Running

Racks

Would love to have one of these in black that looks good and runs good haha.  I think these debuted in 1984 as did I LOL.  They look so advanced for their time.

I was so impressed on so high tech it was when I first saw it.

These Models with the Multi-orbit lower wash arm, Self-cleaning filter, heavy die-cast control panel, heavy molded tub and door liner with a heavy duty metal frame around it, and even additional support for the extra-deep upper rack in the form of an extra Axel and wheels that ran on the ceiling of the tank. IMEO this was the first time that GE got really serious about trying to compete with the big boys by with a built-in a DW that could compete with KA, WP, and MT in terms of performance and long term durability as they wouldn't rust out in ten years or less.

I would never have seriously considered a GE DW in my home until these machines came out. They do still have several serious short comings when you compare them to WP or KA DWs of the same time period. The lower rack just doesn't allow random loading, it is too cut up with the Silver Ware basket in the front, the wash tower in the center and the silly saucer space right behind, as a result the LR holds less than a dozen dinner plates. If you try and load the lower rack heavily with pots, pans and bowels items wouldn't get washed in the corners of the otherwise excellent top rack.

But to me the most worst part of this machine was they used the same motor and pump that they put in their cheapest builder machine. It was always interesting when looking at the beautiful brochures for these DWs that GE barely mentioned that it even had a motor let alone its HP LOL. But it used noisy inefficient 1/6 HP motor that used as much power as KAs 1/2 HP motor did and put out even more heat. The nice thing is that if you want to use one of these machines today as an everyday machine you can easily install the new PSC motor and cut the power consumption down to 1/3 and reduce the noise as well. And the grinder was [ and still is in current GE DWs ] a very fragile little affair that can be easily destroyed by hard objects, they have changed the design of this many times over the years but still have not manged to get one that cannot be broken easily. The one good thing about GEs huge noisy fan that was used to cool the most inefficient motor ever used in a home DW was that all that hot air blowing around helped dry up the water that was often leaking from the trip shaft seal of other points under the DW.

What made this more special than other brands, did it operate differently?  Does anyone have some pictures for comparison?

Thanks for your post bwoods - I am going ot have to hook up one my GE dishwashers and try the peanut butter test.  I don't doubt what you say (ok - I do a little bit, but I guess I am about to be proven wrong), but when I worked at Lowe's years ago, we had a GE dishwasher with a plastic door.  I was able to watch the angle of the water shooting out of the power tower.  I still don't see how it can get into a glass (or jar) around the perimeter to the machine - especially the corners. 

But - I like your experiment idea and I am going to try it.

I used to!  I chucked it after the fifth time I walked into the kitchen and found ice-cold water and a beeping dishwasher complaining about a blocked wash-arm.  (It wasn't.  The sensor was getting pissy--or else the electronics were--in old age.)  The detergent cup sensor was also faulty, and 9 out of 10 cycles started with a "Cup Open" error that I had to bypass.

I have the KDS-20 now.  Live has been much simpler ever since not being constantly scolded by a dishwasher.

I agree that the 2800 was the first real competition finesse- and performance-wise to the big leaguers, but the electronics were a detraction, not a plus, in the long-term.  But then again, that was back in the eighties, when anything futuristic had electronics as a matter of course, before we realized that they actually create more problems than they address.

william637 - I have had this exact problem with any GE appliance I have owned.  The back left corner of the top rack of my newer near TOL Hotpoint had this problem.  My BOL newer Americana is better about it but the top rack still seems neglected after most loads as there a sprinkling of food bits usually and I am very cautious not to block the tower openings.  It needs a sprayer on the top to spray down on the top rack.

Ours in SF underfilled, but performed well if you chucked in extra water.  It never groused at me or stopped due to a sensed condition, so I liked it that much better.

" I still don't see how it can get into a glass (or jar) around the perimeter to the machine"

The wash tower on these is unlike any other before.  It is not the crappy little dual-slot number that was on lesser machines before and since.  It sends a T-shaped stream out to the edges, which apparently has enough "oomph" to swirl up the sides and touch the top of most tumblers placed at the corners.  Ours never had a problem cleaning the furthest reaches.

