuds, long fill or drain times.....note: but ONLY during the first drain and rinse...

any other time of the cycle, there is no monitoring or shut down for these issues....

and like you, no one would notice until an issue turned up, THEN Maytag would fess up, the claim is for only that part of the cycle....

one of those times, we learn things the hard way....

 

[ea56]

I noticed this sometimes on all the spins for my LG FL, but most especially on the final spin. What I don't understand is why the spins can't start out slow to evenly distribute the load and gradually increase to the max set spin speed? This is what the old FL's did, before they were controlled by computers. This constant hunting for a sweet spot to spin is really what finally prompted me to get rid of my LG FL. I just got tired of 90 to 120 min plus cycle times to wash a load. These excessive times to get the machine to spin are a complete waste of time, and I have to wonder how it is wearing out the pump, as the pump seems to operate during these sometimes 15 mins before the finicky machine decides, oh well I guess I'll spin now.
Eddie

 

[yogitunes]

my Frigidaire FLer used to play with the last spin, which seemed like eternity to hit that sweet spot.....by that point, lucky if it got 2 minutes of spin in there......

not sure if its a factor, but since I increased the water level, there is usually two distribution tumbles for a few seconds, and then it takes off for a full 12 minute spin....

if I put it back to factory specs, it plays around again...there has to be something about it....

 

[appnut]

Martin, depending upon which cycle is used, interim spins are at least medium, if not high, and are two-three minutes long.  Whites gives longer spins.  I don't remember what model Jon has.  I have the WFW95HEX and the specialty cycles have longer interim spins. 

 

[mrb627]

Whirlpool Stepped Spin

Whirlpool as well as many other manufacturers use a stepped spin at the final spin. It helps with wrinkle control as well as lightening the load so the higher speed spin has better chance of being balanced.

Malcolm

 

[iheartmaytag]

What Bob said

Rinse spins are not as fast as the final spin so the balance isn't as tricky. What bugs me is when on the normal cycle it will have perfect balance, not a rumble, not a shake; yet it will spin for a minute then stop and redistribute for wrinkle prevent. Then it takes forever to get back in balance.

 

[washerdude]

We own a 2 year old Whirlpool WFW72HEDW, what I notice about the interment spins is it mostly just tries to get the load roughly balanced which *MOST* of the time manages to balance to load to the point where it is just a tad bit off, and then will go into the spin.

It behaves this way for the final spin too, it balances loads REALLY quick, with the exception of a king size comforter. Usually ours takes a matter of seconds to balance on ANY spin even the final spin (unless its a single item or heavy items). But remember how I said it "roughly" balances the load for ALL the spins? During the final 1200 RPM spin, I notice while it's ramping up during the final spin, it will ramp up to 830 RPM and hover there for a couple of seconds, this is the stage where I think is a checkpoint to see tub vibrations before crossing over into the high RPM's. Almost ALL the time if an off balance is present in the load, this is the point where the machine ramps down, and redistributes, oddly though it just seems to be a REALLY rough redistribute and if the tub is rocking back and forth it makes no effort to slow down and toss items around, it will either stop and try again or just go back into the spin where if the load is still off balance, when it reaches 830 RPM and it notices, it will redistribute again. Usually the redistributes go left,right, left, then go right and attempt to spin again.

But I do think it makes sense it would take longer to balance on the final spin, after all these were the earlier models of the newer Duets. Whirlpool Duets maximum spin speed can range from 1200RPM-1400RPM on higher end models. The newer ones which just came out seem to be capped at 1200RPM, except the WFW87HEDW which the ONLY 1400 RPM model by Whirlpool still sold. I do remember that really few of the older Whirlpool Duets would spin-splode but it was really rare and that problem seems to be completely rectified in the newer units, that right there shows to me that this new method of reaching a certain RPM and checking the vibrations, effectively works.

 

[washerdude]

Whirlpool Duet Tachometer Test



(Not my unit but similar)

 

[henene4]

Most of the OOB sensing is done via the MCU, monitoring rpm changes, verry few machines actually have physical sensors to detect drum movement.

This can sometimes cause weired behaviour. Some loads seem rather balanced by he amount the tub moves, but the motor detects big strain differences, and thus redistributes.

I also noticed that with most machines here in the EU vibrations below about 1000-1200rpm seem to be way less noisy then during top speed final spin. For example our AEG is verry smooth up to exactly 1200rpm, only the brushed motor being rather loud. Once it pulls up to 1400 or 1550rpm, noise gets far more intense.

One final thing, which however is speculation: I think some control systems actually avoid certain unbalances. Our Bauknecht has a weired pretty much resonance frequency at about 800rpm where the cabinet sides visibly wobble and create a lot of noise. Once it goes beyond that, it quites down again. So it would just make sense to have your tub not swing with such a resonance frequency during most of the spin, getting these frequencies in between rpm steps.

 

[rp2813]

What Harley said.

 

With my 2008 Affinity, since it stupidly doesn't employ a spray rinse, it instead goes into a spin to extract water from its contents after main wash and subsequent rinses.  Sometimes it will spin for a few seconds to extract enough water to make contents lighter and easier to balance for the full interim spin period.  This makes sense.

 

What doesn't make any sense is what Harley described above.  I can stand there monitoring the lengthy balancing act and quite often witness conditions where it should be satisfied enough to launch into high speed final spin, but instead it will slow down and attempt to rebalance, never hitting the same sweet spot it had squandered.   This is extremely aggravating.

