Glimpses of the future or gimmicks that'll fade into obscurity?

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Same here

There were never and still are not available over here: dishwashers with built-in food disposer...

My prediction says this "gimmickery" will go on... smeg, AEG and LG have these orbital wash systems for many years now and do not seem to leave that. I do not think it is total crap, though...
 
waste down the drain

Yes, I agree with Rex. As mentioned earlier, the whole idea behind food waste disposers, was for sanitation reasons. Stop rodents, maggots, larvae bacteria, from multiplyng in trash cans and dumps--and breaking one chain of disease transmission.

Maybe a little less necessary, but nevertheless desireable, if the avoidance of the stink of putrifying garbage in cans and dumpsites

You would think we lived in the 17th century, with people still putting organic waste out in the open when we have the means to get rid of it cleanly, and beneficially, to the environment.

Organic wastes, after being processed from a sewage treatment plant, I hear, is sometimes used for fertilizer for parks, city vegetation, etc.

Yeak, it might cost a little more the sewage treatment plant, if everyone were required to have a disposer, but isn't that s much smaller price to pay by society to help avoid disease within its members.

There's a lot to be said for the aesthetics to, with the reduction of solid wastes and odors. Aesthetic value is also one of the visible hallmarks of a society higher that's higher on the evolutionary scale.
 
"So How do self cleaning filters work? Do they use 4L of water to flush away dirt at the end of wash, 1st rinse, 2nd rinse etc?"

As you can see from my very professional drawing [insert dramatic pause here], self-cleaning filters use two streams of water. During washing and rinsing, water flows through the filter - shown by the darker blue lines. Soil collects on the filter's surface. During draining, the wash/rinse water is flushed along the surface of the filter, carrying the soil away and down the drain.

logixx++5-2-2012-19-01-53.jpg
 
I get the plastic bags (yes) when I buy groceries and save them for either recycling glass and cans or garbage and throw them all into our weekly collection bins. I have an uphill septic pump and would never put a disposal that could cause problems with the pump or system and was advised to only use one ply white toilet paper. So far, almost 18 years and no problems, knock on wood. I would like to work out a way to drain the Maytag's 40 gallons of water every load into the woods around me.
 
Food type waste in solid waste streams--there is a GROSS video of a trash truck emptying a dumpster at a meat processing plant after deer hunting season--If you want-you have been warned -you can see it in the website of "Classic Refuse Trucks-under the Youtube channel of "Iculafin"-video is "trash truck vs deer season"That shows deer parts-including heads being crushed in a RL trash truck-Would think that some other means would be used for this type of waste in that area-like the fat rendering truck instead of a trash truck.-and of course that waste going to a landfill-GROSS!!!!Would have to think if the plant had a disposer to shred that kind of waste-would have to be a Somat or something like that.-and of course a HUGE capacity sewage line!
For my food waste grind it in one of my older VM machines-use the sink strainer to separate the stringy material-put that in the trash.Used a drain cleaner machine from Lowes to clean my waste line-now it works-so don't want the stringy matter in the system to clog it again.If I get a disposer-will be a batch feed model with undercutters to shred that stringy stuff.My kitchen isn't set up for a cont feeder type machine.No wall switch for the cont type disposer.
 
@logixx

I still don't quite grasp the concept of this filter. Is there a separate drain that isn't shown (that doesn't have a filter) where this dirt "floats off too" or does the filter also have some sort of "skimmer" in it to catch the garbage as it flows over.

When looking at a GE Potscrubber line, I can't quite see how that works...

Maybe I should read the post again :)
 
Ge self cleaning filter

Hi Washer111,

The early GE self cleaning filter, on the Potscrubbers, was somewhat unique. It is not a full time filter like most brands in the 80's. That is 100 precent of the water in the tub is not being actively pumped through a filter and cleaned.

The filter is in the back of the tub and is "passive." that is, it relies on catching some of the water that is heading back to the bottom of the tub and filtering it. Most of this wataer has hit the back wall of the tub and flows down into the filter through large openings on top. It water exits the filter through a small screen (looks just like window screen!) at the bottom, and leaves the food wastes inside the filter.

There is a little chamber at the bottom of the filter where the food wastes collect. When the dishwsher drains, the water pressure from the drain water pushed up a plunger which seals the top of the collection chamber and the food wastes arae forced out into the drain line. And Voila! You have a clean filter, ready to go again for the next fill.

During the long (main) wash, which is about 45 minutes or so probably most of the water, is "caught" and eventually passes through the filter at some time or another as it circulates.

No, its not as efficient as say a KitchenAid or Maytag where every drop of water has to pass through the filter before entering the pump. But is is a clever design, cheap for General Electric to add to their existing dishwasher without very little modification to the pumping system. (Actually just a splice into the drain line.) But they could now advertise they have filtering and compete against other brands.

