New owner of a 2015 Speed Queen TL washer!

[gusherb]

Went in hoping to get an AWN542 but after some careful thought and this dealer not having them available anymore I decided to get the AWNE82 electronic model instead. I take delivery Wednesday morning, they only had the display that they said they just got in so I opted for that instead of waiting for one to come in, so the attached picture is of the actual machine I bought. (That price on the machine is NOT what I paid for it just FYI)

 

[mrb627]

Congrats

I'm anxious to hear your thoughts on your new machine.

Malcolm

 

[gusherb]

Yes me too, it would appear I'm the "guinea pig" for the new electronic models on this forum. My two biggest concerns are the fact that this thing won't even fill with the lid open, but I checked it and it has the same easy-to-bypass lid switch as the electromechanical models. And I'm concerned about the "reduced" water level and if these models have a way of fixing that like the electromechanical models, or if I'm just gonna have to deal with it.

Outside of that I'm freaken excited! It'll be nice to say good riddance to that old Samsungtag FL that has seen better days...

 

[mrb627]

Water levels

I thought it was confirmed that a full tub of water fill on the new models.

Malcolm

 

[estesguy]

Energy guide

Yes, we'll be interested to hear how the water level works out, as there is a BIG difference between the 400 KWHs on the AWN542 you were going to buy, and the 112 KWHs on the model you ended up buying. 112 is really, really low.

 

[gusherb]

Malcolm

At this point I have no clue except I read in the user guide that "due to 2009 DOE regulations this machine has a reduced water level". Now idk if that's just a carryover wording from previous models or if it still holds true. We'll find out tomorrow.

Estesguy, I think that energy guide rating is only if you use the "Normal Eco" cycle (thank you speed queen for putting "Eco" after "Normal" unlike every other manufacturer that has made normal Into "Eco" without warning, lol) which only has one wash and one spray rinse and nothing else.
If you want a full tub rinse you must either select the heavy duty cycle or add a second rinse to the normal Eco cycle (so 1 spray rinse and 1 full tub rinse).

 

[mrb627]

Full Tub

Here is a picture from a user that just took delivery showing a full tub fill.

Malcolm

 

[washman]

Congrats

and welcome to a growing family of discerning launders. You will find this machine so amazing that words are not necessary to describe it!

What will stand out is super clean laundry and the knowledge of a reliable workhorse machine.

 

[gusherb]

Washman

I am REALLY excited about this. I have missed our Raytheon Amana since it was replaced in 2006, even if it was a little on the crappy side. I'm excited to be getting it's better built successor.

 

[washman]

Ya know jonathan

I've had the SQ for a while now and I STILL get excited when I do laundry. Guess I'm weird or OCD OR DDHR or something like that.

Call me nuts but I still dig the 210 degree stroke. The spin drain. The great turnover. The cleanliness of my laundry. The ease of use.

Since I bought a new home, I have to backtrack on my tirades against eco-nazism that has swept this great land of ours ever since algore brought us up to speed with his powerpoint.

I have a 96% hi eff furnace.

1.28 gallon flush toilets.

R38 insulation in the ceiling

R21 in the walls.

An eco conscious Frig DW that uses, drum roll please, a whoppping 4.1 gallons of H2OH during the "normal" wash cycle!

All the outside lights are swirly CFL using a paltry 13W of power to light up the night.

But life is all about balance and I'll get that in spades each time I fire up the SQ and enjoy a freshly lit Marlboro while it washes away.

 

[gusherb]

Those are all the reasons why I'm so into the SQ. I never was a huge fan of the short strokes of the whirlpool DD or the sound of it.

It's funny you bring that up cuz I was gonna go into that in my last post but didn't, you must've been reading my mind!

I have converted everything here to energy efficient where I see no compromise in doing so and would actually see true savings. it is all about balance like you say, so I have half CFL/LED and half incandescent. One furnace is 80% efficient and the other is 97% (be nice if the 80%er was a 97 too but that was before we knew we could put a condensing furnace in the attic) The toilets are all 1.6 GPF, but the showers are all high-ish flow as are the faucet aerators.
Now that the washer is gonna be a water guzzler I'm gonna need to find somewhere else to save! (probably put a timer on the pool pump)

 

[frigilux]

Love the look of the electronic console--sleek! Do the new machines do a spin-drain or have they adopted the small electric pump for a neutral drain?

 

[combo52]

New SQ TL Washers

Unfortunately they still do a spin-drain, they could really improve their belt life if they would start spinning with an empty tub. It also uses 10-15 times as much power to use an inefficient 1/2 HP split phase motor to pump out the water.

