Modern Front Loader Tub Design

[launderess]

It seems most if not all front loaders sold for home use today, still use a variant of the Bendix "scoop and ladle" tub design. Here four "paddles" (either SS and part of the tub, or plastic and attached)fill with water from between the tubs at 6 o'clock, and pour this water over the laundry at 12 o'clock. Theory behind this, IIRC was the water forces dirt/muck out in washing and detergent/much out when rinsing.

My mind wondered about this as have never seen a commercial or laundromat washer with the same design. They seem to have three fins/bars without any holes to scoop up water. Rather laundry is lifted and dropped/slapped back down against the tub. Is there a reason why commercial units are different? Also why only three fins instead of four? Is more better or less?

Launderess

 

[toggleswitch]

Three scoops please. May I have a sugar cone....

I am thinking no scoop /ladle in commerical untis in that IMHO those holes would weaken the paddles and are a good place to trap foreign objects. I see lack therof as a relibility "improvement".

Who has four paddles? Comm'l or domestic?
My machines (both W&D) have three each.

I am guessing that you bleieve com;l machines have four.
I am thinking less motor strain when hugely oveloaded, as people who pay per load are inclined to do.

Anyone agree or disagree with that?

 

[kenmore1978]

motor strain

Actually, the home machines are doing BOTH actions, pouring the water over the clothes AND lifting/dropping the clothes.

As for motor strain, you really can't strain the motor on an FL machine like one cxan on a TL machine. The tub and clothes would simply turn as a unit. The motor probably will draw SOME extra current, but would be due to more weight, which wouldn't be as hard as trying to make an agitator fight its way back and forth through a stuffed tub.

 

[toggleswitch]

I agree Jaune.

And many comm'l washers use three-phase "stall-proof" motors.

 

[Designgeek]

In fact the tub of a FL will turn with *less* power when it's crammed full and the whole load is rotating with the tub.

The greatest power consumption should occur when the unit is loaded at about 40% full (as seen when the load is soaked) since the drum rotation has to lift the wet clothes up to the point where they slide off the paddles, and there is not equivalent weight on the opposite side of the axis to act as a balance.

Agreed, the paddles that sprinkle water on the load are a potential risk for objects or even lint buildup causing cloggage over time. Whether this ever actually becomes a problem remains to be seen; time will tell.

The number of paddles needed is a function of the interior diameter of the drum. The larger the diameter, the more paddles you are likely to find.

 

[foraloysius]

"Agreed, the paddles that sprinkle water on the load are a potential risk for objects or even lint buildup causing cloggage over time. Whether this ever actually becomes a problem remains to be seen; time will tell."

Until now I don't have that problem with my frontloaders. My Miele is 15 years old and the paddles still sprinkle the water on the load. My AEG is a bit younger, no clogged paddles here either. If there would be any lint in the paddles, I'm sure it will come out during the spin cycle.

 

[toggleswitch]

Paddle cloggage.

I was implying more of a problem in a commericial setting where the numb-nut customers "forget" to empty their pockets of all manner of S- - T.

Don't you just LOVE gum in a commerical dryer, or stickers or safety pins, etc.

I'm Sure Peter H of Atlanta can chime in here with some commerical machine "accessories" he has found in the drums and tubs.

 

[askomiele]

How can lint build ip in the sprinkler baffels? Every wash, every rinse and every spin, lint is removed. The first mieles with sprinklers where very water efficient.
In school we have 2 mieles, household machines, I suppose they were from 1985. They are so easy to use. We do mostly sanitizing cycles to wash our kitchen towels we use in the cook classes. We are now 20 years later and they are still washing, doing every day a full load. I use a quart of the recommended quantity of poudre. Because of the sprinkler baffels they creat a bunch of suds when using the full amount. Once I plugged the laundrytub in and there was not even 3 gallons in it even after a 1600 rpm spin.

 

[toggleswitch]

Hmmmmm a quart of poudre. (Where poudre means powder).

[Funny the Greeks borrowed the French word *Poudre* to mean powder as well.]

A quart would be about a litre or 1,000ml.
Do you mean a cup=> 250ml +/- ?

 

[westytoploader]

Sprinkling baffles

My WW Dual-Tumble (1993 model) has holes strategically placed in the 2 plastic vanes to help with lint removal. They do "shower" the clothes with water and suds during wash, though it's hard to see with the water splashing around!

 

[jetcone]

Six baffles

My GE combo has 6 baffles. Now that really gets things moving, it looks like Niagara Falls in there.

Bendix used and patented 4 baffles in 1937. There were and always was in a Bendix 2 sets of one height and 2 sets of another height.
The different heights broke up the tumbling pattern and prevented the wash from balling up just like in a Slant front Westinghouse.
Westinghouse ended up with 3 baffles on the slant front but started with 5, my 1949 Streamliner has 5 baffles.

All very baffleing!

 

[tomturbomatic]

Toggle: Askomiele means he uses a quarter of the powder.

I have not checked out a Milnor recently, but all through the 50s & 60s, the Milnors had holes in the 3 vanes. Often they would pause in the reverse tumbling with one vane at the 12 o'clock position and the water in the vane poured out through the holes in it.

