My wierd semi commercial dryer. Questions

[ilovewindex]

I have a "Unimac" non coin operated semi commercial dryer. Bought it from a tweaker bout 2 years ago who clamied his ex wife had bought it through a supply catolog at her job. I did some reading and assume its a Speed Queen built dryer. My question.. should i upgrade to the fancy new speed queen washer or should i just keep it. Also will it be harder to get repairs and such on it because ots not an actual speed queen?

 

[jkbff]

Unimac is made by alliance, which makes speed queen.

 

[mrb627]

Washer or Dryer?

Are you asking about the washer or dryer? It is not 100% clear what you are wanting to do.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Yes, I assume it was a typo and you meant dryer?
Dryers are simple things in the mechanics, whether commercial "normal size" like the ones of this kind, new or old or "fancy" they works pretty much the same way...

I see this one has a timer drying, not automatic sensing "auto cycles", so is without thermostats who detects when laundry is dried by hotness level..but you've to set what you find to be the proper time according to load quantity and type (just matter of getting used to), the "fancy" (supposing you meant the electronic) speed queen IIRC did put moisture sensors instead of thermical which if correctly working makes sure that machine will shut off a little bit more precisely than heat sensing, heat sensing may result them in running a little bit longer than actually needed for certain loads ...but not that Big deal IMO..moisture sensors are around from ages anyway.
Uni.macs are speed queen made and as they claim they use about the same parts both for domestic and commercial machines, with a few differences I noticed but not big ones.. then surely parts seems still available and if I may say you can find parts for dryers even older than this..
Whether made from Raytheon or alliance Speed queen I see parts are plentily available for the dryers...I have raytheon made speed queen set and can find pretty much all the parts in stock, even because at that time of raytheon made speed queens many other brands such as Amana and Maytag shared parts...as Amana was bought by raytheon, who sold to global Goodman something who sold it to Maytag.....

Uni macs are good dryers, if it works I don't see why you should change it if you're not bothered by time drying, unless you want a specific dryer looking differently for mere aesthethic reasons, then that's another matter...
Remember also uni-macs and alliance aka commercial speed queens are sold all over the world, if there has to be a large stock for parts it's for them...[this post was last edited: 1/23/2015-18:34]

 

[tomturbomatic]

Dryers with auto-dry cycles of the time/temp type do not have special thermostats to determine dryness. All dryers should have two basic thermostats: the operating thermostat and a safety thermostat. The operating thermostat cycles the heat to maintain the selected drying temperature. In a time/temp auto dry system, the operating thermostat is wired to the timer motor so that when the thermostat is calling for heat, the timer motor does not operate when set in the auto dry cycle. When the operating thermostat is satisfied and opens, the circuit is completed to the timer motor which then advances the timer a bit until the operating thermostat calls for additional heat.

Most people, if they wash the same loads each week and if they give a slight damn about doing laundry, quickly learn how long each load takes to dry and can pretty much set the timer accurately enough to obviate the need for an auto dry cycle.

Your dryer offers a range of drying temperatures although, truth be told, most everything can be dried at the regular temperature in today's dryers so it is really all you need if you don't mind setting a timer. Thanks for sharing the picture of a dryer most of us have not previously seen.

 

[kenmoreguy89]

Tom: Yes, no special thermostat except cycle one, but they do work thanks to detection and combination of dryness and hotness, please correct me if I'm wronmg, but from what I knew they used this principle:
That's because is an indirect cause, as a load tend to gets more dry, the more dry it gets the hotter it gets and in a shorter/quicker time, hence the sooner and more often the cycle thermostat sense it got hot and cycles off burner/element the sooner and more often the timer will advance to the end of cycle, wet laundry will take more to get hot and take less getting cool and the opposite happens as it gets dry...this mechanism allows the machine to go by dryness level thanks to the combination of hotness of laundry and "technical" times.
In a time set drying cycle, heater/burner will still cycle off and on to mantain selected temperature, but it will not stop until the timer has finished indipendently from what the thermostat do....

Anyway yes, as I also said a time setting is really all matter of getting used to, as long as you learn how much your dryer takes for a certain load it'll become "automatic" for you to iamgine how much it'll take for all the various ones...is a very quick thing to learn...
[this post was last edited: 1/25/2015-10:08]