 

I think the only reason they are keeping the water pump on the main motor [ in this country at least ] is that it is much cheaper to build. One of the other bad things about having the water attached to the main motor is when the pump seal fails it sometimes ruins a $200 motor.

 

SQ also needs to add and enlarge the holes in the bottom of their washers tub to improve the heavy soil removal of their TL machines [ in addition to adding a ND operation ]. Overall the performance of SQ TL washers is not that great, this is probably why few of the serious washer collectors on this site have new SQ TL washers in their laundry rooms.

 

[gusherb]

The Queen has Arrived!!

The delivery guys just finished putting the new Queen in, the old clunker Samsungtag is GONE. (They had a hell of a time getting it out of here)

Some things I wanna get off my chest right away are: it indeed does fill to just a smidge below the top row of holes just as Malcolm posted.

The hot side is no longer restricted, it appears to fill full rate on this machine.

And it is confirmed the electronic models don't let you even watch it fill.

The filler pattern has changed, it's more of a pressurized sideways flat stream now as opposed to the tranquil waterfall. (I suppose this helps with the spray rinses)
I will post a photo once I get the lid switch bypassed.

Right now it's being run through a "clean" cycle with very hot water, I wiped down the tub first and a lot of that black grease that others have mentioned came off on the towel. Hopefully a cycle with detergent takes care of it.

Once the doors on the closet are closed the machine is just a mere hum in the house, I'm so far pleased with the sound levels (though I probably won't be washing at 1AM anymore)
On the spin cycle (at least while empty) it's so smooth I can't even tell its spinning until I peek in the lid and see it whirring away at 710 RPM. I'm so used to that Samsungtag shaking the house like a violent earthquake it's not even funny, this is such a welcome change! [this post was last edited: 4/1/2015-16:02]

 

[mrb627]

Looks Good!

Now you gotta get rid of that dryer! :}

Malcolm

 

[washman]

You did the right

thing by investing, not buying, a Speed Queen. These are durable units. You will be the fist one here with the electronic controls and I am anxious to hear how they work out for you in terms of ease-of-use and longevity.

 

[supersurgilator]

Any chance you can make a video of this machine in operation? I'd love to see the fill and the controls. in the one demo vid I found, it sounds like they have the nice same beep as the commercial units.

Also I'd be curious in how much wash time the different soil levels add. I downloaded a manual but it didn't say in there.
Thanks!

 

[gusherb]

Malcolm: that's next on my list! ... After a new water heater and some other things, but I definitely wanna get the matching dryer.

Washman: Agreed! So far I have no complaints about the electronic controls, they behave just like the commercial controls of which I'm already accustomed and I think the electronic controls on this machine are more intuitive to a novice then the dials were.
Also like you see in the picture they light up in blue and I think that's awesome, very sleek. I feel like I have the best of both worlds here.

Bruce: I will do that once I get the lid switch bypassed, right now I'm enjoying the New Washer Smell and familiarizing myself with it and then I'll start horsing with it.

They do have the same beep as the commercial units! The end of cycle signal is just a long beep basically, the loudest setting is just barely loud enough to hear through the closet doors. I personally think it could be a little louder, but not a big deal considering I wasn't even expecting to get that feature on a TL anyway. (I was wanting the AWN542 at first)

minus my "clean the grease out" first wash I've done 4 loads of laundry so far and I've only used the "Heavy Duty" cycle which was last years Normal cycle minus a spray rinse during the first spin.
In Heavy Duty without prewash or extra rinse selected, on Light Soil, the wash time is 29 minutes, Medium Soil is 31 minutes, and Heavy Soil is 33 minutes. So from light to heavy is only a 4 minutes difference. I have a feeling for extra dirty loads I'll be using the prewash alot since that 4 minutes difference doesn't seem like much to me.

Also something else I just noticed in this 4th load of laundry I did is the initial spin out after the wash was in low speed? I didn't notice this any other time (I probably wasn't paying attention then). This was in the "Heavy Duty" cycle, the final spin was high speed.

 

[gusherb]

For your viewing pleasure

I popped the contro panel off to try to figure out how to bypass the lid switch (the clothespin under the back trick didn't work as I couldn't get it out far enough to see what I was doing) so I shoved half a clothespin between the metal piece over the switch itself and the cabinet. I could've wired the two leads together but didn't have a piece to stick the connectors onto.

So anyway here's never before seen pictures of the behind the scenes of the electronic control panel, and I also posted the wiring diagram.