Front or top loader, which is better?

[Compo 10,328]

No  photo of my spider yet - drum still full of spuds.

 

[DJ360 6,721]

You have to stick to your priorities Compo!!

 

Col

[DJ360 6,721]

On 02/12/2016 at 9:09 AM, freckles said:

Whats a spider ?

 

Here you go Freckles.  A washing machine inner drum with the spider (three pronged thingy) fitted to it.  This example is placed with the 'front' of the drum facing down.  The shaft at the top goes through a bearing housing in the outer drum and has a pulley fitted on the end which is driven by the motor.

The purpose of the spider is to spread the load from the shaft/bearing.  Otherwise the shaft would just be fixed to the centre of the drum, which would then have to be a lot thicker and stronger to take the weight.

Col

[freckles 196]

Got it.

[colly0410 1,181]

Been thinking: Did the early washers have a vertical axis rocking back & forth paddle gubbins thingy to imitate the old 3 legged poncho thingy they used in a dolly tub? Then later on (1960's?) someone thought of the horizontal axis drum idea?..... Saw my electrical repair bloke (gave him a cuppa tea) friend t'other day & he said "try never to run your spin cycle at more than 1000 RPM, & even slower if you can, this will help the drum bearings last longer!" Luckily my washer can spin from zero to 1200 RPM in 200 RPM steps, also temp is from zero to 90 C in 10 degree steps.. 

[letsavagoo 961]

I would imagine that the idea is to agitate the water to wash the clothes. The dolly peg obviously through trial and error over years was found to be efficient at this so the electric washers just 'electrified' best practice. The current washer spins at 1200. It's been doing that for several years with no problem. If it engineered properly to spin at 1200 I don't see why you shouldn't.

[Brew 5,409]

Before automatics Hotpoint had what Hoover disparagingly called a 'wishy washy' paddle action. A friends mam had one and when full had to 'help' the paddle start turning. Basically it was a vertical four paddle column that agitated the clothes by oscillation.

[TBI 2,351]

' Wishy washy ' ...that's a bit rich from Hoover. The Hotpoint centre paddle design in their single and twin tub models was actually very efficient and reliable. In contrast, the Hoover design had a small agitator the size of a tea-plate, stuck on the side wall of the tub. Whilst this was reliable, the wash action was akin to sticking your hand in and swishing the washing around a bit.

[Stavertongirl 1,719]

I had a Hotpoint twin tub and it always worked well although it used to jump around if the spin dryer wasn’t loaded evenly and you had to hang on to it to stop it jumping all over the kitchen. 

[mary1947 2,079]

Just sat and read though all these post!

 

What is amazing is that most of the post are from our men members do all these men actually do the weekly wash?  going back to the good old washing machine  I can remember using a washer with a arm/handle on the top of the machine that you had to turn, and turn, and turn, to wash your cloths.  Hover with the little paddle on the side used to get your cloths in a right tangle,  when we married mum gave me her old washer it was a top loader but it had an electric wringer on the top. (at the time Nottingham Uni were doing a survey on St Ann's ) because I had a washer I was classed as being a person with money who lived in St Ann's (I wish)  any way have had a few more washer's since then but won't bore you with details. Just one last detail the best washer I have ever had is (wait for it) the Rolls Royce of washer's Its a 

MIELI

its a very well known German make but every thing the make seems to be good. Sch !!! don't want to say too much.

[mary1947 2,079]

On ‎3‎/‎23‎/‎2016 at 8:43 PM, catfan said:

Can't do that Blondie, it's woman's work ya know !

WHAT!!!! PLEASE EXPLAIN?

[colly0410 1,181]

13 hours ago, letsavagoo said:

 

 

The current washer spins at 1200. It's been doing that for several years with no problem. If it engineered properly to spin at 1200 I don't see why you shouldn't.

 Think he was referring to faster 1600 RPM & upwards spin cycles. Not much difference between a 1000 & 1200 RPM, we often let it do what it wants & just leave it to it. In summer we usually do a slower spin hoping we can get away without ironing things, doesn't always work though, lol... 

[DJ360 6,721]

Spin speed is a bit meaningless unless you also take into account the diameter of the drum.  A smaller diameter drum will have a lower speed at its circumferance, than a larger drum spinning at the same speed.  Or summat..

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

If the shaft driving the drum is rotating at 3000rpm, then a drum 12 inches diam will be spinning at less rpm's than the shaft speed and a 24 inch drums outer diameter will be even slower.

I don't recall the equation, but I did calculations on gears and pulleys years back at Tech college, same thing. You can probably find the calculations etc on Wikipedia.

 

[DJ360 6,721]

Nope.  If the drum and shaft are fixed together, then it follows that the drum will rotate at exactly the same RPM as the shaft. It's not a geared relationship, its a fixed relationship.

