POD 9/17/13 RCA WP 33" COMBO


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Thread Number: 48560
POD 9/17/13 RCA WP 33" COMBO

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Post# 703661 9/17/2013 at 10:58 (3,872 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes I think there is an error in the text where it says that the built-in water heater automatically reheats the water during both wash and rinse cycles. I have never seen anything to suggest that there was any kind of a thermal hold in the timer on the rinses and they were too short to allow more than a couple of degrees of temperature rise between fill and drain. Warm and cold rinse water could be selected. If your water heater ran out of hot and you had selected warm rinse water, you probably got cool or cold.

Post# 703665 , Reply# 1 9/17/2013 at 11:54 (3,872 days old) by rinso (Meridian Idaho)
Checkrate/Likes 3 Said: "Toss your clothes in and go." Not said: "And when you come back after 4 hours, they'll still be drying."

Post# 703673 , Reply# 2 9/17/2013 at 12:12 (3,872 days old) by hydralique (Los Angeles)
Checkrate/Likes There is a bit of truth in advertising the way the machine is illustrated: it looks HUGE, which it is compared to the average full sized washer or dryer. Nice machine, though. A bit of irony in the ad too, in that the mother and daughter are conspicuously well dressed, which back then likely meant plenty of dry-clean only items. Presumably they could put the washables in the combo and then take the dry-clean stuff down to the local Whirlpool Poly-Clean, and we all know from ads for those that everyone was dressed up while they did their laundry.

Post# 703676 , Reply# 3 9/17/2013 at 12:49 (3,872 days old) by mickeyd (Hamburg NY)
Checkrate/Likes *Combo (le) Fever.* A dream machine for sure, the envy of "me" eye. Doubt that they'd make a genuinely, factually, verifiable claim like that, but who knows, Tom? Either the heater is on during the rinsing which would be interesting and impressive, or it's not. The Webmaster must know. Let's ask him. If it does indeed heat for the warm rinses, God, do I ever want one now! Big Al told me the other day that these machines add water to two ballast tanks at spin time to balance the load and that you can hear the water flushing in. Pure Delerium.

Post# 703681 , Reply# 4 9/17/2013 at 13:49 (3,872 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes Only the 29" machine had ballast tanks. This just relied on slow spins and gravity to remain on the floor in the same place where it was installed. There were problems with the earlier models where the pivot bar that ran across the back of the super structure was too flexible because it was made out of too thin a gauge of steel. This pivot bar, thru which passes the drum shaft, is what hits the off balance air switch to stop an unbalanced load from spinning, let it return to tumble to redistribute and then, when the air that was squeezed out of the pneumatic switch refills the little bladder, the circuit is completed allowing the machine to return to spin. In models where the pivot bar was too limber, it bent instead of pivoting and an out of balance spin continued, allowing the machine to start shimmying across the floor, a case of a irresistible force meeting a heretofore immovable object. They sometimes blocked doors to utility closets, resulting in door frames and doors having to be removed, especially inward opening doors, to gain access to a space normally open and now filled with the machine. Hoses and cords usually only allowed them to travel so far. Gas combos were usually held in place by the gas pipe. Unfortunately, as Robert has related, the air switch did not interrupt the flow of electricity to the timer motor so it ticked through the one minute spins whether the drum was spinning or tumbling to redistribute the load so the load could completely miss a spin in between a water change. Actually, you could not find the machine still drying 4 hours later because there was a maximum dry time on the dry timer. The WP, unlike the Lady Kenmore, did not have auto dry and I think the maximum dry time was somewhere between 90 and 120 minutes. It was good to leave it once the combo was started because there was nothing to isolate the vibration of the motor and mechanism from the floor so these were very noisy machines. Unlike the Bendix and Philco machines that were only noisy during the over 500rpm spins, these rattled and shook the floors under them from the beginning of the cycle until the end. The family that had the WP combo that I got when they replaced it had it in the kitchen. If a load was drying when the father came home, the mother just opened the door to stop the thing and did not restart it until after he left in the morning. Cherry red sealed rod heating elements were left to cool with no airflow. It was no wonder why the little air damper at the top of the heater box had an inoperable spring when I got it home.

Post# 703694 , Reply# 5 9/17/2013 at 15:13 (3,872 days old) by Unimatic1140 (Minneapolis)
Checkrate/Likes Wow, interesting mistake. There is no water heating delay in the rinse cycle, only the wash. I'm not sure if the heater is on but I doubt that during the rinse cycle.

Post# 703711 , Reply# 6 9/17/2013 at 17:43 (3,872 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes It helps to have talked with service men who worked on these 33" machines. The sound you hear when water is being diverted into the ballast tanks on the 29" machines is the balancing mechanism bleeding off air from the air feed to the air-driven clutches in the transmission. You can't hear the water stream very well. Every time there is an air hiss, the air pressure is being reduced to keep the speed down. It is only when the frame is no longer flexing from the revolutions of the unbalanced cylinder spinning that the machine senses a balanced load and the spin speed is allowed to increase to a rip roarin' 400 rpm.