Austin, the holes in the lint filter vanes of the WWH front loader are arranged to force water through them as they pass through the water to force lint out of the inner tub and into the outer tub, where through some magic or delusion of the marketing staff, it is said to never get back into the tumbling clothes. The way that they are aranged in our machines, which is the same positioning that Westinghouse used from the start of the non-slanted tub, can cause them to grab the laundry in the transition from tumble to spin in an uneven way making for unequally distributed loads and noisy spins. At least it spins. It does not stop for much like more modern machines with all of the electronic sensors. In the early 60s when the Lint Ejector first appeared, it was red and the other vane was gray.

The thing about the tub vanes is that their height is inversely related to the tumble speed. Higher vanes mean that the tub can revolve slower to achieve the same lift of shorter vanes revolving faster. That is why the Whirlpool dryer drum with the two bumps and the taller plastic Variator Baffle benefits so much from the speed control that some older TOL models have. The highest tumble speed kept sheets and other large items pulled more to the sides of the drum so that they did not fall into the center where they would ball up. Small loads or light weight fabrics tumbled slower. They had the same lift to keep them in the air stream, while not holding them against the side of the drum so that they did not tumble at all. Since you could not change the vanes, you changed the speed. The super duper capacity 29" WP, KM and KA dryers have three fixed vanes, but not as much tendency to roll up sheets.

 

[frigilux]

All four FL units I've had over the years 'shower' the clothes via holes in the paddles. I've never believed they actually do much. Generally, the only time I can really see the shower happening is if a paddle stops at the top of the tub during a pause. Otherwise, it looks like the clothes are stopping most of the shower effect since they're pushed up against the paddles during tub rotation. I doubt there'd be much difference in cleaning if the paddles were solid...

Of course I never thought rational people in the 21st century would believe the earth is only 10,000 years old, either, so what do I know?

 

[foraloysius]

Here's a page that shows how a frontloader is working. It's in German, but the animation are interesting. If you scroll down the page you see an animation of a tumbling drum. The drum is almost empty, but you can see how the spraying works. If the drum is full with clothes, this system still works. What this animation doesn't show is that Miele's tumble at two speeds. The slower phase is for wetting the clothes, the faster one to really wash them. This is how it goes: Clockwise 40rpm, clockwise 55rpm, pause, counter clockwise 40rpm, counter clockwise 55rp, pause etc. etc. On the slower speed the laundry doesn't get lifted as high ofcourse as on the faster speed, therefor the clothes are saturated better by the sprays at the slower speed and get washed more thoroughly at the higher speed. Ingenious, isn't it?

 

[foraloysius]

Forgot the link

-

Die Seite mit der Maus - Sachgeschichten

Eine Übersicht über alle verfügbaren Sachgeschichten der Sendung mit der Maus, die man auch direkt anschauen kann.

www.wdrmaus.de

 

[peterh770]

Honestly, I think scoop-n-ladel, just like HE detergents are a crock. I have yet to see it really work effectively for anything. I think it is a marketing thing to brag on that really does nothing.

Last year, Maytag introduced in their commercial machines "Turbo Wash". According to them, they use less water and do better cleaning. When talking with the reps, I asked them to specifically tell me what Turbo Wash is. They told me that they pack a miniature Tom Turbomatic in every machine! KIDDING!!! No, they said that the new holes in the lifting vanes cause more water turbulance which makes for better cleaning. RIIIIIIGHT!!! Utter nonsense.

Wascomat put holes in their vanes with the Gen 6 models but couldn't give me a reason why they decided to do so. At least they were honest.

Before I got my Miele, I read all I could about it and couldn't wait to see it in action, thinking I was getting something really special, especially for the wool and delicates. Either the tub turns too fast and centrifigal force doesn't allow the water to "shower down" on the load, or the tub turns too slow so that any water in there has slipped out by the time the vanes are at a 10 or 2 o'clock position, or the tub stops for reversing before any vane gets up high enough to shower.

Whatever...

 

[lavamat_jon]

Louis;

My Miele (at least) does the same two speed tumbling; but does it in reverse - i.e. the tumble starts at 50rpm, slows down to 40rpm halfway through the tumble, then reverses almost instantly at 50rpm, slows down to 40rpm halfway through, reverse and tumble 50rpm again etc.

A few other manufacturers have adopted this system now too, albeit a fair few years after Miele introduced the Hydromatic system. I believe non-Jetsystem Electrolux machines do 2-speed tumbling, as well as Hoover/Candy, and some pre-WMA series Hotpoint I have seen. My old Hotpoint; however; would pause between the two tumble speeds - i.e. fast tumbling for 10 seconds, pause, slow tumbling for 10 seconds, pause, fast reverse tumbling for 10 seconds, pause, slow reverse tumbling for 10 seconds and so on.

Jon

Jon

 

[tomturbomatic]

Jon & Louis: My W1986 definitely slows during tumbling. It starts fast and really throws towels in a nice arc and then as it gets into the second half of the 14 seconds or so of tumble, it slows so that things just roll around until it reverses. I don't know why, but I don't notice it as much in the W1918, but in both, I have noticed that if the tub stops with a baffle up at the top, some water flows out of it. The other, maybe more important thing is the shape of the baffles. They are not simple triangles with holes on the sides like in the Creda. In the Miele, they start up as if forming a triangle, but they break the angle and straighten or flare very slightly before forming the apex, which is a flat top with holes in it. I think that the shape of the baffle allows the angle on the inside of the solid part of the baffle to carry water up with the clothes and drop it on them as it heaves them over.

 

[tomturbomatic]

After seeing the animation, I see the holes are not at the top of the baffle, but just below it. I guess it is still possible for the solid part to carry some water up, especially when the clothes are covering the holes on the way up.