It reality, though, it does work. One on of my low line Potscrubbers, the little plunger got stuck and the chamber would not empty, Believe me, there was a LOT of food waste crud in there!

Attached is a picture of the passive filter in my GSD 2800. Sorry about the photo quality. You can see the larger grate openings at the top where water is caught. In the lower center is the exit screen. Beneath the little protrusion in the center (partially hidden by the power tower) is the opening to the soil chamber below the tub.

bwoods++5-3-2012-08-34-7.jpg
 
washer111

The soft food disposer in the GE 2800 is nothing more than a wire that spins very quickly and further pulverizes whatever food particles float around in the wash water. After I decommissioned my damaged 2800, I took the motor assembly apart and had a look inside the filter chamber. To my surprise it was very clean. For the life of that dishwasher I never had any complaints about crud in the water. I agree with bwoods, it may be a simple design, but it does work very well.
 
GEs DW Self Cleaning Filter

GE was actually ahead of it time as Barry mentioned, most other DWs went to a filter that does not filter all the water constantly. During that 45 minute wash GE used you can be sure all the wash water is filtered many many times. And as I mentioned in another post the problem with the old KAs and the original MT RR DWs is that the filter can clog and block all most all wash action. The WP PC design and KA KD-23s was the first really effective filter system that could not clog and slow down the wash action. And to this day was the most effective, powerful pump and filtering and food disposing system EVER installed in a home DW.
 
orignal Maytag RR

Yeah, I agree John that was the biggest problem with the KitchenAids. My parents had one, I think it was a 1982 model and over a period of several years, washing efficiency dropped. I always suspected it was the filter clogging as it was not slef-cleaning like the Maytags.

If I recall correctly, the filter was somewhat thick. I did rinse it under the tap, but I imagine there was material collecting in the inner depths of the filter.

Did the first Maytag Reverse Racks not have that backwash feature for their filters? Mine is a belt drive, approximately a 1984 model. I took it apart and it has two rotating jet arms that constanting spray water from the inside out of the filter, and they rotate within it, giving it a constant "backwash."
 
Early MT DWs

All had the same type self-cleaning back-wash filter system, without this filter the small holes in the wash-arms would clogged in about 20 seconds. LOL. The original pump and motor was not only quieter but there was no belt slippage so the pump would always produce full water pressure.
 
John,

Were the pump/motor in orginal Maytag RR, with the direct drive, mounted horizonally or vertically??

If I recall correctly, some pictures I saw on this site, or somewhere, the original RR had heavy mastic all over the tub. All the ones I have had, only had one piece of sound absorbing mastic on the back of the tub.
 
Thanks to bwoods, rapunzel for enlightening me on how the self cleaning filter system works.

Now I understand :) Seems like a simplistic system, however I would have the drain pump in the little bit between the mesh, so water has to flow thru the filter, clean it, and whatever is in at the "between" bit, thru a disposer and into drain, with a flap that opens when he water is too low for that to be possible. (I could illustrate, if someone needs).
 
bwoods, thanks for that explanation...we had a 980? (one step down from a 1200) for years (replaced a 1978 Kitchenaid in 1988 or so which never turned out to be very satisfactory). The GE worked very nicely all the years my parents had it. I'd never really understood the filtering process in the GE (other than it was clearly a step-up feature in the line) but the passive design makes perfect sense. They have a rubber collection chamber/sump under the tub. It was a very clever design which made them a lot of $$ over the years...it was both a relatively easy adaptation of the plastic-tub design (one of the real benefits of their moving to the plastic tub was the ease with which they could make these types of changes) and provided a good washing performance. Thanks for the clear explanation!
 
actually, Washer111, there is a jet on the bottom of the bottom of the lower spray arm that backwashes that screen in the center of the filter and keeps it clean.

So as to not make for a too long explanation, there was one other early feature, that was later dropped on the passive filter, that I did not mention. In the picture I posted, in that protrusion in the lower center (partially hidden by the washarm) is a small opening sealed with a round rubber flapper. So I have attached a new close-up of it.

When the piston goes up, to seal off the lower soil chamber and allow the water to flush it, the top of it pushes open this little flapper and drains any residual water/gunk into the sump for drainage. GE later dropped this little flapper valve as, I guess, they found it unnecessary.

So it sounds as if may have been close to what you were describing, Washer111. Good job!

bwoods++5-5-2012-09-19-11.jpg
 
washer111, fast-forward to about 7:30. This educational video from a German children's TV show shows a Miele dishwasher draining (and cleaning) the filter system.

 
Interesting german video! I do seem to understand that, based on the pictures they showed, such as of the ion-exchange resins for water softening, the filter etc.

I watched the whole thing, but because it wasn't in English, I didn't quite get it, although I can understand how it might work (I think!)
 

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