 

So.. for one rotation of the shaft/drum 'system', the circumference of the drum has to rotate through its full travel.  It follows that a bigger diameter drum has a bigger circumference and has to travel further than a smaller one.  Therefore the bigger one has to travel faster at any given rpm.

 

[DJ360 6,721]

P.S.  I think the real issue is not necessarily absolute spin speed though.  There are a number of other factors which impact on the water extraction, the strain on the machine, manufacturing cost, amount of creasing of clothes, noise, vibration levels etc. We got a new machine with our new kitchen.  Hoover with a drum diameter close to 19" and spin speed of 1400 max.  It works fine, but probably no better or worse than the previous one which I gave up on after replacing the spider once and the main bearing 3 or 4 times.   That's not happening with this one.  If it breaks, somebody else fixes it, or it gets 'skipped'.  I'm too busy enjoying the benefits of ageing... 

 

[Brew 5,409]

At the end of the day it's the peripheral speed of the drum not the shaft speed that counts. 

[DJ360 6,721]

Exactly.  But you put it more directly than I did. 

 

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

The periphery of a drum with shaft speed of 300rpm will be slower than the shaft speed and can be calculated.

If you change your wheels on your car to larger wheels, your speedo will be inaccurate and will need calibrating accordingly.

[Ayupmeducks 1,730]

My rev counter has two different "tips" one to measure the RPM's taken off the centre of a shaft, via the lathe centre hole, and a wheel tip to measure off the outer diam of a shaft in case the shaft is enclosed. The wheel is about 1.5inches diam.

Later this week I'll try and get the shaft speed of our top loading W/M and the outer drum speed.

 

[trogg 2,014]

 

Rev counter, peripheral speed, shaft speed , drum diameter ,horizontal axis drum , vibration levels all very interesting, I hope Ben will explain these to me , cos I aint got a clue. 

What I want to know is which is the best , so I can get the washing as clean as possible and dry so I can do the ironing and put it all away before SWMBO checks  up on what I have been doing and meets out punishment. (again).

[Brew 5,409]

10 minutes ago, Ayupmeducks said:

The periphery of a drum with shaft speed of 300rpm will be slower than the shaft speed and can be calculated.

If you change your wheels on your car to larger wheels, your speedo will be inaccurate and will need calibrating accordingly.

The peripheral speed of a drum cannot be slower than the shaft it's connected to (directly connected, not through pulleys with different diameters). Peripheral speed is a measure of the distance a point on the drum travels in one revolution. If the shaft turns at 300rpm the drum will also turn at the same rate. The greater the diameter, the greater the peripheral speed

 

If you changed to larger diameter wheels then at the same revs you will be travelling faster. The wheel will have a larger circumference and cover a greater distance per revolution.

An eighteen inch tyre will cover one mile in 1186 revolutions. change to a twenty inch and one mile takes 1086. You can therefore cover the same distance with fewer revs or a greater distance with the same. Your speedo will, as you say, be screwed.

 

[Brew 5,409]

4 minutes ago, trogg said:

What I want to know is which is the best

As with everything in life Trogg, yer pays yer money and teks yer choice.

[DJ360 6,721]

Peripheral speed, with a fixed shaft/drum relationship, is a function of RPM and drum diameter. The relationship between drum or shaft diameter and periphery (circumference) is of course determined by 'pi'.

 

The shaft on a domestic washing machine will typically be around 1" diameter.  It follows that periphery of the shaft will be 1" x 'Pi' or approx 3.142.  Therefore any point on the periphery of the shaft will travel 3.142" per revolution.

 

If we now consider a 12" drum fixed to the 1" shaft.  Because it is fixed it follows that the drum will also complete one full revolution for each revolution of the shaft.

Therefore, any point on the periphery of the drum will travel 12" x 'pi' per revolution.  Approx 37. 72 " per revolution.

 

In order for the point on the periphery of the drum to complete its revolution in the same time as the fixed point on the periphery of the shaft, it follows that the drum periphery has to travel at 37.72 divided by 3.142 (approx) times faster than the point on the periphery of the shaft, or approx 12 times faster.  With a bigger drum still, it follows that the drum periphery would have to travel faster still.

 

 

[DJ360 6,721]

Trogg.  Mrs Col always goes for the most expensive 'all singing all dancing' machines.  We end up still only using a few basic settings.  I find that most clothes are fine after washing at around 30 - 40 degrees.  Possible exception being things like overalls., or whites.  Also generally don't need anything like the amounts of washing powder recomended.  Finally, I find that a full load is likely to need another rinse cycle to finally get rid of the powder.  All washing powders can irritate my soft sensitive skin.. which goes with my soft sensitive personality. 

 

So, if it was me, and given that the bulk of machines are made of the same basic bits anyway and that economic repair is becoming less and less possible..  I'd go for a basic machine from a known manufacturer such as Indesit, and be prepared to 'skip' it if anything serious goes wrong.