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panthera

panthera

Well-known member
Joined
Feb 14, 2016
Messages
2,825
Location
Rocky Mountains
One of the few European appliances I have genuinely missed here in the 'States is a spin-dryer. The vintage ones, though excellent, are nearly impossible to find over here and the first spin-dryers on offer were outrageously overpriced and poorly made.

This one got good reviews (the first attempt had a 100% failure rate) so I decided to take the plunge.

We're washing ten or so loads today, we'll see how it does.

One thing - this one has two lids plus the safety floppy and no timer. The shipping bar was also much easier to remove - I wonder if it's an updated version of what's on their website? We'll see, I guess!

 

http://www.laundry-alternative.com/our-products/mega-spin-dryer-2/
panthera-2017091611012905661_1.jpg
 
Congrats

Do keep us posted, as am sure many are interested.

Have an older LA spin dryer and it does the job well enough. But the plastic bits inside make a horrible racket if things aren't just the way machine likes. One either must put up with the noise, or shut things down, redistribute and start again.

Have spotted several vintage spin dryers lately, but they were all up north (Canada) and sellers wouldn't budge on doing a deal.

Am still holding out one day on possibly finding one of the smaller Bock or Montex extractors, but am not holding one's proverbial breath. You'd think Martha Stewart would give up hers at Skylands as am sure she (or rather her staff) rarely uses. *LOL*
 
Cannot speak about a Miele 1918

But my AEG OKO-Lavamat spins at 1800rmps, and still prefer to use the spin dryer.

For one, and don't know if this is true but have heard slower final spin speeds mean longer washer life.

Two, unless washing an entire load of things that want "max extract" there usually are things in a wash load that one does not want subjected to high spin speeds. T-shirts and other knit undergarments, things made from elastic and or have elasticity properties.

The final high speed portion of the Lavamat cycle is only for the last few minutes anyway. Whereas with a spin dryer one can leave things long as one likes.

Do a fair amount of washing in tubs and it is easier to bung things into a spin dryer rather than mess about with either Miele or Lavamat.

Find oneself babying the Miele as Big Bertha is getting on, and after that last costly repair job (suspension), have been warned if she becomes ill again it will be terminal. So to save wear on suspension (and motor) for small loads and or others that know will cause unbalance issues, will wash and rinse without extraction then spin things out in spinner.
 
First Impressions

Pure cottons coming out of the GE Filter-Flo, normal spin (and it's a fast spin) - full load, just over or under 1 liter each for each of several loads.

That's a lot.

The thing of it is, the last little bit of water which the washer doesn't spin out is the toughest for the dryer to get rid of - simple physics, really - the less water goes into the dryer, the less water has to be removed.

What I like - the clearance between the spin basket and the walls of the spin dryer is enormous. It solves a lot of 'balance knocking' problems I remember from Germany. It also means, should something fly out of the basket, that I can reach in and pull it out easily without disassembly.

Very stable and spins up fast. Brakes fast.

Height is a big help - it's much taller than the spinners I had back home.

Quiet.

 

Dislikes:

All plastic. Not cheap plastic, not flimsy, but there's no question in my mind that this is not going to last indefinitely as the copper/stainless steel/zink spinners did in post-war Germany.

Hysterical American safety systems. Two lids, for goodness sake. Five warning decals. Five! When will American courts finally snap at freshly-minted survivors of a posthumous winner of the Darwin Award: "No award for you, you greedy twit. Someone that D-U-M won their Darwin fair and square."

 

 
 
IIRC A Member From Brazil

Is or was heavily involved with this and other LA appliances. May have worked for the company and or R&D; some such, cannot recall.

Main benefit to one in having a larger spin dryer such as a Bock as opposed to the smaller LA is for doing bigger things like blankets and quilts.

 
Laundress,

So true. The weight is a big problem. There's also the 50/60Hz problem which their motors would confront here - they'd be running quite a bit faster than they were designed for if just hooked up to the 240V line or a transformer.

 

One thing I didn't mention - this basket is (relatively speaking) gigantic. An entire GE Filter-Flo load fits easily. That's one aspect of the German machines which would probably annoy Americans - it kind of aggravated me in Germany, actually. I had to fill the spinner at least twice to get everything spun out.

 

So, we will see. Right now, I'm feeling as if I got my money's worth. Still want to ask the company on Monday why I got this model and not the one with the timer and the 'lock twice' lid. May well be that that one was too complicated or trouble prone. 
 
