Thread Number: 2533
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Post# 72144   7/3/2005 at 05:49 (6,864 days old) by pulsatron ()        

Hi everyone,
I wonder if anyone could please offer an opinion on this information I received from Hitachi Australia technical officer
on how their twin tub operates for rinsing, the question I put
to them was can water be fed through the spintub on these machines while the spinner is in operation for rinsing purposes
this was the reply;
Dear Stephen,
''Spin tub is designed to handle water but not large quantities
in order to protect spin seal from cracking, we have hooked drain pump in series with power switch.
This will ensure that drain pump remains ON continuously through out the wash cycle to pump water out and prevents spin tub seal from collapsing due to overload.
However if you have to rinse clothes it is advisable to transfer load to wash bowl.''
This suggests to me that the machine constantly feeds water in the washtub during washing and that suds and dirt are flowed out during this cycle and the clothes are left in clean water anyway and so they are basically washed and rinsed at the same time.
I would appreciate any information
Many Thanks in advance
Steve.




Post# 72146 , Reply# 1   7/3/2005 at 07:33 (6,864 days old) by toggleswitch (New York City, NY)        

toggleswitch's profile picture
Stephen:

Again I am guessing here, do please forgive me for shooting off my know-nothing mouth!

Sounds like they are discouraging filling the spin tub full, (as a deep rinse) then purging it out. I dont think a few short spray rinses could hurt.

This appears to differ from some Hoover twinnies that I heard fill the spin tub, draim it, spin out, and then do the whole thng again once or twice somewhat "automating" the rinses. I am not sure if the twnnie at the convention did this. (But it would not have fit into my suitcase and the metal detector at the airport may have been another obstacle!)

Is your Hitachi new(er) or vintage?

If you can, shoot us a link to the owners' manual and or part list. Thanks!



regards,
Steve

Post# 72179 , Reply# 2   7/3/2005 at 19:35 (6,863 days old) by shanonabc ()        

I say that it sounds like you have to rinse in the wash tub after draining it

Post# 72325 , Reply# 3   7/5/2005 at 04:52 (6,862 days old) by pulsatron ()        
Thanks for the info.

 Shanonabc, Toggleswitch,Tomturbomatic,
Thanks for the input guys, I really appreciate it
Steve, I actually haven't bought it yet,(other cursed appointments and other things getting in the way you see),but it will be a newy, funny thing at least Hitachi answered my e-mail request for info and indeed sent me a catalogue in the mail, I have never heard from Haier(so much for customer service huh?).
Also the salesman in the local store when I made enquiries told me that twin-tubs could be making a comeback here in Australia probably due to the water shortage problem we have here.
Here we are surrounded by technology and here am I going back to the past, oh well at least it is fun.
By the way just for curiosity are Hitachi washers available in the U.S.?,also what is the latest with Maytag?,I do hope it was able to be saved.
Regards, Steve.

Post# 72873 , Reply# 4   7/9/2005 at 07:16 (6,858 days old) by toggleswitch (New York City, NY)        

toggleswitch's profile picture
IMHO- fo course:

Rule No. 1= Whatever the salesman said can be discounted as pure filthy lies! (LOL)

Rule No. 2= Availabilty in the USA. We can get anything we want here --for a price-- as the almighty dollar rues! But Asian and Asian- style machines are quite rare I'd say.

Too small
Cold water only- on some
Some are not automatic

and yes believe it or not-- they look flimsy to us- so much plastic!

3) Maytag- is a mess. But I'm not the authority. They did too much too fast and have made some bad decsions. Let's see where that ends up..... The name will proabably (gawd forbid) end up in the hands of some third-world country.

*SIGH*

Post# 72878 , Reply# 5   7/9/2005 at 08:14 (6,858 days old) by laundromat (Hilo, Hawaii)        
twin tub

 laundromat's profile picture
The tub fills,washes,drains,rinses,drains,rinses drains and shuts off.you do the rest.There is no need to run water through the spin tub.

Post# 74548 , Reply# 6   7/22/2005 at 08:25 (6,845 days old) by gizmo (Victoria, Australia)        

Hi Pulsatron and others

First - You should NOT fill up the spin tub on Hoover twinnies or any other. The idea when rinsing in the spin tub is to hose down the clothes in the spin tub long enough for them to soak up water, then spin them out again. The Hoovermatics with auto rinse do not fill right up, they start up spinning when the water has built up in the bottom of the spin tub to a depth of about three inches or so. The idea is that, as long as the water is flowing in pretty slow (and that is critically important) that the water flowing onto the clothes will first be absorbed by the clothes, and only once they are saturated will water start to accumulate in the bottom of the spin tub. If you have the hose running too fast, the water will build up in the tub before the clothes are properly wetted and you will get poor rinsing.
You CAN rinse in the spinner in modern twin tubs including the Hitachi, but you do it manually. Here's the procedure:
1. Place washed clothes into the spinner,place the rubber mat on top and push down on the clothes.
2. Close the lid and spin away the soapy water.
3. With the lid open,and thus obviously the spinner stopped, run cold water onto the clothes in the spinner. Have the water running slowish, so that the clothes soak up the water. You don't want the water to just run over the clothes and into the outer spin tub.
4. When the clothes are well wetted, turn off the hose, close the spinner and spin away the rinse water.
5. repeat a couple of times.
6. do a longer final spin.

