My first vintage dryer...and its German...!

[matthewza]

Hi all!

So Thursday night I was just browsing my local gumtree,and saw an ad for a *FREE* tumble dryer. And when I saw the picture, I just had to have it. Its German, has a glass door, and comes from the '80s...it's a Bauknecht! TRA 865 CD. I love it! My mom's aunt has the 860 and she loves it and I grew fond of it too when I first saw it. I fetched mine heard at after work and have the rest load going now. Just the weeks gym clothes. I still have my LG pair and will probably alternate each week between the LG dryer and the bauknecht. But it also serves as much needed counter space next to my convection oven.

 

[matthewza]

Pictures...

Here she is in all her glory...

Test load set to B with normal dryness and low heat because of my Nike dryfit shirts

 

[ronhic]

My partners Grandmother had a Bauknecht top load tumble washer in Germany of about the same age judging by the control panel.

 

Was a fantastic machine.

 

[jetcone]

Kool machine Mathew

I'd use the schranktrocken cycle too !!

 

[matthewza]

@ronhic my mom's aunt got her's from a 2nd hand shop a few years back and worked like a dream and then it stopped heating so we sent it to my repair man, and after that very cheap repair it's going strong once more. A few years back I had an AEG Lavatherm 610 that was also quite a great dryer. These older German machines are just great and just last forever.

@jetcone thank you! I was quite surprised at how quickly it dried the load. 35 mins and it was done and everything was dry. Played around with a load of underwear and button up cotton shirts last night on C with normal heat and it did leave the clothes slightly damp as one would expect when setting it to iron dry. I just put the load on the clothes horse to finish off. During the week I'll run a proper full load and play around with the cycles a bit. I quite like how when the sensors tell the timer that the clothes are dry, it just progresses straight to the cool down. And I do enjoy the speed queen like buzzer. But most of all I like the glass door.

Apologies to all for the horrendous spelling in my first post. Autocorrect on my phone. 'nuff said.

 

[matthewza]

Age...

If memory serves, this machine was made in the '80s. Trust the Germans to have already been using sensor drying back then. Just for interest sake, when did sensor drying technology start getting introduced?

 

[foraloysius]

Congratulations on your find! That dryer is indeed from the mid 80's. My brother and SIL had an almost similar dryer, but with a white control panel. After Whirlpool took over Philips, Whirlpool used this design too.

That AEG Lavatherm 610 was a good dryer too. Did it still have the smaller door opening? The AEG dryers with the larger door opening were of a lesser quality IMHO. They were noisier than the older AEG/Zanker design. My first dryer was a Zanker Thermat 455, a very fast dryer and less noisy than the AEG Lavatherm 330 I have.

I don't know when the first sensor dryer came on the European market. I think Miele's fist was the 460, that model was launched in the 60's IIRC. But perhaps another brand had one before Miele. I will see if I can get an answer.

 

[matthewza]

AEG Lavatherm 610...

Thank you foraloysius. I did see a picture of one with the white controls, but I think the brown just makes it look more rugged and vintage, haha.
I would assume the AEG I had was the larger door opening. Almost the whole front panel was the door (operated by a push button on the control panel) and it did have a big opening to a relatively big drum. Timer controlled. It was loud (you knew when it was on) but not unpleasant. Just blower noise no motor noise as such. But also a very quick dryer. Most full loads only took about 45 mins to dry completely. If I ever come across another Lavatherm 610, I will snap it up!

 

[tomturbomatic]

That's a nice looking dryer. What do the bright sun and the sorta of half sun settings mean?

 

[matthewza]

The bright sun is the indicator light for drying (heating as they say in the manual) and the half sun is the half heat button - pushed in to select half heat, out to select high heat. Then the fan is the indicator light for cooling, the broken line circle is for end/anti crease and the cross hatch one means the filter needs to be cleaned

 

[jetcone]

Over here I think

Maytag introduced sensor drying in either 1959 or 1960 but WP had a system just around then too.

 

Maytag had large copper wire coiled around one fin that was the sensor.

 

I think there might be a picture of that here in some deep thread.

 

Always thought the  WP sensing was the best between the two. It ran to cool down just as the clothes hit the proper dryness. I have never shrunk anything in a WP dryer due to over drying.

Maytag - not so much.

Louis, you look very cold in that jacket !! 

 

 

 

[foraloysius]

I don't know enough about the UK market, but the Miele 460 was the first dryer on the North Eastern part of the continent to have sensor drying. This dryer was introduced in 1966 and had two sensors on the baffles in the drum. Here's a video of a 1970 Miele 460.



Yes Jon, it was cold! It was in March in a little harbor town called Harlingen.

http://www.webcam-harlingen.nl