LG Six Motion videos

[lavamat_jon]

Fair enough in terms of the hurricane, I guess it is all too easy to make blanket statement without going through it.

 

However, what you have just said in terms of 27" has clarified what I said earlier; what I was saying wasn't criticising anybody who bought the machines at all, a washing machine is a very personal choice for some people especially on the likes of this forum and over on Gardenweb - but it seems that the frontload market there has been conditioned to the point where brand X tries do get a smidgen of a cubic foot capacity more than brand Y, rather than actually designing washers for real capacities and giving the option for small, medium or large machines.  The market here is a lot more free in that sense; and you can literally shop to a capacity that fits your needs.  E.g. an old couple who wash twice a week will only buy the smallest 5 kilo model, whereas a family of 7 would be more inclined to buy a 8-9kilo rated machine - rather than the choice there which seems to be the choice of a washing machine that is oversized for most needs, with brand X being able to wash a mammoth and brand Y being able to wash an elephant.

 

BTW our washers are by far from wussy or freakish, I'm sure a lot of our European models could outperform some of the American giant washers by far...

 

FWIW, over here the 27" washers could be arguably considered as "freak oddball" items.  Bosch sold their Nexxt washer for a few years, as well as Whirlpool with their version of the Duet and they were deemed as too big and soon went off the market, you can only specially order the Whirlpool now.  However, I very much doubt many Europeans are inclined to fill landfills with "oddball" items, in fact I would imagine some European countries probably have some of the best waste management systems and we're less inclined to send items to landfill.

 

It's always interesting to see the differences in attitudes between cultures.

 

Take care,

 

Jon

 

[supremewhirlpol]

I think the different tumbling profiles is cute. LG's is just flexing their motor control muscles. Just because you can get a Brushless DC motor to respond as though it were a stepping motor, under high load, does NOT mean that such an application is practical. But it is a good way to put the Hall-Effect sensor to work. Those Koreans do know how to make cheap effective electronics. But in the real world, horsesh$t is STILL horsesh&t.

PeterH770: Nice way to sum things up. I like it!!

I do have to agree with some of the things 3beltwesty is saying here. Most of the FL machines for sale in Lowes, HD, Sears, are not 24" machines. They are more like 27" machines. NOW if you really wanted a 24" FL machine, you have to do more searching, or seek out the nearest Miele distributor and pay much more money for a smaller machine. That type of mentality just don't work for the average US citizen. When the machine stops working, we send out a repair person. When the repair turns out to be extremely costly, we throw the machine out, race over to the store and look for a new one. Usually when the machine stops working there is a huge load of clothes that has to be washed. We wait until the clothes get piled up, or we get low on clean clothes before we do something about it. The average US citizen does not like to wash clothes, but we know it is necessary, thus we want to spend as less time doing so as possible.

Now, I do think the capacity sizes have become a little excessive, considering the mechanics and electronics involved on consumer machines.

I'm not the average US citizen though when it comes to clothes washing. My working machine capacities range from 3LB to 40LB. For the FL machine that I have, I have found that they wash A LOT better when they are filled to capacity. For my rigid base machines, filling them to capacity means less out of balance loads, which reduces general wear and tear on the machine. If you've ever replaced bearings in a 40LB commercial FL machine, the weight of the parts make it a VERY tiring process. I usually wait until I start to run out of clean clothes, then I will select a day on the weekend(1am-5am) to do my washing out of peak KWh range times, so that using the machines is less costly. I do sort the items based in colors, soil level, and application of the clothes. I then look at the size of the individual wash loads and determine based on machine capacity which machine is most appropriate. Most loads I use either the 22LB W-10 Primus, or the Commercial Neptune. If I have something that is VERY dirty, or needs to soak, or for starching my white dress shirts, I use the 40LB Ipso. Usually I don't fill the ipso any where near capacity, so when it comes time for extract cycle, I transfer the items to another machine for that. The Ipso is A LOT of FUN to use!

Now the ONLY time I have gotten things to just fill a machine to capacity was for testing the Primus W-10X^2 project.

 

[3beltwesty]

It is not a culture thing but a catch 22 thing.

Ok, I agree that a 27" machine is probably oddball, rarer and thus freakish in Europe compared to a 24" machine.

In the USA is is the other way around; the 24" machine is super rare. It is in the parts per million level, probably one in 10,000 or less washers is this size. I have only seen one once in as store my entire life, probably in 1 out of 500 stores as a wild guess. In all the friends and neighbors houses I have been in in about 8 states; I have never seen a 24" frame machine in 50+ years. In fact our own first washer was a 30 to 31" machine from 1947. The USA probably has more 30 and 31" machines than 24" ones.

