Thread Number: 3722
Lightburn Brochure 		[Down to Last]

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Post# 90364   10/24/2005 at 01:00 (6,752 days old) by brisnat81 (Brisbane Australia)        

Hi Guys,

Here is the lightburn brochure I purchased off Ebay.

Regards

Nathan




Post# 90365 , Reply# 1   10/24/2005 at 01:02 (6,752 days old) by brisnat81 (Brisbane Australia)        
Page 2

 The second page

Post# 90387 , Reply# 2   10/24/2005 at 06:13 (6,751 days old) by tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)        

Nathan, pretty neat machine. At first, I thought it looked like some sort of hospital toilet or testing device. Are those openings in the center of the tub covers, and if so, do they just lift off? Maybe they just had the covers removed to show the tubs. Do you know how people rinsed with these? Maybe separate fixed tubs with a spin afterwards?

Post# 90423 , Reply# 3   10/24/2005 at 09:19 (6,751 days old) by foraloysius (Leeuwarden, Friesland, the Netherlands)        

foraloysius's profile picture
Thank you Nathan for sharing this!! I can only say WOW!! If I had to describe this machine in a few words I would say that it's a bit like a Keymatic twintub.

Post# 90429 , Reply# 4   10/24/2005 at 09:35 (6,751 days old) by gizmo (Victoria, Australia)        

This is the machine my Nan had when I was a kid.

Tom - rinse in the spinner - manual though, not auto rinse.

Louis - Keymatic TT is a good description, also it's like a cross between a twin tub and a cement mixer.



Chris

Post# 90434 , Reply# 5   10/24/2005 at 10:10 (6,751 days old) by designgeek ()        


Lightburn also made cement mixers, so that figures:-) (And even small cars at one point!)

Seriously though, in Unimatic1140s topic on programmable washers, I was just commenting that an inclined axis wash drum and a vertical axis spinner would be the most efficient combination possible. And there it is. Exactly.

Does anyone here know how those control levers on the side work?

So the next question is, how long has it been since Lightburn made these, and do they ever come up available as used equipment?

Post# 90435 , Reply# 6   10/24/2005 at 10:15 (6,751 days old) by lesto (Atlanta)        

It DOES resemble some sort of hospital device. I was wondering if it was some type of colonic machine. :O

Post# 90441 , Reply# 7   10/24/2005 at 10:39 (6,751 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!)        

gansky1's profile picture
This is a very cool machine, it looks splashy! The inclined drum with the chrome(?) paddles is really cool. The picture doesn't do the dimensions justice, it's a big 'mutha.

Post# 90458 , Reply# 8   10/24/2005 at 14:24 (6,751 days old) by brisnat81 (Brisbane Australia)        
Levers and other oddities

 Hi Guys,

I got the service manual for this machine from the same seller, its a very very different unit.

The Washbowl is fibreglass, and it isnt driven by a traditional belt, its driven by a rubber cone that rubs against the underside. The service manual warns about washing in hot water and spinning in cold as the condensation build up can cause the bowl and cone to slip.

To drain the washbowl you unscrew a metal bolt inside the bowl (By reaching down in the hot water) The water then runs out into a pan below where the pump collects it. The spin dryer spins into a metal box, which then runs down an open metal chanel into the pan below the washbowl.

The pan the water runs into is open, and not sealed from the motor, so it was important to make sure that the pump was running when spinning or draining, as you could easily overflow onto the motor. (Although I think there is an overflow vent at the back which is lower than the front edge of the pan)

One lever is for wash/drain and it works by mating the two rubber cones either against the pump or the washbowl. The wash motor runs whenever the machine is pluged in.

The other lever drives the spindryer which has a seperate motor.

The Army version of the machine had a safety switch on the spin dryer, the domestic models didnt.

I've never seen one of these machines in the flesh, and I beleive that is for a few reasons:

1) The Lightburn company went out of business in the mid 70's
2) I understand these machines rusted out very easily
3) I would assume that these machine didnt meet the safety requirements of the mid 70's when the Australian standards for washers changed. (With no spin safety switch, tub brake and having to reach into hot water to drain, it would've failed miserabley)

I hope that gives you some background.

Regards

Nathan

Post# 90476 , Reply# 9   10/24/2005 at 17:25 (6,751 days old) by westytoploader ()        

Hospital toilet or Envirolet indeed...exactly what I was thinking!! Or some type of high-volume blood centrifuge...

But regardless it's a cool machine...who can't love a slant-front twinnie?? And the drum lid is removeable also...another plus! The action must be fun...certainly not your "garden-variety" washer!

Was this made before the "Water-Wand" twinnie came into production or were they brandmates?

Post# 90481 , Reply# 10   10/24/2005 at 17:38 (6,751 days old) by gizmo (Victoria, Australia)        

Hi Austin
They were available at the same time and shared many components.
The Motor Museum at Birdwood in South Australia has a Lightburn Zeta car in its collection, and the car was featured a while ago on TV. The segment included a bit of a Lightburn washing machine TV ad, so I should contact the museum to see if they hae the footage or can direct me to it.

Lightburn washers were available in a large variety of formats, all twin tubs as far as I know. They had the King Size shown here, also the "water wand" paddle twinnies, also pulsator twinnies with a horizontal impeller in the floor of the wash tub and an agitator twinnie with a standard 4 vane agitator, I believe sourced from Simpson used in their Minimatic. The agitator one was also sold as a Simpson twinnie, I have seen a couple for sale over the last couple of years in excellent condition but I am holding out to find a paddle washer or a King Size tumble twinnie. The Simpson twinnies I have seen, one as recently as this year, were for sale in second hand shops as "used washers" not as "antiques" or collectors items.

