Modern Front Loader Tub Design

[peterh770]

My 1918 starts with the medium tumble for the first 5 minutes or so of the cycle (Cottons & PP), then it shifts to the 2 speed tumbling for the majority of the cycle. About the last 20 minutes of the cycle, it is all fast tumble. Rinses are medium tumble. When selecting the Rapid cycle, after the meduim soaking tumble, the whole cycle is fast tumble.

 

[cleanteamofny]

With my Malber it does a fast/slow/fast rotation during the wash. By doing this it allows what's in the center of the tub to rotate towards the outside. It's hard to explain, but it does work like this when I don't add extra water to the cycle.
I hate the frugil water level for the main wash!

 

[Bearpeter]

UK commercial laundry!

JLA washing machines do have a scoop and ladle design. Used these in Leeds at a laundromat.
I looked a bit of a fool with my head in the window when I noticed the action!!!
The first thing I noticed was the very slow ramp up to spin after the rinses and final spin. Good fluff at the end of cycle and not bad results from a commercial wahser..

 

[peterh770]

The washers look like Ipso, and the dryers are definitely ADC.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Ipso. Does anyone remember Archie Bunker, maybe, although I think Jackie Gleason and Art Carney made the same joke of saying ipso fatso for ipso facto, (by the fact itself)?

 

[tomturbomatic]

Miele baffles

I was not completely wrong about the holes in the baffles. The W1986 has baffles that do end up with a square top, but the holes are just along the sides near the end. The W1918 has holes on the sides and in the end of the baffles. Both drain whatever water they carry up if the machine pauses with a baffle near the top.

My Creda, on the regular wash cycle, goes through periods during the heating phases where it barely tumbles and has long pauses between the tumble periods, but before and after each heating period it tumbles at its fast speed. When it is pausing, if you listen closely, you can hear the sound of water heating as steam forms on the hot surfaces of the heating elements. That same sound that is heard when you heat water in a pan on an electric surface unit. The sound stops when the boiling starts because the steam can can escape from the bottom of the pan instead of being held down by and condensing in the cooler water above the hot base of the pan. Sometimes, this energy is transferred from the pan, down through the surface unit and trim and will cause vibration on the cooktop if an element or reflector pan is not sitting snug in its position.

 

[servis-homecare]

scoop and ladel systems,

In the mid 90s MERLONI introduced the Servis Rainwave machine, of which had 4 paddles, the system always appeared to be 'hit or miss' to whether it did anything or just another gimick!! I'm sure there are many out there who would agree that Zanussi's Jetsystem was the way forward with a recirc pump operating throughout the wash dropping water back into the drum thus reducing water and detergent consumption. Early version as FL1011 carried out a pulse spin during wash and seemed to work well. I must add though that German manufacturers such as Miele, AEG and BSH group really seem to have got front loaders right, but then maybe i'm bias working for BSH!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[lavamat_jon]

Steve - welcome to the club! Great to see another UK member on here .

Those Servis Rainwave machines look hopeless to me - can't see how the paddles can pick up laundry at all!! They're literally just bumps in the drum aren't they? I agree with you about the Jetsystem, it is a good system although I have found that it certainly doesn't help with sudsing regardless of how much detergent you've used. Have found that the ART system on my AEG (which is similar to the Jetsystem) is, whilst fun (especially when it fills for the rinses whilst turning at distribution speed, even to the high levels if you press Sensitive), it really does hinder rinsing performance, and I feel it doesn't rinse as well as my Miele with it's deep rinses; although the AEG is still miles ahead of that dang Bosch that lives in my mother's laundry room downstairs which just seems to refuse to use any water!

Tom,

What year is your Creda from? They certainly were fun machines - although not too great at washing or rinsing. The identical Hotpoint machines from the 80s to mid 90s are very popular here - they were about as popular as Whirlpool DD's are in the USA so everybody knows at least 2 or 3 people that have one. The separate heating phases on the timer; as well as allowing it to heat to different temps (a lower temp as the cycle goes on etc), it also gives a profile washing effect - i.e. heat a little, tumble, heat a little more, tumble, heat even more, tumble. The drums on those machines though were infamous for ripping and snagging things - they were on Watchdog (a consumer TV programme ove rhere) about 10 years ago with a Washing Line of Shame, where people would keep sending in all their clothes damaged by Hotpoint/Creda washers and washer dryers until Hotpoint sorted it out! Of course, it never got sorted out (GEC, who owned Hotpoint at the time, had a lot more power over a tiny consumer programme on BBC1) and our 1998 Hotpoint with the same drum still snagged & damaged quite a lot of fabrics. They are also infamous here for leaving oily marks on whites!

My Miele doesn't have holes in the end of the paddles; however it has them on top of the slopes just before the tips square up, if that makes sense - I think from what you're saying it's the same as your W1986. I must say that Miele's Hydromatic scoop and ladle system seems to be the best out there so far - there is definitely a lot more splashing and with smaller loads you can see the water being brought up to the top and dropped. My AEG paddles are sort of funnel shaped, with holes in the end and that seems to be fairly good at picking and throwing up water too; although not as good as the Miele, but then the Advanced Rinse Technology recirculation pump probably makes up for that somewhat.

Bearpeter,

All the high-spin commercial washers sold here seem to have a wash & shower system as such; although for some reason bolt-down standard spin machines don't. I have seen high-spin Ipsos before and really do like the way they go up to spin - just start tumbling slowly and gradually increase speed over a minute whilst it drains, and by the time it's reached 500rpm and still speeding up the water has gone. Very impressive.

Take care all,

Jon

 

[sudsmaster]

I'm surprised nobody's even mentioned the original Neptune design, which has six half-paddles that Maytag calls "Waterfall Baffles". These have no holes at all, but are molded with little channels. Maytag's animation shows the baffles scooping up water and showering it on the laundry. However, since Maytag decided to fit this washer with a solid door, for all I can tell there really might be tiny baffled Tom Turbomatics in there doing all the work.

Miele's literature makes much of "fall height" which it says is lost in tilted drum designs. Personally I think all these designs have their pros and cons; the main thing is that the primary mode of FL cleaning is tumbling, where the clothes are more gently sloshed around in a puddle as opposed to being dragged around in a pool of water in a traditional top loader agitator design. Miele makes the apt comparison of tumble washing to the original method of doing laundry: dipping the item in a river and slapping it on a smooth rock. However, to date, nobody had introduced a machine that incorporates smooth rocks.