Oh I don't know

That 50hz vs. 60hz difference has been spoken about at great length here in the group, and indeed one has passed up several spin dryers from Europe that arrived on this side of pond because of; however OTOH.....

A few members have purchased spin dryers that were *never* sold for North American market, and run perfectly fine on 60hz. Indeed since these were all used units they ran for years on same and apparently suffered no harm.

Currently aside from the Asian spin dryers, IIRC the only maker in Europe for years has been Thomas. Cannot say for certain but don't think they put 60hz motors in the versions that made their way over to North America sold under "Spin-X" and or later Laundry Alternative. Am assuming they are same because of design, build and other looks.

The other thing is if you add ten percent to the rated spin speed (usually around 2800 rpms) you get 3100 rpms. That is the difference between 50hz and 60hz, no?

Most of the European spin dryers one has seen thus far seem to be remarkably uncomplicated units. We're not talking a washing machine with a pump and or timer, not to mention electronics.
 
Right, Laundress -

I'm just always paranoid about that much mass moving with that much energy...but, yeah - it's way past time the Americans caught up with the rest of the world.

And, yes - I do believe Thomas was, at the end, the sole maker. Except for some really awful Turkish stuff which either left the market or was improved. I don't honestly know the Herkunft of this unit.

Apropos the American safety insanity:

 

panthera-2017091620323506925_1.jpg
 
Well when you consder Bock was sued into the ground

Over injuries that occurred with their extractors (up to and including a young boy who lost an arm), those safety warnings/devices seem pretty practical. After all the United States has more attorneys than any other nation on earth; someone or something has to keep them in shoe leather. [this post was last edited: 9/16/2017-21:33]
 
Valid points, Laundress

I just have always felt that the US hysteria over safety was absurd. Persecute gays and blacks and not provide health care, that's OK but spill a freshly brewed cup of McDonald's coffee on yourself and that's worth millions.

Does.Not.Compute.
 
Well to be fair

IIRC many early laundry extractors including those made by Bock had totally nil safety devices. The thing spun regardless if lid was opened or closed, if tub was in full speed or not.

Hoover twin tub washers were the same; you opened the lid and it only turned off power to the motor; but the can continued to coast down spinning.
 
Slower spin speed = longer life

That indeed may well be the case.

I'm sure one of the UK members mentioned an old Servis frontloader in 'good nick', where the original owners never allowed the machine to spin the laundry, and instead decanted the washing to a spin dryer.

My brother and sister respectively, had 1100rpm and 1200rpm Candy machines. Both lasted 15 years.

I know of someone with an Indesit 850W (800-ish rpm). Apparently 20 years old!

And then there's me... AEG 1600rpm - lasted 3 years. Zanussi 1600rpm - 8 years. Panasonic 1600rpm - 7.5 years.

It'll be like stars in the galaxy: burn hot, blaze brightly = short life. But a dim, cool star lasts for billions of years longer.
 
The amount of work done to increase from any given speed

to another, higher speed is not a linear relationship, so, yeah - raising the speed from an innocuous 450 rpm to 1025 is going to either shorten the lifespan greatly or require tremendous improvements in the sensors and bearings and suspension and logic controls.

No surprise there - this is also why the 'high-speed' spins of this century are nearly universally only for a brief time and only after nearly all the water has been expelled and the load is balanced, at much lower speeds.

AEG had quite an interesting sales training on how a well-set up 800rpm spin removed much more water than their competitor's 1000 rpm spin and as much as the (at the time) radically new 1200 which (I think it was Candy) was offering. Not because 800 in and of itself is better at water removal, but because the duration at 1000 or 1200 was so limited and the out of balance triggers to keep the machine from self destructing at those speeds were, of necessity, so sensitive.

 

Anyway, this device is supposed to run at 1600rpm - which is a bit unusual to me, but, heh- stuff is sure drying much, much faster and the 'feel' is about the same as it seemed back home in my ancient 1800 rpm spinner and better than a copper 1200rpm washer/spinner did.

 

So far, I'm happy. My main interest is saving money on the drying, saving time on the drying and the vastly better soil/detergent removal of the higher speed.

 

I'm going to see if I can get some shots of the innards today.
 
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*
 
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...
 
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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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.
 
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.
 
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. ;)
 
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.
 
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! 
 
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.
 

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