VFD Primer for those who may want to try this...
A variable frequency drive or VFD is used to run 3-phase motors on standard residential electrical outlets without needing 3-phase power. It has many settings and inputs and outputs to allow you to do many different things such as control the motors rotation direction, speed, acceleration and deceleration time, etc.
Here is how I set up my VFD to control new motor in the washer...
Step 1:
I had to figure out is how am I going to tell the difference between the agitation and spin signal coming out of the washer's timer. So I studied washer's the wiring diagram. I found four wires going to the original motor. Red, Pink, Blue and White. Since the original motor was a reversing motor, clockwise for agitation and counter-clockwise for spin it was clear on the washers wiring diagram that the Blue and White wires do the reversing in the start winding. For agitation the White wire is energized and the Blue wire is neutral. For spin the timer reverses the polarity between those two wires and the Blue wire is now energized and the White wire is now neutral. I confirmed this with my electrical meter that during agitation the White wire has 120 volts on it and the Blue wire was neutral and when I set the dial to spin and pulled it out they reversed and the Blue wire now has 120 volts on it and White became neutral. So it was settled, the Blue and White wires will give the signal to the VFD and the Red and Pink wires can be removed as they are no longer needed for the new motor.
Step 2:
Wire the VFD from the Washer's Power Cord to the New Motor--
The VFD power input get's wired directly to the washers power cord, however I made one exception. I wired it so the hot line is powered by the wire that power's the control panel dial light. This way the VFD is energized and ready to go when the timer dial is set to anywhere but off. So whenever the timer dial is lit the VFD is turned on a waiting for a run signal when the dial is pulled out to start...
Step 3:
Program the VFD functions via it's control panel and decide on how to set up the blue control terminals. They use the word "programming" but it's really not anything more than just setting options on the VFD's digital display--
For the washer project I only needed three signals. Here is how I set them up:
S1 = 0: Run the Motor Clockwise for Agitation
S2 = 1: Run the Motor Counter-clockwise for Spin
S3 = 10: Use Alternate Acceleration/Deceleration Time
S4 and S5 Not used
For the motor acceleration times I set the primary acceleration time to 0.1 seconds as for agitation doesn’t need any delay in getting the motor up to full speed. But for Spin I set up the alternate acceleration time to 80 seconds to bring the tub up to speed slowly and not causes suds locks with the water being violently thrown around in the outer tub before the pump has time to drain it away. The '58 GE isn't like an earlier AW6, Frigidaire or other solid tub washers where the outer tub was huge and could hold the entire tubs worth of water below the spinning tub, so you have to be careful with acceleration time in this machine. As for the deceleration times, I disabled them and set the VFD to always coast the motor to a stop.
Step 4:
Wire the Relays and VFD Control Terminals
The diagram below is a simplifed version so you get the idea, however I actually wired the speed selector potentiometers into the agitate and spin relays as well, but I didn't show that as I didn't want it to get even more busy.
Okay who's gonna soup-up the next washer? ;-D
