The Laundry Alternative Mega just arrived

[launderess]

Am thinking there truly must be something to lower

Spin speeds and long washer life.

When you look at various European eBay or whatever sites you often can find plenty of older front loaders from the 1970's, 1980's if not before that only spun at 900rpms or less still chugging along. OTOH much of the new stuff with high speed spins doesn't seem to last very long.

Reason one babies the Miele is because she has that big ole cast iron two part motor (separate portions for spin and wash tumble). Once that goes kaputt so is Big Bertha. MieleUSA no longer stocks such motors, and is most firm on they will not send a technician to even change the brushes as it requires hauling that heavy motor out of machine.

Decanting laundry from washer to extractor/spin dryer isn't that bad, but then am the sort of person who likes busy work. *LOL*

 

[lordkenmore]

I won't deny that higher spin speeds could reduce the life of a washer. But I have to wonder if a modern washer that was designed to spin at slower speeds would last as long as those old European machines that refuse to die...

 

[launderess]

Well there is that....

My old Miele is built like a tank compared to the younger AEG Oko-Lavamat.

Have been told many of the parts such as belt and shocks are commercial quality on the Miele. Whereas having looked inside the AEG, that clearly isn't true IMHO.

Think the main difference may come down to that washers of old had to be designed to take much more "abuse" if you will. This may be because modern electronic controls and or totally by computer weren't around.

The Miele makes several attempts to balance a wash load; once the timer says "enough" and or the limited parameters time out, it is off to the races. However the cast iron cradle, four heavy suspension springs and two big shocks likely absorb a good amount of the force and or can handle things to a point.

OTOH the AGE will mess about for what seems ages until it is "ready" to spin. If the load cannot be properly balanced it will either slow down or simply abort.

 

[thomasortega]

Ok, guys, after a long time having no time to come here, my husband just called me and said somebody created a thread about the Mega.

Panthera, before you ask, the Mega is my little baby. I designed it from scratch.

The previous model (with a timer) was a PITA for me with literally hundreds of customers sending me messages complaining why the hell the timer takes 30 seconds to release the lid and asking me to teach them a way to make the unit operate with the lid open because they don't want to waste time (why bother about that silly safety first rule, right?)

The two lids are not a paranoia. It's the solution I found to protect the company from attorneys. It never happened to a Mega, but already happened to a competitor to be sued because of a BROKEN NAIL.
As the product design director for The Laundry Alternative, It's imperative that my projects are really safe (beyond UL standards) to protect the consumers, but also to protect the company. Unfortunately, nowadays, people are getting stupid (or too smart).

And believe it or not, if someday an user finds a way to bypass the lid lock timer, open the lid and suffer any injury for reaching the drum spinning, we would be still legally liable. For this reason, our attorneys instructed us to put the second lid, the quick reaction brake and the instruction "wait until the drum stops completely before opening the second lid."

The stickers (newer lot will come with 7 stickers, plus a huge orange paper sheet on the top of the unit, plus another paper sheet in the drum, plus an "origami" covering the power plug instructing clearly that the user should never open the second lid if the drum is not completely stopped.

One thing i can tell here (not directly in our website otherwise millenials would do crap and again blame us) If you have a floor drain, there's plug on the bottom of the unit. Just remove the plug and connect a regular washing machine drain hose (Home Depot). it drains by gravity with no need to pull the spout.

The unit also comes with an emergency drain (7 o'clock position) that goes off if you forget to pull the drain spout. it prevents water from reaching the motor.

The drum is not made of steel because it wouldn't be safe enough for the standards i wanted (specially after hearing about LG and Samsung explosions). For this reason i decided to use kevlar, the same polymer used to make bulletproof vests. It can literally resit a cal 380 bullet shot at 1 meter. (i did the crash-test myself)

If you have more questions, please feel free to contact me anytime by sending message here or to my direct email [email protected].

Ps. In three weeks our SCAW2GEN model arrives... A fully automatic mini top load washer. I brought back several interesting features from vintage washers (remember a thread I created months ago?) mixed with modern features. The washer was 100% designed by me in Los Angeles. Among the features, it has a germicidal light, spin rinses (generous spray) and two deep rinses. I was very careful to make sure that absolutely nobody will complain it doesn't use water enough or the washer is smelly. The SCAW2GEN is made in our plant in china, but some vital components are made in the USA. (Pirelli, Askoll, Texas Instruments)

More to come. The Mega is the largest capacity household spin dryer ever made in the world... Of course I had to make a matching masher for it... The largest capacity semi-automatic washer ever built... The tub is so big it makes the Maytag Bravos XXl look like a little toy.