 

[ea56]

"I can stand there monitoring the lengthy balancing act and quite often witness conditions where it should be satisfied enough to launch into high speed final spin, but instead it will slow down and attempt to rebalance, never hitting the same sweet spot it had squandered. This is extremely aggravating."

This is the same experience that I had more often than not with my LG FL. It would seemingly have found the "sweet spot" after endless hunting for it to begin to spin, and I'd think, at last! Then instead of ramping up for the final high speed spin, I'll be damned if it wouldn't stop, and start to redistribute again, sometimes resulting in another lengthly "hunt". And I always loaded per manual instructions, for mixed loads I would load larger or heavier items first, but it really didn't seem to make a difference. What's curious though is that single large items, like a king size comforter or bedspread, these loads just sailed through with nary a "hunt".

I've owned several FL's before, a 87' White-Westinghouse, and 3 different Frigidaire FL's, from 99' thru 06', and NONE of these machines ever did this. It wasn't until I bought one of the newer generation Frigidaire FL's in 10' that I ever experienced this endless "spin hunt". They have been building these newer FL's now for at least 7 years or more. We can't be the only users that are noticeing this. It would seem like they could have found a solution for this annoyance by now.
Eddie[this post was last edited: 2/19/2017-20:44]

 

[launderess]

As others have touched upon the series of stops and rebalancing then starting again for final spin seems to be a way of coping with two things; preventing deep creasing from prolonged spinning, and lightening wash load before main spin cycle.

My older Miele has "graduated spin" cycle before the main for "Normal" cottons/linens. Here the machine does a series of short spins, stops, rebalances, then spins again. This machine however only has "electronic" controls coupled with a mechanical timer. Thus it can only attempt to redistribute a wash load "X" amount of times; then it will spin regardless even if that means the tub will whack itself to bits in process.

Also with this older machine the pump/motor controls aren't as fine tuned as today's fully computer controlled washers. If too much water enters the sump at once best the machine can do is slow down spin while the pump chokes.

Now the AEG Oko-Lavamat is a different beast.

On any of the spins if the wash sends too much water down sump to cope, machine will slow and or stop spinning while activating a series of strong pulse pumps to clear the overflow. Once that is that things start up again.

For final spin, yes, there are series of short spins, stop, redistribute, spin again, etc.. Then comes final spin and gradual ramp to whatever speed is selected.

Watching the SQ front loaders at launderette first portion of final spin is a slow pulse spin. Here the machine seems to be more about redistributing the wash load and preventing hard creasing. Say this because these machines do not have pumps, but a dump valve. Thus in theory aren't bothered about too much water exiting drains at one time.

Will agree it is maddening to have one short spin perfectly balanced, only to have the machine ramp down, redistribute, and then start up again with perhaps not so perfect results.

A final thought:

My old Miele is built to last and thus can cope (within reason) with spinning unbalanced loads. OTOH the AEG Oko-Lavamat is far less substantial and seems clearly designed to avoid unbalanced loads at all costs.

 

[johnb300m]

accelerometers

I read not too long ago that WP's newest line of FLs (as well as Maytag) mostly use motor resistance feedback for sensing balance, as well as vibration control with a little accelerometer somewhere on the control board.
(Not sure it's on the motor board or the front console board).

This gives the machine more feedback based on cabinet shaking and vibrations as opposed to simple motor strain input.

I got a weak damper so my Maxima vibrates a tad more than it used to, which causes the machine to rebalance more often.
But once it gets there, it's pretty smooth considering it's almost literal achilles heel.

 

[retro-man]

It has gotten to the point sometimes I will check the washer and has 10 minutes left on the time. Ok go back in 10 minutes and its down to 6 minutes. At this point it has done some spinning and clothes are not dripping or completely soaked. I hit cancel, open the door and put them in the dryer. There you don't want to spin well the dryer can do this job. I am not waiting for another 20 minutes for a spin complete. The dryer can dry them faster than waiting for the spin. lol

Jon

 

[retro-man]

It has gotten to the point sometimes I will check the washer and has 10 minutes left on the time. Ok go back in 10 minutes and its down to 6 minutes. At this point it has done some spinning and clothes are not dripping or completely soaked. I hit cancel, open the door and put them in the dryer. There you don't want to spin well the dryer can do this job. I am not waiting for another 20 minutes for a spin complete. The dryer can dry them faster than waiting for the spin. Well thanks all for your thoughts and input. Ok manufacturers we see this as a problem lets get to work on this and straighten this out.

Jon

 

[henene4]

That is actually one inherent advantage of toploaders: You can deside the load balance. Just arrange the items in a blanced pattern, and they won't shift before spining occurs.

 

[golittlesport]

problem solved

With my previous Frigidaire front loader I noticed occasionally that the first spin took a long time to balance. In fact, at times it would "time out" and go into first rinse without spinning. After that it mostly would go through rest of cycle without a hitch. Go figure.

Now the current LG front loader I have is a different story -- NEVER any long balancing times, even with a king comforter (which used to drive the Frigidaire insane on every spin.) The new LG has what it calls the "True-Balance" system. It starts out spinning slow, rumbling a bit with a not-so-perfect balance situation, and then magically adjusts somehow and spins like a top. I'm not exactly sure how it works, but it is very effective.

Some here have complained about the older generation LGs taking forever to spin and long cycle times, but it seems like LG figured it out, because my new one is great. My usual go-to normal cycle, with an extra rinse selected, takes about 45 minutes with two spin-spray rinses and two deep rinses. I'm happy.