Top Loading Fabric Dispensers.....

[keymatic]

Dear All,
I was wondering if any of you can briefly explain to me how vintage fabric dispensers work.

I was recently watching a General Electric 1968/9 filter flo & Lady kenmore whereby the dispenser sat on top of the agi, sometimes above the filter pan. I noticed that the conditioner was loaded at the start of the wash, then upon the spin cycle the liquid disappeared, but i would like to know how these units work..can anyone help..?
Cheers
Keith

 

[polkanut]

I'll give it a shot. During the first spin the diluted softener is thrown out of the dispenser cup and held against the outer wall of the dispenser by centrifugal force. When the spin stops the liquid drains out through holes in the bottom of the dispenser and into the rinse water. It's really quite simple.

If someone can explain it better, go ahaead, I won't be offended in the least.

 

[tomturbomatic]

The liquid is held in the cup during wash agitation. Concentrated fabric softeners are supposed to be diluted in the cup with a bit of warm water, but that step is usually either neglected or not done very well. During the first spin, it is swirled up and over the top of the cup and held by centrifugal force in the upper portion of the surrounding chamber that is constructed like an upside down capital L. When the spin stops, the softener sort of slides and drips down into the tub to mix with the rinse water. With most of these dispensers, there is no provision for the machine to automatically flush them with water which makes maintenance by the user very important, although almost universally neglected in practice. This results in accumulations of blue-green or pink or yellow sludge inside and below the dispenser. Simply removing the dispenser from the machine and flushing it with hot water after each washday is usually sufficient to keep it clean, but so many laundry areas in homes do not have a sink close by so the dispenser does not receive the care it needs.

This spin out type dispenser was, to the best of my knowledge, first seen in Norge automatics in the early mid 50s when they ran a campaign with Calgon water conditioner for a feature they called, I believe, "Miracle Rinse". The Calgon was mixed with water and added to the "Dispenser Wheel" to give super conditioned water at the start of the rinse period to help rinse the detergent out of the fabrics. Because Norge used an overflow rinse, the Calgon in the rinse water was diluted enough by the end that a second rinse was not necessary to rinse away the Calgon residue. Within a year, a lint filter became a more sought-after feature.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Sorry, I started around 7, but type slower. I was the reason for the sign that read

SLOW child playing

 

[akronman]

Fabric Softener dispenser

I watched it work on my 70-s Maytag yesterday, perfect on normal speed. I'm not yet sure how well that centrifugal force would do on slow speed spinning, I'll keep you posted. But for normal speed and a simple idea, it works perfectly.

 

[kenmoreguy64]

A few added notes:

Our 1974 and 1983 Kenmores came with a dispenser of this nature. The 74's was better in that it was truly a two piece unit that purposely came apart and allowed for easy clean-up. The instructions with it said "Fill with the proper amount of softener, then fill the rest with clear water to dilute mixture" or something like that. This was intended to help reduce the build-up of softener sludge, which can be particularly difficult to remove once it begins to accumulate.

The inner bowl of the 74's dispenser has four little little mixing blades on the outside edges, that during agitation help stir the blend of softener and water.

I used to clean ours all the time until one day when I dropped the inner portion and broke off a piece of the lower-most rim. This allowed softener to fling out during spin and the dispenser became useless.

Our '83 dispenser is built to the same apparent design, however it doesn't come apart for cleaning, which in my view is not one of Kenmore's brighter ideas. To really clean it well you need a wire brush, which is stupid, or the dishwasher, and that doesn't even always work.

As to using the dispensers on delicate, I don't recall having any issues - the spin speed is still sufficient (yes even in a WP/Kenmore belt-drive!).

I have a couple of these - I think I'll take some pics to share. BRB!

Gordon

 

[kenmoreguy64]

Here are some just-taken pics:

Outer shots of both Kenmore dispensers. The gold one was used from 1973 or so until the late 70s. A white version of the same dispenser was available until 1986 in new machines.

The dispenser on the right was developed for Dual-Action agitators, and was used in great quantity until the end of belt-drive production. This is dispenser which does not easily come apart.

 

[kenmoreguy64]

Height difference.....

The dispenser on the left was available on various models equipped with Straight-Vane, Super Roto-Swirl, Penta-Vane, Penta-Swirl, and Compact straight-vane agitators.

Oddly, most often when acquiring a machine second-hand, they seldom seem to come with their original dispensers.