The Mini Countertop Spin Dryer and the Miniwash will be cancelled very soon. To replace them, I'm making a new platform (internal name is LAX)
It will have no impeller and no agitator. There will be three models under the same platform... washer only, spin dryer only, and washer/spin dryer semi automatic combo. Countertop, of course.

We're also preparing a new line of tumble dryers and an european size washer-dryer combo.

 

[thomasortega]

And we never stop...

What about a small mini front load washer/tumble dryer combo that you can install over the toilet? and you don't need to drill holes on the wall.

It will come with all the connectors to hook it up to the toilet water pipes (cold fill only, internal heater).... and the wash/rinse water will be stored to flush the toilet.

What could be better for tiny studios?

 

[thomasortega]

The Mega was designed to have 3200 RPM originally.

Our attorney said "no fucking way". So i had to dumb it down to 1600. The drum diameter and the drum holes "vacuum" pattern helps getting the best extraction results even being 40% slower than our competitor that uses only centrifugal force

By the way, Panthera. Are you aware that all our products come with a 3-year "hassle-free" warranty?

If something goes wrong, we will never try to fix a damaged unit. Instead, we will ship you a brand new unit, at absolutely no cost for you. No mess, no long wait, no "Speed Queen Drama" we all saw in other thread here.

Yep, The Laundry Alternative came to make noise.... And I joined the company to make even more noise.

 

[panthera]

Thomas,

There's no question about it - you succeeded with this spin dryer! It has exceeded my every expectation.

I did notice the floor drain, thanks.

We've now done over twenty loads through it.

My observations:

There is a bit of a thumping in the back from the brake line hitting the vertical strip of plastic covering it. Not bad, but a bit of foam would have stopped that.

The drying time has been cut enormously, whether line dried or in the tumble dryer. Never less than half and in some cases nearly 3/4!

I can pack a full washing machine load into it - wonderful!

I took all the stupid decals off. I took the two red latches off of the inner lid - they're the only 'clunky' part of the machine and of no value. Anyone stupid enough to reach into a spinning dryer is an idiot and should be weeded out by winning the Darwin Award. I am not going to disassemble it (want to!) until I've had it for a while, in case there is an (not expecting it) error or failure requiring I use the warranty. That wouldn't be fair to Laundry Alternative.

 

All in all, I'd give it a  9 out of 10. Somebody who doesn't hate decals and hand-holding might well give it a 10 out of 10. 1600rpm really does seem to work as well as my German spin dryers running faster. I think you did an outstanding job and thank you! Anyone here who's wondering whether they're worth it - this one is.

 

[thomasortega]

Thanks Panthera...

Thant noise is actually a silly manufacturing failure to be corrected on the next lot.

You can remove the side cover on the back and use 2 drops of hot glue or silicon. it will work much better than styrofoam to make the wiring harness stop vibrating.

Please never think about removing the three screws on the bottom and then swap the red and brown motor connectors to make it reach 3200 RPM. Once I had to dumb down the speed, i also reduced the brake pads size. so it will not brake so fast considering the higher speed and it would be against the F-word UL standards.

We are not liable for any accidents that may happen at 3.2krpm and it will void the warranty, so please never do that.

 

[thomasortega]

The drum MUST stop in up to 6 seconds after the brakes activate. remember that rule, right?

The rev1, that had a timer, simply had a coast down portion. It would coast down for 35 seconds before the brake goes off. The code says clearly "after the brake goes off" so, it was easy to brake with the drum almost stopped.

Now that the brake goes off instantly after the top lid opens 2mm, i had to recalculate the brake pad to stop from 1600 rpm to 0 in up to 6 seconds, without making the whole spin dryer spin.

Solution: a primitive ABS. Brake pads that intentionally slip, braking without locking the shaft. That's why maybe you'll feel a vibration and hear a "knife noise" right when the brake goes off. It's the brake braking and releasing hundreds of times in a second.

It will not work at 3200 rpm.

 

[panthera]

I wouldn't dream of it....

Moi? I'm just an obedient little German. Never occur to me. Glad you warned me, though.

Gosh. Maybe you should add a decal warning people not to do that! 

 

[thomasortega]

You're German... I'm half German.... (mother side)

That's why i told you to never do that...

Ducks and runs

Now seriously.... If you want to do, it's on your responsibility...

I clearly warned you that it is dangerous and it will reduce the spin dryer life and void the warranty.
Also it will be dangerous, specially because it will be against the UL standards, so, officially, we're not liable for anything that happens.

 

[thomasortega]

Did your unit come with the sticker "do not try to spin babies, children or pets like dogs, cats, rodents and birds"?

