early atttempts
Hi Robert
Now you are really moving up my alley.
My first interest in washing machines was to design the "perfect" (based on my own values and biases) washing machine to use on solar power.
MY frustration is that many machines are designed with little regard for power consumption, when with a little change at almost no extra cost they could use a fraction of current power.
The main exception is F&P whose washers use less than 170 watts on all cycles and have no high current surge when starting up. But they are water hogs...
The worst offenders (Sorry Louis) are the little Philips TLFLs. The motor in them is a marvel, a tiny DC permanent magnet motor which uses less than 200 watts AT THE MOTOR to wash and less than 250 watts to spin. But the electronic controller circuitry is ridiculous, they put the motor in series with the heating element to give the slow (wash) speed, so the motor sees 24 volt x 8 amp = 192 watts and the heater element sees 216 volt x 8 amp = 1728 watts so the entire circuit uses 240 volt x 8 amp = 1920 watts. What a waste!!
I am not up with interfacing computers to the outside world, my attempt was with a stand alone circuit to be an electronic washing machine timer. I used a modified "electronic dice" circuit. The dice uses a 555 timer feeding pulses to a 4017 decade counter. The decade counter has one input and up to ten outputs, and the power out is changed to the next output in sequence each time it gets a pulse from the 555. In the dice circuit only six outputs are used and the 555 very rapidly cycles the outputs until the button is released, continues a little and stops on a ramdom one of six outputs.
In my timer circuit I slowed the 555 to pulse once every 1.5 minutes and used all 10 outputs of the 4017 decade counter. My initial attempt was:
1. - fill, -> when pressure switch clicks over wash for preset time from 5 to 20 minutes - time selected by a variable resistor.
2. - drain 1.5 minute
3. - spin 1.5 minute
4. - fill then rinse
5. - drain
6. - spin
7. - rinse
8. - drain
9. - spin
10 - off (illuminate "finished" light)
I had relays to switch the circuits, LEDs to show each output in turn, variable resistor to select wash time, switches to select wash temp but keep all rinses cold.
Main hassle I had was the 12v DC motor I used in the washer gave huge spikes when it was switched, which caused the timer to skip to the next output. It could have been solved with filtering or at worst, a separate battery power supply for the timer which charged up when the washer was off. /The washer was entirely 12 vdc, a Hoover Premier TL with 12vdc solenoids for hot and cold fill and a home-rewound big solenoid for spin brake. The motor was a 12vdc golf buggy motor. It used about 200 watts to wash and 170 watts to spin. Pump was a hoover twin tub pump driven by a car heater fan motor.
Since then I have been distracted with trivialities like building a house and found machines that work OK from the factory with minimal modification. In the not so distant future I would like to get into it again, perhaps with a computer driven board like yours initially, later a programmable chip in the timer.
Looking forward to see what you do with yours.
Chris.
