TR9XW80889 - Pretty good

[henene4]

At my partners place, we used to have a (pretty old) AEG T59800.
It's pretty damn good as dryer - just old, noisy and not that efficient anymore.
It's still running, but I shuffled some money around and bought something new.
The T59800 is going to a friend of ours.

So, a few weeks ago, we had the cutting edge in dryers delivered.
Payed - including the cashback - a little under 1000€ shipped.

First, why this?
It's basically the first AAA dryer on the market.
For those not in the loop: Next March, a new energy label for dryers will be launched, similar to the current washer label.
Roughly, A+++ will be C, A+++ -10% will be B, and A+++ -25% will be A.
Condensation efficiency will require a 94% or better for A, and noise will be A at 60db and below.
It's A+++ -25%, its 60db and 94% condensation efficiency.
I didn't think it was THAT easy to build these - but it is apparently.

It has AEGs new base design.
AEG realised that with a heat pump dryer, you don't need to have the heat exchanger in the bottom left.
You used to with condensers, so everybody just reused their base designs - but if you phase out condensers, you no longer have to.
That allows better airflow with lower pressures, bigger heat exchangers which mean more surface area for heat exchange and thus more efficient heat pump operation.
All at the cost if having to move your process air fan - which results in this fan being belt driven.

Further, this has ELuxs contactless sensing.
Only clued in as to what they do when I read "capacitive" sensing in their product description.
Instead of sending a current through the load, it uses the same basic principles as the capacitive touch buttons on appliances to sense moisture.
Combined with the weight sensing these ProSense dryers do now, it really is pretty accurate at time estimation.

These TOL models are inverter heat pump.

And performance?
Pretty damn amazing.

I do recognize that odd "feels damp" at the end of some cycles as this dryer REALLY is airtight - but it really isn't bad and clothes feel dry once they cooled down.

It senses basically spot on on everything every time. I do find selecting extra dry is necessary on certain items - but since it doesn't really heat up much what so ever that's usually no worry.

And it really is that efficient.
A load if 58 T-Shirts (that's technically overloaded for this dryer, but it didn't complain) used only 1,2kWh on Cottons Eco Cupboard dry ++.
8kg (the W1 was packed) of towels used the same.
Only time it was TOTALLY off with its time estimate was a heavy bathrobe and a couple of towels taking about 90min less than it estimated.

There is one gripe and I am not certain how major it is.
The very first ProTex dryers had a slew of complaints that socks would get stuck in the corners around the filter due to the massive airflow. Then they redesigned the filter housing and that was solved.

This dryer has a tendency to catch bands from sweat pants or such in the bottom right corner between door, frame and filter.
Twisting them so far one band actually just ripped off.
Happend on 2 occasions so far, so just like with my VZug I'll have to tie up those bands.

I do also however think the inverter heat pump isn't as well designed on this one as some other manufacturers do.

It's a simple speed control - the power just fluctuates.
And most of the time, it stays at a single speed through out a cycle. Except on Time Saver, where a certain temp triggers a drop in speed.
It still just stops the heat pump on the MixDry and Bedding cycle for even drying - so now fluctuations in power there either.

Time Saver isn't that great at saving time on many cycles.
Except for the bedding cycle - where so far I rarely have seen much deviation in usage for pretty similar loads regardless of Eco or Time Saver.

The one item cycle just SLAMS the heat pump and appears to just run a timed cycle.

So that really is just used because the inverter heat pump is ever so slightly more efficient.

 

[henene4]

The Cycles

I saved the "Towels" cycle to the "Home" postion on the dial.

The "Eco" cycle sense beautifully - laundry really is just about dry and it really takes no longer than 3h with loads spun at 1600rpm.

And I haven't used Cottons Speed so far as it isn't outrageously slow on Eco either.

 

[henene4]

A few examples

This is that 58 T-Shirt load.
Actually took a bit longer than estimated, but dried perfectly - except for creasing, which at that size of a load is to be expected.
There, power started out at about 250W and slowly crept to a max of 400W as the temp in the dryer got higher.

The Towels cycle took about 3h as predicted and uses a compressor speed one notch higher and crept up slightly aswell.

This compressor appears to have a few distinct speeds, which equate to a few different powers for a cold heat pump (something like 150W, 250W, 450W and 600W - approximately of course).
For a very full load at drying speed, the motor never pulls more than about 100W.

 

[logixx]

I just remembered this thread when reading your reply in the Haier Ultra Reverse thread.

Nice dryer. I see they made the filter larger, which hopefully mean very little lint makes it into the heat pump.

 

[stevefromsydney]

Nice to see you are happy with the new AEG. I've have a near 7 year old 8DEA866. Still going strong. My only annoyance with it is on the bedding cycle you can only choose cupboard dry as the maximum dryness level. Most other programs you have cupboard dry + or extra dry. Has this been updated on your machine?

Other than that I love how it uses such low temps. Nothing has ever shrunk and everything comes out pretty much crease free compared to the Miele T1 heat pump I have at my house in Greece which dries at a much higher temp than the AEG and as a result things are much more creased and some clothing slightly shrinks.

 

[henene4]

Bedding does allow extra dry IIRC.

 

[logixx]

Yes

According to the manual, all dryness levels are available in Bedding XL.

 

[henene4]

Wish I could change the post headline

So, the issue with things getting caught in the filter has gotten to the point I called the service.

Actually kind of impressed - got an appointment within 2 weeks, tech just left - it's only the second dryer of this series he worked on.

Now the bad part:
They assume it's transport damage - which it almost certainly isn't.
The part they wanted to replace (air path, front and filter) isn't available.

So they'll replace the entire machine.

Which - almost certainly - won't change the result.

I took a video of how that basically happens:


Towards the end you can see how things can get stuck in that nook.

So yeah.
Until they redesign the filter - like they had to on the very early ProTex dryers - no longer a buy recommendation from me.

 

[bewitched]

if only that problem had appeared on a Miele dryer, the protests would have been heard even in the other world!

 

[logixx]

Electrolux doesn't seem to have the best of luck with their lint filters. I friend of mine has the current gen of 27" dryers (before the redesign) and the top of the filter catches all sorts of items that are thrown onto it and then get stuck there until the cycle is done.

 

[logixx]

[No message]

 

[richnz]

Looks like too much airflow

Almost needs a thick black foam filter to slow down the flow like on other brands of heatpump dryer.

I hope you get a fix soon.

Richard

 

[henene4]

I mean, these dryers were redesigned for more airflow - and especially a heat pump dryer can't really have to much air flow (within reason, of course).

And this doesn't really have any worse trapping of small items than many dryers. A dryer sheet or a sock might get stuck in the bottom corners, but literally only one.

The issue comes with longer items and that narrowing gap.
With cycle times being what they are they just manage to slot in that gap at some point, then get pulled into the narrowing slit until they are caught.