Hi Louisvz.
I have owned a couple of South African Indesit washer-dryers. I really liked them. The same model was sold here both as Indesit WD800 and Lemair WD800. The South African machines had a black control panel instead of silver, and a different model number which I no longer remember. Interestingly, the SA machines used the exact same four buttons and wiring loom, but were wired up differently to give the buttons different functions. The Italian built machines had four butttons for: dryer on (to continue straight from wash into dry mode); 800 button for 800 rpm spin, otherwise a slower spin; a no spin button and on/off button.
The South African machine changed the "dry" button to a "no heater" button. If the dryer timer was set to a time, it would dry automatically after the wash, there was no dry button any more, instead you could push in the button to wash with warm water from the taps but no heater for the wash. Also the "800" button became a "water saver" button, which deleted the higher water level for the rinses. All spins were 800 rpm for all cycles. The "no spin" button and the "on/off" button remained the same. I always thought the SA version's options were more suited to Australian washing preferences than the Italian built version which was sold here.
The spin on these machines worked in an interesting way. The motor had an expanding pulley which gave a faster spin (800). When the motor went up to spin speed, the belt would start to move to the outer edge of the pulley, which shortened the effective length of the belt and pulled the motor higher up towards the drum. The motor only attached to the drum via two rubber bushes at the inner end, the motor hangs down onto the belt so the weight of the motor hanging on the belt keeps the belt tensioned. As the motor speeds up for spin, the motor moves closer to the drum and trips a microswitch between the drum and motor. The switch cuts power to the motor, so it slows down and drops away from the drum again. As it drops it moves away from the microswitch so the switch turns on again, the motor speeds up again till it rises and trips the switch again. The spin cycle continues like this, the speed varies every few seconds from about 300 rpm up to about 600 rpm and back to about 300 rpm. When the "800" button is pushed in, the microswitch is bypassed and the motor runs up to full speed and stays there, giving a spin speed of about 800 rpm.
On the South African machines, the 800 button was deleted, but the small lever arm on the microswitch was cut off, so the movement of the motor upwards never trips the microswitch and the spin is always at full speed. The microswitch was still installed, but it never operated. I saw three machines the same over a couple of years. I was told they were very popular, I think for a while they were the only washer-dryer available in SA. I bought my first one from a South African immigrant who brought it out with him, the other two were wrecks, also from SA immigrants. I rescued one and got parts off the other. They were labelled in dual language, English and Afrikaans.
Thanks for showing us photos of your machines.
Chris.