The first few times it is good idea to lift the top clothes out and check that clothes lower down in the spinner are wet. With experience you will be able to judge that the clothes have been wetted enough.

Keeping the pump running is Hitachi's solution to stop people from overfilling the spinner, then operating it. The Hitachi spin motor is only about 60 watts, the same as a bathroom exhaust fan, so it just can't cope with overloading. The
Hoovermatic spin motor is 250 watts so it can cope with misuse for years on end. The Hoovermatic motor can cope with spinning whilst water is coming in, but they can be overloaded too if water is coming in faster than it can be pumped out. The auto rinse Hoovermatics have a pressure switch in the spinner, so the spinner sits stationary whilst water soaks the clothes, when the water has built up a bit the spinner starts and (hopefully) pumps out faster than the water is coming in, so the level drops until the pressure switch resets and the spinner stops, ready to soak up more water for the next rinse. There is still no timer so the Auto Rinse Hoovermatics will keep alternately rinsing and spinning till the cows come home, unless you turn off the tap and switch over from "auto rinse" to "spin".

You don't just have the water running onto the spinner whilst it is operating - the water will be spun out from the top, the clothes lower down won't get rinsed at all.

Chris.

Post# 76161 , Reply# 7   8/2/2005 at 10:20 (6,834 days old) by designgeek ()        

Gizmo, excellent explanation.

Something else I've found through experience. The Asian machines are designed so that they can do an "overflow rinse" in the washtub. For example:

Set the wash cycle for 9 minutes. During the last 3 minutes of that, run more water into the washtub so that it overflows through the overflow drain and gets pumped out. The incoming water at this stage should be at a low volume so that the pump occasionally runs almost dry; the point being that this procedure will cause soap scum and suchlike to come to the top of the water and be sucked off via the overflow drain. Three minutes of this at a water input of 1 gallon per minute only uses 3 additional gallons of water, and helps get out a good amount of stuff before the rinse cycle proper.

Then either a) reuse the wash water for a second load if you like, or b) drain the water from the washtub.

Then move the load to the spinner, spin out for 2 minutes without adding any water to the spinner. This gets most of the detergent out.

While the spinner is running, re-fill the wash tub with fresh water (if possible; on some machines it may not be possible due to the way the drains & pumps are connected: look for a setting on the controls that closes the washtub drain whilst the spinner is doing its thing).

When the spinner stops, move the load to the washtub for rinse. Set the agitator control for 6 to 9 minutes. Run clean water into the washtub during this cycle at from 1-2 gallons/minute, and let the overflow drain pump out the excess during the entire cycle. You will notice very quickly that the rinse water starts out quite gray and then as the cycle proceeds, the water gets almost totally clear toward the end. This clean rinse water can/should be saved for the next wash load, it's quite clean (might be slightly tinted due to dyes from the clothes but that's harmless) and will serve perfectly well for a wash cycle.

Now move the load to the spinner and spin for 5 minutes. Done! All clean & ready to hang on the line or toss in the dryer for 15 - 20 minutes.

Note, this is a different procedure than the spin/rinse procedure normally used on the Hoovermatic and other UK machines. I once tried the procedure of re-soaking a load in the spinner (stop the spinner, add water slowly, re-start) and ended up with a nasty offbalance sound and/or a slow start that made me think I was causing trouble for the motor, so I didn't repeat that experiment. However I just might try it with a smaller spin load and more careful monitoring of the water usage, and see what happens.

The way the UK-style spin/rinse procedure saves water is by using only enough to wet the load in the spinner between spin cycles. The way the Asian-style overflow-rinse procedure saves water is by allowing re-use of the clean rinse-water that remains in the washtub at the end of the cycle, as wash-water for the next load. I would bet that the overall fresh water consumption (water going in) and wastewater output (water that is pumped out and goes down the drain) in both cases is about the same.

Note, you can store the rinse-water in the washtub for a few days easily, so you don't have to do a whole week's washing on one day. Just add a teaspoon or two of bleach to the water to keep it sanitary. Leave the wash lid open overnight so the exposed parts dry in the ambient air (preventing mold growth), and then put the lid on to keep dust etc. from settling into the water for the next few days. Then when you need to wash another load, you've got a tub full of clean water to start with.

One of the cool things about twinnies is precisely the fact that since nothing is automated, you can experiment with different procedures and find the ones that are the most efficient in terms of time, water usage, electricity, and/or various combinations of the three. Maybe some day someone will make a browser interface for an automatic front-loader so you can customize the cycles freely...

By the way, speaking of water shortages: Get a 30-gallon drum and discharge the wash-cycle water plus the overflow rinse water into it, and use that for flushing the toilet. You can hook up a small electric pump with a switch, and use it to fill the toilet tank (remember to turn it off when the toilet tank is full!), or you can use a bucket, or you can use a bucket to pour water directly into the bowl (takes a few times to get the hang of doing this just right to get a proper flush with minimum water usage and zero splashback; practice a few times before you start doing it after actually using the toilet). Useful to know about in case of a drought emergency, so you can keep flushing the toilet normally after every use.


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