Post# 703805 , Reply# 7 9/18/2013 at 02:40 (3,871 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea))
Checkrate/Likes Pneumatic clutches? Ballast tanks? Are we talking about WW2 submarines? Is that what it took to get around Bendix patents? Which weren't all that and a bag of chips either. Ahh, the nostalgia value of the day when "RCA" was a name worth renting. IINM it even appears in 2001 A Space Odyssey. In the context of food slots, not laundry duos. Those had already been abandoned. I knew one family who had one. And wished they didn't. Not that that affects their collectability. They're still representative of an era, however impracticable.

Post# 703808 , Reply# 8 9/18/2013 at 03:07 (3,871 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)
Checkrate/Likes 3 "Is that what it took to get around Bendix patents? Which weren't all that and a bag of chips either.' Well, at least it was that good that it is still used in modern frontloaders.

Post# 703829 , Reply# 9 9/18/2013 at 06:57 (3,871 days old) by DaveAmKrayoGuy (Oak Park, MI)
Checkrate/Likes Easy to then see how and why that sort of technology, even broken down to today's lowest common denominators cannot produce a single-machine wash & dry, even with an LG or Samsung name-tag! -- Dave

Post# 703860 , Reply# 10 9/18/2013 at 10:55 (3,871 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes The air driven clutching was late 50s-early 60s technology to give variable speed results from a transmission connected to a single speed motor that would, with advancements, be replaced with variable speed motors and eliminate the need for the transmission.

Post# 703934 , Reply# 11 9/18/2013 at 20:28 (3,871 days old) by Gyromatic (St. Paul MN.)
Checkrate/Likes 2 *RINSE WATER IS HEATED* HOT-Only the hot water solenoid of the mixing valve is energized during the initial fill period.Note:The timer causes only the warm water solenoid to be energized for rinse fills.The water heater will be energized during all wash and rinse periods whenever the water level switch is actuated. The water temperature control thermostat will not complete a circuit to energize the timer motor during the wash period unless water temperature is over 120 F. Water heater will come on during rinses on models W5710500-W5710501-and w5710502.Hope this clears up the wondering.

Post# 703986 , Reply# 12 9/19/2013 at 02:09 (3,871 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea))
Checkrate/Likes Um, which Bendix patents are still used? Fluid shocks? True, W'house didn't have them. Mostly got by without. Didn't "damage" themselves when they ran wild, but did require internal resetting. That was my job when I was 8. W'house also spun faster than Duo, and without a "transmission". Did Bendix really invent fluid damping? I mean, the concept. Not the application to laundry machines. I have a hard time working up a whole lot of respect for 'application' patents. Legal wheedling, not genuine innovation. The appliance industry is full of them. Even timer cycles can be patented, like spray rinses. Really? It's an "invention" to turn a water valve on? Legally, apparently. Not selling me.

Post# 704000 , Reply# 13 9/19/2013 at 05:40 (3,870 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes 1 *Interesting information* If the heater operated during warm rinses after the warm fill, what would the temperature have to be to trigger water heating, i.e. how much less than 100F and would the one minute rinse period be extended through a timer delay to heat the water to 100F or was the heating mandatory on the warm rinse setting? I can't imagine a house with such a meager hot water supply that at least warm water could not be supplied for rinsing. Each fill in this machine only took 3 gallons of water after the load was saturated. If the heavy drum and the load of laundry were already heated up to warm, medium (120F) or hot (140F), it would be hard to see how 3 gallons of rinse water would drop the temperature enough to require heating during the first rinse or two. Maybe by the third rinse, if the hot water supply was exhausted and all that was coming through the line was tap cold water, heating might be required, but this seems highly unlikely. Granted, with the high wattage of the immersion heating element in the electric machine, the water would be heated quickly, but it seems very wasteful and with only one minute of rinsing from the time the water level pressure switch was satisfied until the drain valve opened, it does not seem like the heating would serve much purpose except to keep the drain lines warm. It was, however, the late 50s and excess in appliance features was the watch word of the day. Even Bendix, which had the water heater in the early 36" electric Duomatics did not think about heating rinse water. I wonder if heating the rinse water lasted beyond the 1957 model. By the time CU tested combos, I think they were testing the 1959 models and they bitched about the high cost of the amount of energy comsumed by these machines. They went into detail about the wash water heating of the WP and LK combos, but if these two models heated the rinse water, it must have not been noticed by them. If the gas model also heated rinse water, it seems that they would have noticed that huge 37,000 BTU burner snapping on and off during the rinses. The BOL model I had did not have the water heater, but if you wanted a really hot wash, you washed and dried a load and then, no matter what the wash or rinse temperature was, when the drying stopped, the whole machine was hot so you had plenty of heat to be absorbed by the wash fill of the next load.

