Keyplate Washing!!!

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Paul

that would be about right, I was there in 1976 and this was a second home. And I remember it was square like the 3223H and you are right now that I remember the other key was stored on a shelf nearby not in the machine.

But there were two keys because I had to do a load and had to be shown which one to use and how to use it.
If I recall correctly you shoved the key in until it hit a switch which started the machine. But it was 31 years ago.

Jon
 
Hi everyone and thanks to Mike for this great thread.

A school friends mother had either the A3050 or A3062. Unfortunately I never saw it work. It had a very similar door to Mike's A3008 but the door was in brushed chrome. The keys seemed quite large and she had quite a few of them, is my memory correct or am I getting too old?? LOL

Rob
 
Aussie Hoover FLs.

OzHoover said "Was shocked to find that the Keymatic was made down here by Hoover Australia as later model front loaders where imported from the UK."

The Keymatics were made here and were at the time the only Auto sold by Hoover here. After the Keymatic finished (slope front only, the square ones were never sold here), Hoover AU started to make the Hoover 500 series top lader, based on a Blackstone USA design. Their front loader was a UK imported 3236H, made at Merthyr. Next version was called the Hoover 455, also made in UK, it had a UK-style model number on its ID plate (3236H? maybe the next in the series?), it had a black control panel with silver writing, an orange "a/b" switch to select spin or hold. The timer knob had a smoky grey shroud you had to press in to turn the timer knob. It was the last UK front load Hoover sold here. As that model was reasonably successful here, they put a simplified version of it into local production, renamed the Zodiac. The Hoover Zodiac 460 had no dispenser drawer, no heater, its timer, motor, electronics and drums came from UK. Its cabinet, pump and solenoid valves were AU sourced. The 465 was identical but had a heater.
The later versions 470/475, 480/485, 490/495, 510/515 all were slowly changed from the UK spec to suit standard AU parts, except an Italian sourced induction motor which spun much slower than the UK brush motors of the earlier machines. The next series was called the Electra-economiser, later the Electra, and got a dispenser drawer, simplified operation with a simpler timer, shorter wash, and hot/warm/cold fill temp buttons instead of temps being set on the timer. The model numbers ending in 5 still got a heater, this time switchable with a "Heater on/off" button. The last Aussie made front loader was the Hoover 1100F, just an Electra with a white control panel instead of grey. Early 1990s???

Chris
 
I have owned the two earlier versions, the green body with the timeline display, and the white body with round display. The keys are interchangeable between the two. (the red or black solid bakelite keys, and the similar keys made from bakelite surround with white centre.) In AU there was a later release key to "update" the machine, it was a cold wash key. (earlier keys offered a cold fill but always heated the water, the latest key, coloured green, offered a cold water wash as one of its eight programmes. It is made with black plastic surround with painted aluminium centre. I think I may still have a cold wash key but I can't find it at present.

Chris
 
How the keyplate works.

based on having played wth my machines some years ago, I can give some idea how the key reader works.

The timer contains ALL the options in sequence. Each slot in the keyplate reader operates a switch which corresponds to one of the options in the timer. When you insert a keyplate, it controls which options are used and which are "skipped".

The timer has in sequence:
hot fill
cold fill
warm fill
short tumble
heat to warm
short tumble
heat to very warm
short tumble
heat to hot
tumble 4 minutes with pulsator turning (vigorous wash)
tumble 8 minutes with no pulsator (gentle wash)
pump out
rinse fill
tumble 90 seconds
drain
rinse fill
tumble 90 seconds
drain
spin 90 seconds
rinse fill
tumble 90 seconds
short spin
long spin
end.
The keyplate determines which of the increments are done and which are skipped over. The timer "clickety clanks" its way through all options, the functions still operate for about half a second as they are skipped.
so if you select a "Spin only" cycle on the keyplate, you will observe it do a tiny burst of hot fill, then a tiny burst of cold fill, then a tiny burst of both fills, then a second of tumble, then a couple of flickers of the room lights as the heater briefly engages, another tiny tumble, half a second of pump out, anothe couple of tiny cold fills, tumblea and half second pump outs, it stops before the intermediate spin, pumps out a few seconds, spins a second or two, cold fills a half second, pumps a second, then finally the timer stops "skipping" and engages a cycle - it tumbles a little to distribute, then the motor suddenly reverses and the drum spins for its selected time.

