POD (5-28) Easy combo


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Thread Number: 40519
POD (5-28) Easy combo

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Post# 599492 5/28/2012 at 15:04 (4,343 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea))
Checkrate/Likes Year on this machine? Early 60s? Some of the ad copy makes one wonder "how did they do that?". Ventless/condensing, I never was clear on how that worked. And the blurb about 'no springs'. Was this thing a bolt-down? Surely not. One of the Bendix combo licensees?

Post# 599501 , Reply# 1 5/28/2012 at 16:00 (4,343 days old) by lebron (Minnesota)
Checkrate/Likes Any club members have one of these in real life ? How about a Norge combo

Post# 599512 , Reply# 2 5/28/2012 at 16:33 (4,343 days old) by Tomturbomatic (Beltsville, MD)
Checkrate/Likes 1 *EASY Combomatic from the mid 50s* No domestic combo other than Bendix could have a suspension system, i.e. using springs or shock absorbers to isolate the mechanism's movement within the cabinet because of AVCO (Bendix) patents. Also, because AVCO invented the product, any domestic combo manufacturer had to pay AVCO a royalty fee for each machine made. So "no springs" was just the reality under which all combos were made. Yes, it saved space, but at quite a price. It was also the reason that they were so wretched at extracting water. They could not spin fast enough because they had no way of dealing with the dynamic forces of a cylinder on a horizontal axis which is a lot different than a top loader on a vertical axis. It was not until Whirlpool, in the early 60s, introduced their redesigned combo with the water-balancing mechanism that any combo could approach the water extraction rate of the Bendix-design combos. There was a hitch, however. There is always a hitch. The Bendix-design combos could spin at full speed between the water changes while the WP-made combos only spun at high speed after the last rinse so the rinsing was somewhat compromised with heavy fabrics because of the amount of water retained in them by the slower, intermittent speed spins after each water change. Many combos did not spin at all during the rinses or only spun once before the final spin. I don't know of any bolt-down combos. That was pretty primitive construction technology and would not have been good for most of the cramped installations since the main way to gain access to the mechanism to work on a bolt-down machine is to be able to take off the cabinet panels. I know from personal experience that to do some of the work on the later 29" WP-built combos you need to remove a side panel and that means you have to be able to pull the machine out and away from anything that is beside it. Because combos were sold mainly for the space-saving factor, they were not usually seen in spaces where there there was lot of room around them which made wrestling them out for service a pain even when they could slide on the floor. The other thing about bolt-down machines is that after the bolts are prepared in the floor, the machine is lifted up and onto the bolts. Combos weighed a lot more than the first Bendix machines so you didn't want to be lifting them. As for the vented or condensing option, EASY offered the widest range of drying options among combos, offering gas or electric vented drying in almost identical models through the line as well as non-vented condensing drying. The condensing combos used either a condensation chamber where air was blown past a spray or a curtain of cold water to condense the steam or the condensing process relied on the air currents of the turning cylinder to move the steamy air past a curtain of cold water that either flowed down one side of the outer tub or down a wall at the rear of the outer tub. Improved air circulation was one reason GE gave for going from a 4 vane tub to a 6 vane tub. Obviously the fan-forced machines were more expensive to build, but they usually dried faster.

Post# 599513 , Reply# 3 5/28/2012 at 16:36 (4,343 days old) by earthling177 (Boston, MA)
Checkrate/Likes RB: Ventless/Condensing dryers (and/or combo washer-dryers) have been offered for a long time. Basically the air is circulated inside the drum (sometimes there is a fan, but some machines didn't' have a fan) and the moisture is condensed out of the air by some form of cooling. In some machines, that means a mist of water, or water runs against a surface to cool the air and condense the moisture out. Some machines ran the water against the inside surface of the outer drum, some machines had a heat exchanger do that. Other machines, particularly newer condensing dryers, use a closed loop where the air from the dryer is cooled down in an air-cooled heat exchanger and then warmed up again before it enters the drying drum. More advanced condensing dryers use a heat pump to do that. As for the "suspension" part, Bendix and Westinghouse held an awful lot of important patents at the time, so other manufacturers found ways to make the mechanism flex in very small amounts that were enough to activate microswitches that controlled the transmission and slowed down the speed and/or redistributed the clothes. I don't know much about the specifics because I've only seen some of the combos and got a general explanation about them. The collectors that have the machines I'm sure will be more than glad to explain it better than I can.

Post# 599518 , Reply# 4 5/28/2012 at 17:03 (4,343 days old) by lebron (Minnesota)
Checkrate/Likes How was bendix able to patent the use of shock absorbers? When I think of my snowmobiles, where shock absorber spring combos are of utmost importance, it seems absurd that one manufacturer could claim a monopoly on these.

Post# 599530 , Reply# 5 5/28/2012 at 18:33 (4,343 days old) by jeb (Mansfield Ohiio)
Checkrate/Likes *shock absorbers* Westinghouse slantfronts did use shock absorbers in the early 60's. Maybe by then the Bendix patent had run out. jeb

Post# 599539 , Reply# 6 5/28/2012 at 19:59 (4,343 days old) by gansky1 (Omaha, The Home of the TV Dinner!)
Checkrate/Likes Somewhere I have the brochures for the Easy combos - they did use a mounting track that was bolted to the floor to keep it from smashing up the area surrounding it's assigned dance-space.

Post# 599550 , Reply# 7 5/28/2012 at 22:25 (4,343 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea))
Checkrate/Likes I had a relative with a Westy combo. They weren't impressed and didn't keep it long. I never got to see it run. We had 4 Westys. 2 slants and a potato. I never took the potato apart beyond the kick, I didn't live at home by then. It had ongoing problems and mom kicked it out of the house for a TL Weasy. Both the slants had 5 friction plate/leaf dampers and 3 coil springs, no hydraulics. They would.... umm.... relocate themselves from their intended position now and then if they got unbalanced. That's why I had to wonder how Easy got away with no suspension at all.

Post# 599579 , Reply# 8 5/29/2012 at 03:18 (4,343 days old) by chestermikeuk (Rainhill Home of the RailwayTrials Merseyside,UK)
Checkrate/Likes *Easy suspension...* Heres the link to a previous thread that Tom explains about the Track system Greg just mentioned, could imagine any of these beasts fully loaded where scary on any kind of water extraction.... We had vented combos here in the 70 / 80`s (made in uk) and as by then the fl suspension was sorted along with 800 - 1100rpm spin they proved very popular, Hotpoint capitalized on that when they invented their new 1000rpm spin condenser system, fast spin, powerful airflow & condenser all contained in one unit, all that in a 60cm cabinet.. CLICK HERE TO GO TO chestermikeuk's LINK

Post# 599700 , Reply# 9 5/29/2012 at 15:27 (4,342 days old) by arbilab (Ft Worth TX (Ridglea))
Checkrate/Likes Thanks, I see it has come up before. I forgot to mention the Westys had a big chunk of ballast weight on top of the tub in addition to the friction plates. Most probably knew that.

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