Oh, and Gordon, no teacup saucers?  Even I had saucers to go up there, and my card hardly ever gets stamped anymore.  ;-)

Gordon I am not having a bad day, LOL, I thought that was a fairly positive post. I do believe that I stress a DW much more than you do, while I haven't been in your home I did watch you load Kevin's DWs. I pack my DWs to the gills and always stuff all pots and pans, bowls are at least triple stacked on top of each other and always get good results from the WP PC and the KDSS-20, only real problem with the KA is that you often have to clean the filter once or more mid-cycle as it will completely clog sometimes. I do put dishes in that dirty. I do find as stated in my post that I find the above mentioned GE DWs very good overall, but when I pack the lower rack items do not get cleaned in the corners. WATER WILL NOT CHANGE DIRECTION IN MIDSTREAM.  And If GE actually got this to work one has to wonder why not only GE but every other DW made worldwide now has a full upper wash-arm. I really dough that GE found a way to do this. Barry I would love to see pictures of those tall glasses with peanut butter getting clean in the corners of the top rack. Better yet I have an original GSD-1200 that even has the original shaded pole motor at the museum that is fully restored condition, I hope you get a chance to visit and we can do some competitive tests.

Mark both the original shaded pole motor pumps and the newer PSC pumps have exactly the same main wash impeller, in fact both style pumps use the SAME pump rebuild kit, and as far as I can tell the PSC motor [ which is more powerful ] actually runs faster and unlike the shaded pole motor its speed doesn't waver as it works. That was one of the things I always hated about the shaded pole motors as they sounded like they were straining as they ran because the sound and speed constantly varied.

This is an excellent thread.  I have decided that since I have a 1200 with the original motor and pump and the 2800 with the new motor and pump, I can run both side by side and see what happens.  Who cares if the 1200 leaks right now?  It's down in my basement where I can make as big of a mess as I want.  I'll let y'all know how it turns out, but it will be a few weeks.  I am leaving for Milwaukee right after work for a great weekend (going for the 97th birthday of a college friends grandmother - she still lives alone and is an amazing woman).  Next weekend is race weekend in Charlotte.  I plan on being very drunk on Saturday and very hungover on Sunday.  If anybody from this group is in Charlotte for the all-star race, hit me up.  We will be tailgating all day.

Ok, back to dishwashers.  I mentioned before that the 2800 was a lucky find for me.  The habitat store has been a trove of treasures.  I found my 1-18 there.  On the day that I found the 2800,  I spied the Hotpoint version of the 2200 at 20 paces.  I quickly went and oohed and aaahed over it and knew I was going to by it.  But I kept thinking to myself "wow, this is cool and all, but I really wish I could find a 2800".  And lo and behold (I don't know how I missed it), I looked to the right and a 2800 was sitting right there.  Truly a gift from God. 

Sorry

I meant to say if you are going to the at the Race on the weekend of the 19th, you should hit me up. 

I have a vintage orange Fiesta Wear plate.  It is probably 60 or 70+ years old.  I was given the orange, green, blue, and yellow plates by a very dear friend who is 73 y/o.  These were the only pieces left of her mother's set that my friend, who was trying to show her mom she was a big girl and could clean off the dining room table all by herself, accidentally broke when she was a little girl.  I never knew the orange was radioactive!  I  l o v e  Fiestawear and have quite a bit of it; though not vintage.  The Dish Barn in Flat Rock, NC has sold Fieata Wear by the piece for decades.  It used to be very inexpensive.  Operative phrase here is "used to be."  You can still by a four piece place setting for $28.00 at the Dish Barn but they make up their profit margin on accessories - of which they have an unbelievable stock.   

You know, that is a good question.  I honestly don't remember.  The dishwasher came with the house, but I put my favorite Frigidaire in within a month or two of moving in.  The 1200 hasn't been cranked up in about 5 years, except when I was working on the 2800 this past winter I put the 1200 up on the table to see what parts I was going to need to order for it as well.

I guess when I get it started I will have to document that as well.

Looks like I need to get by but in gear!

What does IIRC mean?

Thanks!

Cycle sequence chart

Barry thanks for all the provided information and your thoughts on the two types of motors used in GE DWs, but I wanted to add a few thoughts and corrections.

The original style motor used by was a shaded pole motor and while technically an induction motor SP motors are far less efficient than a regular induction motor such as the types used in about any other DW. The GE style SPM is easily the least efficient motor EVER used in a home DW and is less that 20% efficient.

More torque does not equal more water moved, both style pumps use the same size impellers so in order to move more water you need more speed and the PSC motor is more powerful.

When GE started switching to the better PSC motors they were not Chinese, but made by Seimans and they are rated at 1.45 amp draw, GE later went to a Chinese supplier. But GE simply could meet energy standards with the original inefficient motor.

