Hi All,

Well I finally pulled the Lightburn Twintub apart and found the cause of the short circuit. The Microswitch for the lid, was a blackened charred lump of crumbling bakelite. $3 later I had a new lid switch and all is reasonabley happy. The machine still has a few leaks that need to be dealt with, but otherwise is working perfectly.

I've made 3 video's that show the action, unfortunately my camera doesnt record sound, so they're not "Talkies".

For those who didnt see the earlier pictures, the machine was manufactured by Lightburn and Co in South Australia. The company which was run by Harold Lightburn, also produced Cement Mixers, Trailers, A Washing machine shaped like a cement mixer for the Armed forces, and other Australian necessities. Lightburn and Co finally closed its doors in late 1986. Most of the machine is fibreglass, however the outer spin tub is made of low quality galvanised steel. As this rusted out very quickly there are few examples of these machines left.

This machine uses a paddle to provide agitation, it swings backwards and forwards in a 40deg arc. The turnover is quite good.

The machine has no seal between the spin basket and the motor, so they thoughtfully provided an overflow tube to let excess water in the spinner run out the bottom in a controlled manner, rather than out over the motor. Unfortunately, during my maiden test load I managed to get excess water in the spin basket and all of a sudden found my feet very wet.

The machine has one motor and as such all action is control by opening or closing the spinner lid. The only control on the machine, is the valve which drains the wash tub.

The dirty Yellow rag you see going in at the beginning, is now on my clothes line, bright yellow with no stains. (This load was in cold water, with supermarket brand detergent) so the paddle seems to do a pretty good job.

The fishing out of the clothes from the wash tub to the spin basket. A pink painting sheet ends up as wash load two.

Look how long the basket takes to come to a halt when there is no brake involved.

Because its a single motor design, the paddle keeps moving until the basket stops. 18 seconds or so, from when the lid opens until its safe to put ones hand in.

Very unusual and interesting-the oscillating wash paddle arm!And the spin basket can act as a flywheel for the paddle "agitate" mechanism.Kinda neat to watch the wash action-when the tank was empty and the paddle agitator going-makes nice "waves" in the wash tub.Good wave generator!

Hi Nathan

Many thanks for the vids, have been looking forward to seeing the action, and rather good action it is, quite a wash motion going on their, is it quiet in operation??, the laundry police would have a field day now with the "no safety mechanism" on the spinner, the pump seemed slow to spin the water back in , does it take its time to build the pressure up them spurt it all in fast??

Happy washing, and a Happy New Year to you now!!!!!

Enjoy, Mike

thats awesome, best thing i've seen in a while. So to be correct, the spinner is always on even while its empty and the machine is just washing? I think that would annoy me a little, i get all excited about the spinning so it would kinda ruin it for me if it was doing it all the time.

Very cool machine Nathan, and congratulations on getting it up and running! The wash action of the paddle really surprised me; it has a slower stroke than I imagined. I thought it would move wicked-fast like the infamous Agitub, but it still provides quite a bit of action. I could definitely see where the load was about to jump out of the wash tub before it was pulled in again!

I find it ironic, really, that Lightburn would use low-grade steel in the outer spin tub; you'd think that they could have fashioned THAT out of fiberglass as well. That and be able to devise some sort of seal in the spinner to prevent excess water from leaking out.

Thanks for posting!

--Austin

That's a very neat machine! I've not seen wash action like that before!

Hi All,

The machine is pretty much silent when running. Because there is no seal on the spinner, there is therefore no bearings either, so all you hear is the quiet rumble of an induction motor and the splashing of the water.

The pump is only slow from the spin side, in the end I found it was easier just to drop the hose during spin, and let the water drain that way. The pump has a large priming bowl which can be removed for inspection, however once I do that, I need to commit myself to rebuilding the pump, as the rubber gasket is pretty perished. I'll start by removing the Spin tub to pump hose and ferret around for obstructions. The drain side on the wash bowl works without any issues.

The spinner runs all the time, the only switch on the machine is the lid switch on the spin basket. It is that quiet though, you hardly hear it moving.

You can actually here the start windings cut in and out on the motor the machine is that quiet. It takes about 2-3 seconds when the machine starts before its up to speed. The rating plate on the motor states 1440RPM, which by twintub standards is pretty slow. The spin basket is double the width of the hoover however, so that would help increase the gforce.