 

[thomasortega]

We had an incident with a customer who's son got his head stuck in the drum and the fire department had to cut the Mega.

Guess who contacted the company a few weeks later...

 

[askolover]

When I was little I got my head stuck between the railing on my grandmother's front porch.  Maybe we should have called the company back then.  It doesn't mean the railing was defective.  Kids do stupid crap, period!  But parents now ALWAYS need someone ELSE to blame.  And if there could be money involved all the better. 

 

[warmsecondrinse]

"... and the wash/rinse water will be stored to flush the toilet."

Have you calculated how much water this would save? Bet it's more than is saved by these super "efficient" toilets given the number of times one has to flush twice.

[Don't get me started on the false savings of dishwashers and washers. If something doesn't come out clean it simply goes back for another cycle, thereby increasing the number of cycles run per unit time. But I digress.]

------------------

IIRC, someone ran calculations/did experiments a few years back on the relationships among moisture removal, spin speed, and work/energy required. TBH, I forget the exact numbers but the relationship was something like this:

900 -> 1000rpm yielded x% more moisture removed and required x% more work
1000 -> 1100 yielded .9x more moisture and required 1.1x more work
1100 -> 1200 yielded .8x more and required 1.2x more
Etc.

Despite the diminishing returns, increase of spin speeds still results in a net energy savings up to a point, then the peak is reached and further spin speed increase results in a negative net savings.

All of this of course assumes that hundreds of real life variables (like replacement costs of the machines due to shortened life span) are actually constants.

I hope that made sense. If not I'll try again to explain...

 

[thomasortega]

"Have you calculated how much water this would save? Bet it's more than is saved by these super "efficient" toilets given the number of times one has to flush twice."

This is the very first thing I've thought. Think of a video conference i had with Kohler engineers saying "normal people don't poop ping pong balls", so we have to start with a decent flush using a different reference.

Most people think extraction is based only on drum diameter x spin speed.

It is more than possible to extract much more water if you don't use only the centrifugal force to "push" the water out of the clothes.

The best way is putting a The Laundry Alternative Nina Soft (1800rpm) side by side with a Panda Spin Dryer (3200 RPM) and comparing the results with exactly similar loads.

Panda has a wider drum and a much higher spin speed so, following the centrifugal force theory we all learned in junior high, it should extract much more water from the clothes.

Nope. The Nina extracts more water and is much safer if something goes wrong (drum failure) I won't even mention the energy efficiency, wear and tear and how a simple hole design made this huge difference possible.

Thank God the chinese engineers didn't discover this little secret yet.

When i was at Electrolux, I've made a low end model that spun at 550 RPM. It extracted more water than whatever American full size TOL HE top load washer at 1000 RPM. By the end of the spin cycle, people could see the dry spots on the clothes (usually sheets), so well spun the load was.

 

[thomasortega]

Centrifugal force helps, but when you have a "shop vac" on each drum hole, the result is even better.

A well designed hole isn't just a hole. The hole pattern, shape and angle can make an enormous difference.

 

[rolls_rapide]

"hole pattern, shape and angle..."

Agreed.

I've noticed in my latest machine that the small holes in Panasonic's 'Sazanami' drum do not appear to let away the water as efficiently as conventional holes.

The photo compares Panasonic's older conventional drum to their newer design.

In other words, when clothes have been removed at the end of the cycle, a small amount of water which has possibly gathered in the drum lifter dribbles out (about a teaspoonful), and pools in the bottom of the drum - directly over the drum holes! It does not drain away readily. Holes too small? Water tension too great?

I liked the 'thousands of holes' idea of the AEG I had years ago, though.

 

[thomasortega]

yep....

Size isn't all... the angle the hles are made...

There's a certain manufacturer (USA) that tried to copy the idea without doing the homework. The holes are absurdly wrong and reduced the performance instead of improving it. Even worse, the drums are now more fragile.

 

[iheartmaytag]

I'm curious about wrinkling

Does packing into the smaller drum, then spinning at high speed set the wrinkles in clothing more?

I noticed more wrinkling of my dress shirts when I switched to a front loader. I don't know if it's the larger loads, or higher spin, but wrinkling is much more pronounced, but they do tend to soften in the dryer. I would assume The same would happen after being extracted, but just wondering if the wrinkles set a little deeper from the high speed spin? What are your experiences?

Wrinkling side note--I placed my daughter's comforter in one of those space bags this spring when I switched to the lighter weight bedspread. Went to get it out this weekend, and it was so wrinkled from being sucked flat all summer, I had to put it in the dryer to loosen wrinkles.