Many DWs do not wash tall items in the corners of the top rack including, but not limited to, ALL GE DWs with a wash tower, All MT RR DWs, WP built Tall Tub DWs and many other DWs. I have been repairing DWs too long and have heard hundreds of complainants about this problem, just last Friday a customer was telling how things don't get clean in the corners of her basic GE DW with the older SPM, and of coerce I thought of you as she was telling me this, LOL.

Hope you get a chance to visit and we can do some testing or post some videos of your results, John.

Looks like I have my memorial day weekend cut out for me - I'm going to clear my work table of the kitchenaids and hook up the 1200 and the 2800.  Right now I am planning on blocking the spray from the lower rack with sheet pans placed as horizontally as possible, or just some heavy loading of pots.

Are there any specific tests (soils, objects, placement), etc. that anybody wants to see?  I am planning on testing the 1200 with the original pump (with the small leak), and the 2800 with the new pump assembly.

As a side note, I enjoyed your post bwoods, but I think you might be off just a little regarding pumps/flow. 

" ....result in greater flow of a fluid, even if the velocity of the stream remains the same."

As the size of the tubing to the nozzles, and the nozzle openings themselves are constant, flow and velocity are directly related.  I.E. velocity can not increase without flow increasing, and vice versa.

"...They usually have a chart for pumping rates vs. hp. See the data for the pumping rate increase, when you use a higher hp motor, even though the rpms stay the same."

Generally, HP changes in pumps are either a) to handle differences in head pressure developed or b) to drive different size impellers / housings.  If your downstream head requirements are the same, the pump impeller and housing are the same, and the rpms are the same, then a using another motor with a higher HP does not result in greater flow.

I will point out that Fluid Mechanics was my least favorite subject in college (well, after control theory at least), and it has been years since I cracked that book.  If I have stated the above incorrectly, please correct me.

Barry you need to get some facts together not just a bunch of your opinions if you want to have serious discussion. The 1.45 amps is printed on the Siemens motor and my testing verifies this rating. Ge started to abandon those crappy motors almost 20 years ago on their better model DWs.

Yes the old GE SPM do put out OVER 400 Watts of waste heat. What seems sensible to you does not make it true. As refrigerators have moved away from SPMs for fans power consumption has in most cases gone down 25-30 watts to 4 watts and the new motors have more starting torque. And even though the old GE SP DW motors were simple they probably had 20 or more times the failure rate of the newer PSC motors, in fact I can not recall a single instance of one of the newer motors failing. The SPM all though the late 1980s on had serious problems with loose fans and open windings, we saw hundreds fail.

One of the most common problems with the old SPM was VERY LOW STARTING TORQUE. Ask ANY GE repair person how many hundreds if not thousands of GE DWs with SPM that would not start because the motor is so weak that it could not overcome the water seals friction. We did and still do many of these every month where we have to turn the HUGE fan by hand to get it started again every time someone lets a GE DW sit unused for a few weeks.

And your ridiculous notion that water will travel horizontally a foot or more and then jump straight up into a glass in the corner of a rack,,,,,, You need to prove this as many here have seen DWs work with plastic fronts or even watching a lawn sprinkler will show that nothing like this ever  happens, maybe in a different universe or planet LOL.

Really not worth responding to Barry, almost every statistic you made in you last post just changed, I won't even try to keep up with your changing opinions.

I will let Mark do some testing later this month, eventually when I get my WALL OF DISHWASHERS installed we will do some real comparisons. But I should really know better than debate someone that also thinks that the GE series wound disposers were a great product LOL.

6 amps does not necessarily mean 600 watts, yes you are correct, at a 120 volts it means 720 watts. Amp meters like your electric meter don't lie, LOL. there is no free lunch.

that motor efficiency has improved over time. It is, however, worth noting that shaded pole motors do have a few advantages over some other designs which can, under certain circumstances, justify their use despite lower efficiency. 1) Stalling out doesn't burn them out.  2) Super simple: If it ain't there, it can't fail. 3) As long as they are lubed, they have an indefinite life expectancy. As to our Twenty-Eight Hundred, the original motor has now run daily since 1984 with neither shaft leak nor broken chopper (a genuine weakness). That's not bad when you consider she's on her third mainboard and calrod.

Is going to be around 375-500 watts, when you find out the exact # let us know, I have worked on enough of these to know what I am talking about.

The great thing about these crappy energy hog motors was they were great at drying up all the water that leaked at the trip shaft seal and even the main pump seal, I have seen many GE DWs that had leaked for years and the leaks went unnoticed because all the hot air blowing around dried up the water, if only they had directed the hot air through the DW chamber they could have left out the heating element for the dry cycle.