I have met more major movie stars, known folks who have seen ufo's, owned two Delorean's or drive a 1940'S Ford daily to work in 1995, who have rebuilt an automatic transmission than those who own a 24" washing machine! There are more folks in the usa who own machine guns, airplanes or oil wells than a 24" machine. The only place I see them is on plans for a local companies luxury Yachts or oil rig service boats; where space is a premium.

Here most folks look at the washer they want to buy LOCALLY at a store, and hauling off the dead, leaky, too expensive to repair old one is the added bonus of buying locally.

*****I really do not think the 24" versus a 27" debate is one of culture, it is more what is normal because of costs and local availability. One might ask why Germans drink German beer versus beer from the moon; it is due to cost and local availability.

IE is a giant family in Europe really needed a bigger washer and there were some 27" machines locally at a store and a friend had one that worked, one has a better stance of buying a 27" machine in Europe. The same goes over here, if there were 24" machines at local stores and one knew others locally that had one; the chances of buying one goes up radically.

It is not a culture thing but a catch 22 thing. Folks around the world tend not to but big consumer items they have never seen before, that no local store has; that no local service man has seen before. Thus if one is in the country of Acme; one could buy a ACME car made in ACME; or buy a Yugo and be the only Yugo owner on them island of Acme. Many folks around the world worry about parts and service when one buys an oddball item that nobody else owns locally.

 

[3beltwesty]

THE usa purposely designed bigger FL washers in the mid 1990

From a USA washing machine maker's standpoint there is already a 30 + years of concrete data showing the USA's rejection of small capacity FL washers.

The 1962 to 1992 27" frame Westinghouse washer has about a 2.5 cubic foot capacity, few folks bought them. This is not a "what if" projection, but actual sales history. The USA does not want a small dinky washer; only a few percentage of folks bought them. These early FL machines were at actual local stores in many places.

Thus the FL washers that came out in the 1990's were designed PURPOSELY BIGGER than the FL washers from the 1940's to early 1990's. They designed the newer 27" frame FL machines with the same 22" diameter drum/spin basket , but deeper. ie about 18 or 19 inches versus 11 to 12 inches deep.

Thus in an early 1990's FL usa washer design bull session, a passion filled European crafty chap can preach small FL washers, but get voted down due to 30 to 50 years of solid data of what sells. It is like marketing a dumb idea few want; ie a pickup truck that cannot hold a 4x8 ft piece of plywood; a European TV that cannot pickup soccer, a USA TV that cannot pickup football.

Today one has the double wammy that few in the USA want a small FL washer and also nobody really sells them at a local store either.

 

[supremewhirlpol]

3beltwesty:
"It is like marketing a dumb idea few want; ie a pickup truck that cannot hold a 4x8 ft piece of plywood; a European TV that cannot pickup soccer, a USA TV that cannot pickup football."

Oh, you mean like the Dyson Air multiplier?

 

[3beltwesty]

As Pingmeep said :

"If appliance makers (who are always chasing energy subsidies and energy star labeling) won't increase water or energy usage, mechanical motion is one of the few things left to improve washing performance. Plus if you are using a direct drive motor you already have the ability just need the programming. "

All the modern FL washers I have seen in the USA seem to be programed this way.

Since the tax credit rewards not using much water, the hell bent only thing there is left is random motions to get the spray to all the articles surfaces.

In the old days on a pre mid 1990's FL washer one has a water level knob. Ie one can set the water level where the heck you want to. Since 1950 a westy has had a weigh to save spring loaded door. One weighted the clothes and set the knob. Since one is paying for ones own water and hot water if used one just used what worked. ie no jackass government kickback set the design goals.

Today the kickback via the tax credit outlaws this. Thus to sell washers in the USA the makers chase the tax credit money. The software is thus "played around with" so random motions are used and more time so they water sprays tend to hit all the clothes surfaces.

It really is not clear if this scheme would work well with a washer packed so full that nothing moves with respect to another.

This whole government mandate could be used on home showers too. A shower would take 1 hour with tiny sprays and one after 1 hour would be clean an only 1 gallon used, with the dirty drain water being recirculated to do a respray.

Like it or not many modern FL washers are already recirculating water in the quest to drop water usage.

Driving a rotary motor in random ways is actually quite old, about 30 years in rotary disc drives and about 50 in linear disc drives.

The software options for weird random washer motions are endless, it is just a program to play with using the same mechanics.