Chris.

Post# 90588 , Reply# 11   10/25/2005 at 05:56 (6,750 days old) by designgeek ()        

Thanks for the info, Briznat. Sounds like a great concept that was undermined by a couple of compromises.

What they should have done: Perforated washtub to enable draining, outer washtub to collect water, belt drive to washtub, safety switch on spinner.

On the other hand, perhaps these were designed primarily for Army and similar use, where you'd have a trained operator. The list of possible applications on the front page seems to suggest that, i.e. hospitals, construction camps, etc. And then they sold 'em to the residential market to fill a niche for a larger machine.

Gizmo, do you know if they used a more conventional approach on the other ones? That is, belt drive, drain valve to pump, etc? BTW, re. those units turning up as "used" rather than antique: if you're into collecting & restoring old machines, now's the time to get a couple of those or a few years from now you're going to be looking back and wishing you did:-)



Post# 90611 , Reply# 12   10/25/2005 at 09:16 (6,750 days old) by gizmo (Victoria, Australia)        

Hi D'geek

these were sold to anyone looking for a really strong durable machine that saved water. They would have been used on farms in arid areas with many employees using the machine. Some time in the late seventies my Sister had just got her drivers license, so She, her boyfriend, our younger sister and I all went on a five day holiday around our state, staying in overnight vans in caravan parks (trailer parks). At one place they had one of these King Size twins powered from a coin-in-slot power point. There were no instructions up, you had to figure it out for yourself. We managed OK, that was the last time I ever saw one of these.
Your description of what they should have done sounds like you have just designed the Hoover Keymatic.
The other ones were somewhat more conventional, in that they had a rubber pinchvalve controlling the tub outlet; single pump driven by the wash motor, whenever it was switched on the wash action operated, you could not "spin only" because the single pump was operated by the wash motor. Two controls - on/off switch and pump valve. No timer at all, it runs as long as it is switched on. The other machines had a lid over the spinner, with a cable operated brake on some and a hopeless solenoid operated brake on others.
Most versions only had one motor - the spin motor, with a v-belt to drive wash action and pump. The one I had was a two motor version, the only one I ever saw.

I already have a garage full of machines and yet there are several more machines I really want to collect but I have no more room, so I must be very selective about more acquisitions.

Chris.

Post# 90777 , Reply# 13   10/26/2005 at 07:16 (6,749 days old) by designgeek ()        

Hi Gizmo-

Ahh, but the Hoover Keymatic was a marvelously complicated contraption, with its pulsator disc at the back of what otherwise looked like a standard FL washtub.

Sounds to me like Lightburn was doing a lot of things to keep the costs down. I'm going to guess that electric motors were an expensive commodity in Aus in the 1950s, possibly due to post-WW2 materials shortages or something.

The number of different ways to design a TT is remarkable, considering how simple it is in theory. One motor, two, or three; different designs for the pump and valve configs; agitators or pulsators, side or bottom mounted; heaters or not; control differences; and so on.

BTW. re. the "plug in the bottom of the tub" on the large Lightburn: it occurs to me that this may have been the intention: Stop the drum rotation when the plug is visible at the top above the waterline. Unscrew plug. Rotate drum manually or via brief activation of the motor, to get the opening down to the bottom, and thereby let the water drain out. The confirmation of this hypothesis would be if the water-catching pan inside was designed to catch the horizontal stream of water that would result initially as the drum was rotated with the hole unplugged. On the other hand, if the pan was not designed that way, this operation would have allowed the water to flood other internal components pretty badly. Any ideas about that?

Post# 90794 , Reply# 14   10/26/2005 at 09:16 (6,749 days old) by gizmo (Victoria, Australia)        

re: plug in the bottom:

I have wondered the same thing myself. It would make more sense to remove the plug at the top but as it was friction drive to the drum, you might end up with a wet drum and no drive.
Mr Harold Lightburn was by all accounts a bit of an eccentric, it should be no surprise his machines were a bit eccentric too.

Chris.

Post# 90811 , Reply# 15   10/26/2005 at 13:56 (6,749 days old) by brisnat81 (Brisbane Australia)        
Plug

 It specifically states in the service manual, that operation of the drum without the plug in place, will result in slippage.

They advise that if normal tumbling isnt occuring, to replace the seals around the plug.

Post# 90838 , Reply# 16   10/26/2005 at 18:31 (6,749 days old) by westytoploader ()        

How strange...the ad seems very "positive" about a machine that actually has some severe design flaws. Why couldn't the spinner and washtub be completely sealed, and incorporate a diverter valve instead of a drain plug? Also, the spin motor should be the one driving the pump. Lightburn's design was good, IMHO, in the sense that there are no seals to worry about and leak, but bad in the fact that a lay person would accidentally damage the machine under normal use. How they survived in the Army was beyond me!

Were those drive "cones" for the washtub actually conical rollers, or were they just that--big rubber cones? So I guess we can equate Mr. Lightburn as being "The Howard Hughes of Washers"? (;-))

Post# 90864 , Reply# 17   10/26/2005 at 21:40 (6,749 days old) by jerseymike ()        
Wow!

 Thanks, Nathan, for sharing, with us, some of the most fascinating machines I've ever seen. Thanks also for teaching us a little bit of Australian history from it's currency to its laundry equiptment to its climate and geography, I know that I learned a lot more then I ever knew.

Thanks, again.

Mike


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