Post# 704021 , Reply# 14 9/19/2013 at 08:10 (3,870 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)
Checkrate/Likes 4 The Bendix patents aren't used anymore, because patents last only 20 years, but the basic design Bendix did, with inner and outer drum and motor all supported by the suspension was back then the best thing since sliced bread. Many other combo's didn't catch on because they couldn't use that same design. IIRC no other combo spun as fast as a combo, certainly not a Westinghouse. IIRC those spun only at 200rpm. Even modern frontloaders all around the world use that same design. I think that is very impressive. The guy who designed it was a genius.

Post# 704133 , Reply# 15 9/19/2013 at 17:58 (3,870 days old) by mickeyd (Hamburg NY)
Checkrate/Likes *Thnak You, John* No one has more fun making fun of admen than I do. But back in the more rhetorically restrained days of the 50's, conflate though they may, saying a washer would heat the rinse water if it did not just seemed too far flung to get by the editor, fact-checker, or whatever Soup nazi equivalent ran the show. My faith in the past remains unshattered.

Post# 704181 , Reply# 16 9/20/2013 at 00:37 (3,870 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea))
Checkrate/Likes W suspended everything except the timer and water valve in Laundromat as of late 40s before combos were conceived. I was like, there.

Post# 704191 , Reply# 17 9/20/2013 at 02:08 (3,870 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)
Checkrate/Likes 1 So...? What's your point arbilab?

Post# 704192 , Reply# 18 9/20/2013 at 03:12 (3,869 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea))
Checkrate/Likes Are you following the dialog Al? We're talking about patents and their precedents.

Post# 704201 , Reply# 19 9/20/2013 at 05:37 (3,869 days old) by jeb (Mansfield Ohiio)
Checkrate/Likes *patent* In the beginning Westinghouse had to pay Bendix a 5 cent royalty for every frontloader.

Post# 704209 , Reply# 20 9/20/2013 at 06:35 (3,869 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)
Checkrate/Likes 2 I know what we're talking about. You were like there? You're from 1946, right? I don't get your point! Apparently you're not impressed. If not, don't spoil the fun for other's who are.

Post# 704321 , Reply# 21 9/20/2013 at 20:12 (3,869 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes 1 It matters not what Westinghouse suspended in their Laundromat. The patent was on a suspended mechanism in the washer-dryer combination. No one else could do that, period and that is how Bendix poisoned the well for the combos. As the reputations of all other brands of combos went to hell, it affected the sales of Duomatics also. Heating the rinse water was a stupid, energy-wasting idea that did not last more than a year or two for Whirlool and no other manufacturer offered it because it was unnecessary. Whirlpool did it because they could. I cannot remember Sears offering it on the LK combo and Sears not only hyped features more than Whirlpool, but also had them first.

Post# 704372 , Reply# 22 9/21/2013 at 01:16 (3,869 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea))
Checkrate/Likes Already said "doesn't affect collectability". Or fun. As stated I do have an agenda WRT application patents. They don't represent genuine invention, just a rearrangement of existing elements. And tend to be detrimental to the industry and their customers overall. That is only a VIEWPOINT on legal shenanigans. Has no bearing on the joy of discovery, restoration, owning or showing working classic machines. Not sure why one would think it did. Trying to backfill the LEGAL relationships among stuff made when I was 10yo, because it wouldn't have come to mind then and there was no internet to look it up on if it had. Thanks to those contributing insights.

Post# 704506 , Reply# 23 9/21/2013 at 19:05 (3,868 days old) by jeb (Mansfield Ohiio)
Checkrate/Likes *Westinghouse patent* " In the early to mid 1930's Rex Earl Bassett Jr., and his attorney, John Chamberlain were issued a patent for an automatic washing machine. Bendix Corp. acquired the rights to use this patent to produce machines with less than 4 cubic feet of tub volume. Westinghouse executed a licensing agreement with Bendix. Some of the provisions of this agreement included a payment of five cents royalty to Bendix for every machine produced, and the cross licensing of all other pertinent patents, royalty free. It covered existing and future patents.". This was taken from a book published in 1990, written by the Westinghouse history committee. Jeff

Post# 704532 , Reply# 24 9/21/2013 at 22:09 (3,868 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea))
Checkrate/Likes From Mansfield, can't get much closer to the source than that. Thanks Jeff. Can you point me at the book? I'd gladly pay for a DVD of Westinghouse (apparatus) sales films I watched as a kid if such thing existed. One was CSP for Me, animated short, maybe 8 minutes. The other was closer to 30min, tour of factory and testing. They're not found in the public archives.

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