For calculating Watts on an AC motor:

P_(W) = PF × I_(A) × V_(V)

_{Somebody will have a better figure, but if I recollect properly, this motor has a power factor of about .85. So - If the motor draws 6A @120VAC, then we're looking at 612 watts.}

_{Now, I don't wish to be pedantic, but 100% of the work done by that motor is, ultimately, going to be heat.}

John's in the ball park on this. hell, anybody who's seen the fans on these knows that.

And, I LIKE shaded pole motors.

Actually, the Twenty-Eight Hundreds have a better power factor correction that people might expect - look at the power supply for the brain on them. I'd not be surprised it things add up pretty close to 1 in the end.

That would be a real world way. Anyway we cut it, these motors are horribly inefficient. And loud (blower). Still, over thirty years of constant service (I do re-oil the felt pad as per GE instructions every year or so) suggests they did get something right.

Would I replace it with the capacitor split-phase induction design if it were to fail?

Yes. Until then, it works well and makes a happy sound.

One of the great things about the tremendous advances in metallurgy, manufacturing and electronics is the range of choice we have, today.

Back in the 1970's, an electronically controlled motor - Philips had them in their washers, for instance - was a rarity.

Today, we expect 'digital' motors to run at 100,000rpm + without the slightest hick-up.  There are reasons we still use them, though:

As long as they're lubricated, they have the longest life expectancy of any electric motor).

Run in very very cold and very very hot environments, as well in environments in which enormous temperature variations over a short period of time are normal.

Always start in the same direction (I'm not including the switched wire loop versions in this).

Self-starting.

Can be built as synchronous motors (I'm not getting into that discussion again).

Many can be speed controlled by super-simple electronic circuits.

Don't burn-up when stalled.

As close to silent, when properly built, as a motor can get.

Easy to magnetically shield.

Super easy to use the stator windings as a transformer.

Cheap, cheaper, cheapest to build.

Disadvantages - power PF without correction. Poor (that's an understatement) starting torque, lower efficiency than many other designs.

Shaded pole motors were and are an answer for applications in which certain needs take priority. 

Inexpensive to build.

Reliable - if it ain't there, it can't break down. Capacitors do have a limited lifespan and aren't tolerant of the high heat these motors can put away without difficulty.

Eventually, no doubt, we'll see more efficient motors, but for the moment they still fulfill a market niche.

Whether GE really needed to use them for dishwashers is a question I think we'll all have forever. 

GE used these motors for one reason and one reason only, They Were The CHEAPEST  Motor To Build That Could Do The Job.

Every other DW manufacturer used a better MORE durable motor in their DWs including companies like D&M.

You are correct that these motors are simple, but simple does not mean they are necessarily more durable, because they run so hot and had cheap sleeve bearings and were poorly balanced I have no dough that most newer designs will outlast these SPMs. You are correct that adding a capacitor adds one more thing that can fail, but when you consider that modern capacitors on appliance motors have a life span of at least 50 years it really does not matter, LOL. I think I have seen one bad capacitor on a new style GE DW motor in the last twenty years.

Yes I agree Chet, that GE did introduce a lot of American homes to the work saving convenience of a built-in DW buy building them so cheaply and getting new home builders to put them in homes. A local development near here where Kettler Brothers built 1800 homes from 1963-1969 all had GE kitchens and they all had a GE BIDW. One of the men that worked for the builder said that GE sold them the DWs for $59 each.

The other great thing about GE selling all these cheap DWs to builders was the replacement market after they rusted out and the motors and pumps failed after 5-15 years, by that time most consumers were hooked and went out and bought a good DW, the reps at WP, KA and Maytag loved GE for this, and GE even put Waste-King on the DW map because of the way GEs rusted out people were looking for something that would not rust, LOL.

Hi John, it has nothing to do with hate and I though my post was pretty positive, using these cheap to build motors did allow GE to sell lots of consumers on having DWs, but there is not one redeeming quality of the SPM compared to the newer ball-bearing PSC motor for use on GE DWs, except the ability to evaporate water under the DW from leaks from GEs crappy leaky trip shaft seals.

In the nearly 20 years the newer PSC motors have been used in GE DWs our firm has seen one bad capacitor and one motor with a slightly noisy bearing, when I compare that with literately hundreds of SPMs on GE DWs that had loose fans, bad bearings, and open motor winding's I simply cannot say these SPMs were more durable.