Hey guys, I currently have a vintage Siemens spin dryer but I’m getting sick and tired of moving buckets around that are full of water, is there a possibility that I could put a small pump off of a washing machine to drain the water as it spun out of the laundry? I do know that spin dryers with built-in pumps exist but it would be about $600+ to get one from the UK via eBay (Picture is of eBay listing of how much it would cost
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Post# 1080673 , Reply# 1 7/11/2020 at 18:50 (1,383 days old) by thomasortega(El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles de Porciúncula)
That would be VERY complex, due to design limitations.
Nowadays, shipping is strategically considered in millimeters. Literally, 1 millimeter can be the difference between fitting 454 and 632 spin dryers in a container. It translates into ab absurd shipping cost for manufacturers.
Also, with online retailing, the final shipment also counts a lot... adding 2 ounces can be the difference between "normal priced" shipping and "absurdly overpriced" shipping cost.
Then somebody of course will say, "oh, the company saved $5 on a pump. Well, actually, a pump costs much less than that (average 50 cents each), but adding a pump means the final product price will jack up over $100 because of the added weight and product dimensions. and ina market that fights really tight because of capacity, every millimeter makes a huge difference.
The The Laundry Alternative Ninja vs Panda Spin Dryer is a good example of that. Our drums are very similar. the only difference is exactly 1 mm (our dum is wider). I literally had to redesign the drum to make it 1mm wider, we had an absurd cost to make the molds (molds are horribly expensive) because of 1mm and this 1mm was enough to make thousandos of consumers say "Oh, the Ninja is 1mm bigger than the panda, so it will fit more clothes."
Now, what can you really fit in 1mm more? maybe 1/10 of a sock.
Adding a pump means we'll have to add at least a couple inches to the product height (because of the sump + space for the pump to fit) or sacrifice the drum capacity, which is unthinkable nowadays because consumers give 1 start to a WonderWash just because it can not wash california king size comforters. How dare we make a hand-crank countertop washer that can't wash a cal-king comforter?
With a pump added not touching the capacity, you can be sure the spin dryer will be very expensive for the final consumer, to a point that won't be cost-effective.
Post# 1080705 , Reply# 2 7/12/2020 at 00:06 (1,383 days old) by Adam-aussie-vac(Canberra ACT)
Yes that’s true but what if a spin dryer manufacturer used the same design of housing for the different model of their spin dryers? It would be less complex as all they would need to install is a pump that could be belt driven or even direct drive on the end of the spin dryer motor, btw are you the guy behind “the laundry alternative”?
Post# 1080711 , Reply# 3 7/12/2020 at 01:44 (1,383 days old) by thomasortega(El Pueblo de Nuestra Señora de Los Angeles de Porciúncula)
Nowadays, probably 100% of spin dryers are direct drive and the motor dimensioning ratio (height x width) has changed a lot over the years to make it as compact as possible, some "dead" space is needed so the motor can move freely together with the drum (suspension).
Adding a pump, (electrica or motor driven) is unthinkable because it will add several milimeters to the height, making the hwole product taller, doing that, we can't fit another row in the container and this incraeses the logistics costs (factory-distributor-retailer) Only this automatically adds $100 to $150 (US Dollars) to the retail price.
After that, there's "how the retailer is going to deliver the product to the final consumer". If it's a physical store, that's not ahuge issue. the customer buys a spin dryer, toss it in the trunk of back sead and drive home. If it's an online retailer, there's the retailer-final consumer shipping cost. For an ordinary person using FedEx services, that's not a big deal because there's no huge differences. Now when it's a company that ships thousands of parcels per month and obviously nave a "corporate" contract with the shipping companies, everything is meticulously studied. I mean, I know what is having to work side by side with a FedEx engineer to design the Nina Soft spin dryer packaging. The "encourage" (they actually force us) to optimize our designs in millimeters. Literally, every millimeter counts and 1 millimeter on the height or width or "half gram" can be a huge difference for their internal system and that can cost us $10 or $20 more PER MILIMETER.
That said: Making a spin dryer with a pump is one of my dreams. Until a few months ago we had a model (Mega) that I made with the option to have a gravity drain (but that would require the user to purchase a regular washing machine drain hose) I couldn't include the hose because of 25 grams that would cost $75 more to ship each unit. Many parts I'd love to make sturdier, to make the products last much longer, but that adds weight.
If I made the spin dryers exactly like I want (i hate that container to collect the water), we wouldn't sell any, because all the logistics would make it cost almost the same as a full size front load washer. Nobody would buy it.
Add to that the market demanding mugh bigger capacities and at the same time they want the products every time smaller, to save space.
Some customers send us messages giving us suggestions to basically transform our products into TARDIS. Some of the messages are laughable, for example tah customer that gave us one star on Amazon because the WonderWash was a "scam" because she tried to wash a cal king comforter and the comporter was 3x migger than the whole washer. In her comments she literally asked us "how dare you put on the market a washing machine that can't wash a cal king comforter".
Very few manufacturers around the World that still have spin dryers with pumps usually have them costing average 100% more (in some cases 150% more) than the same model without a pump.
This week I finished the diaper washer and started working on another project, a mini front load washer. The nightmare begins again. STP files going back and forth to FedEx, so they can "help me" optimize every millimeter and every gram of it. I'm having "the" nightmare to get rid of the concrete blocks and replace them by ballast tanks and making the tachometer extremely accurate (which translates to PITA super long waiting times before each spin) because the washer obvioulsy can't jump or walk at all, and we're limited to 5% of the counterweight load, plus the suspension system has to be "lighteneded" because the shocks and springs also add weight to the product. The target is making the washer shipping weight BELOW 19kg. It's so desperating that even the user manual is weighted and we have to reduce fonts to reduce the number of pages, change paper gramature and even the staple to see if we can reduce 1 gram.
Years ago, my best friend was a caliper. Nowadays my most important tool (after the computer) is a precision scale. It won't surprise me if in some years FedEx starts using microns instead of millimeters and carats instead of grams.
Carrat, so yeah I completely understand what you mean, No one says you can’t build an add-on pump That could attach to underneath the spin dryer and work the same way how one of those condensation pump things work Using a mini float switch and a pump to pump out water
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