 

[kenmoreguy64]

Underneath

 

[kenmoreguy64]

The innards of the gold one. You can see the mixing fins I was talking about, and the lower rim that I broke as a kid in our original (this one I found while parts scavenging years ago).

 

[kenmoreguy64]

Side view

 

[kenmoreguy64]

I have always thought that these were pretty simple yet effective. The electrically operated reservoir dispensers tend to "gunk-up" and clog.

I've always wondered something about belt-drives and softener that is added at the very beginning of rinse. The softener would tend to flow down into the manifold trap along with the first cup or two of rinse water. On models where the drain hose begins immediately from the pump (in other words models without the remote plumbed self-cleaning lint filters), would much of the softener get flushed down the drain at agitation start since all BDs drain a bit of water before the pump is shifted? This would be water in the manifold and pump. Models with the later high output two and three port pumps dump even more water, so to counter this I don't use the dispensers. Maybe one day I'll have to do a test to find out....

Gordon

 

[tomturbomatic]

Frigidaire's first softener dispenser used centrifugal force to unlock a latch holding a cap in place on a clear plastic dispenser the was filled, latched and loaded upside down in the top of the bleach cup before the rubber agitator cap was put in place. Their later dispensers were spin out agitator cap types that had to be modified for the Roller Matics' slow spin between wash and rinse on the delicate & wash 'n wear cycles because the deep design was was too deep to allow the softener to go over the walls of the holding chamber at the low speed.

Our 58 LK had a dark gray and white drum shaped dispenser mounted on the left side of the D-shaped opening, right under the lid. When the timer advanced from spin to rinse fill, this pivoted over, throwing the softener on the spinning load. This was not a problem with dilute softeners like StaPuf, especially in warm rinse water, but dark blue softeners like NuSoft and those that followed it might be a problem for that type of dispenser, even when diluted. Sears was in a heavy relationship with Staley, makers of StaPuf and used to have small bottles that they gave to Adults who came to look at the laundry appliances. I guess the glass bottles were 8 ozs because it took between 1/3 and 1/2 a cup of the product per load. Mom switched to buying Texize Laundry Fluff (no, it was not lint) which was cheaper. We used to haul that stuff home in gallon plastic jugs especially between the time my sister was born and before we got a dryer.

 

[tomturbomatic]

Frigidaire's first softener dispenser usedcentrifugal force to unlock a latch holding a cap in place on a clear plastic dispenser the was filled, latched and loaded upside down in the top of the bleach cup before the rubber agitator cap was put in place. Their later dispensers were spin out agitator cap types that had to be modified for the Roller Matics' slow spin between wash and rinse on the delicate & wash 'n wear cycles because the deep design was was too deep to allow the softener to go over the walls of the holding chamber.

Our 58 LK had a dark gray and white drum shaped dispenser mounted on the left side of the D-shaped opening, right under the lid. When the timer advanced from spin to rinse fill, this pivoted over, throwing the softener on the spinning load. This was not a problem with dilute softeners like StaPuf, especially in warm rinse water, but dark blue softeners like NuSoft and those that followed it might be a problem for that type of dispenser, even when diluted. Sears was in a heavy relationship with Staley, makers of StaPuf and used to have small bottles that they gave to Adults who came to look at the laundry appliances. I guess the glass bottles were 8 ozs because it took between 1/3 and 1/2 a cup of the product per load. Mom switched to buying Texize Laundry Fluff (no, it was not lint) which was cheaper. We used to haul that stuff home in gallon plastic jugs especially between the time my sister was born and before we got a dryer.

 

[keymatic]

Hi Guys..

Thanks so much for all the information supplied, it has cleared the cloudy principal that i once had on how these things work.
In the UK we didn't have anything like this, the closest we got was just adding the fabric conditioner to the filter clean pan during the rinse cycle. By the time that most people had started using fabric conditioner our machines had merged from top loaders to front loaders to where the liquid was put in the soap dispenser draw with the powder.

Cheers
Keith

 

[combo52]

CLEANING FABRIC SOFTENER DISPENSERS

NEVER NEVER wash in the dishwasher if you are washing dishes at the same time and you probably shouldn't do it at all. I put a WP dispenser in our 1966 KM D&M machine when I was a kid and it left such a bad film on every item in the load that four more washings would not remove. Mom and I finally had to wash all the dishes by hand with a lot of scrubbing.