If you can nut out which keyplate slot corresponds to what function, which I have never got around to doing, you could make up your own "specials" including one to do a short spin only, which was never an option. (The "spin only" keyplate position selects a long spin.)

At any point in the cycle you can half-withdraw the keyplate, which disengages all settings and the timer clicks its way around to OFF.

Another piece of trivia: I have read that UK Keymatics do 4 rinses. The Aussie ones do only 3 rinses. The UK ones have a 3kw heater, the Aussie ones have 2.4kw as that is the max allowed here.
The instruction books talk about the rinses being of reducing temperature (warm, lukewarm, tepid) but in fact they are all cold fills. Any warmth is just from residual heat and water in the clothes and drum.
Chris.
 
On my Keymatic 3224 the timer began to hang up at almost every program. It mostly worked fine until it came to the place in the program where the pulsator was turning. The machine did a "rrrrr" noise, like it tried "read" the keyplate.

I removed the top and back plate of the machine. You could see some of the electrical wires from the timer was in very bad condition, even seeing the wire under the plastic.

mine machine was rinsing 4 times but i dont remeber it doing any more spins than the last one.

Another problem accured in the very end. The whole drum and all that was hanging very low. I read somewhere there was a cable that often snapped in these machines. Perhaps thats what happened?

Hey Ozhoover: You could try and see if theres any breaks in the wires and the motor arent "burnt". Also check so the heat wire doesnt is in contact with anything. Also check for "rust leaks" that has leaked on electrical components.
 
Programmers, Impulses & Cams!!!

Hi Greg, those programmers although clever where more "Prone To Breakdowns" according to a lot of Which Consumer Reports, and Yes I suppose the Keyplates could find their way into the Kiddy toy box, not to mention other things pushed in the slots!!!

Mark, Glad you got the Aus one, I know the outer cabinets where Turquoise there because my Aunt had one in a rental...have yours been painted etc??

Mark & Jon, I would concur that the Isle of Wight machine would be a 3223H.

Hi Frederik, I need to get my 3224 working, the suspension cable has snapped and a few hoses need replacing , whilst the cabinet is off I will give it a re-spray, (original colours of cours), I`ll video it for its a journey that we all need to share, should be a fascinating one!!

Chris, wow all those cam position etc...The slope fromt keymatics only had 3 rinses, all other models had 4, 3 + special treatments....

The slope front keymatics 3224/3226 had 36 cam positions
The wide bodied models, 3223H etc had 60, dont know what was happeneing there....

The later models onwards, 3243H from 1971 + dropped down to 45, the scans are below, have also included the first 3 keyplate charts...
 
Like Mike

said he didn't see me for two days after he gave me the manual. Look at all those contacts man what a complex timer system.

Notice how the 1964 3224/3226 machine and the later A3114 both have only 16 contacts for the keyplate!
That is the entire coding of the keyplate, all communication with functions occurs through the 16 contact areas on the keyplate.
What we need is the master diagram for cutting the keyplate, then you could cut your own keyplates for custom cycles.

The keyplate for the whites cycle on the 3224 only uses 7 of the contacts for one cycle. So I would surmise on the whites cycle,on the keyplate, there would only appear 7 indentations looking across the keyplate along the direction of travel.
That might correspond to our block timers which have 6 stacked plates that rotate for the white cycle and have a pull switch (the 7th contact) as an on/off contact for the machine.

So there must be a standard cycle timer inside this machine that goes around once for a complete cycle and the keyplates tell the standard cycle which options will be engaged ( keyplate depression) and which will be skipped ( no keyplate depression ). But the cycle timer always engages all options at all times, but it must be located ahead of the keyplate 16 contacts because it defers the standard cycle to the keying on the plate.

The pre-rinse cycle uses all 16 slots on the keyplate to complete its program.
For those of you want to follow along I am looking the the Type A keyplate legend.

Phew time for a lunch break!
 

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