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Washing Machine

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febo

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I am from YILDIZ TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY of TURKEY
My department is Electrical Engineering
I want to control a washing machine, I must to turn cauldron of the machine to line up right and left.This motion for washing.For drying, I must control speed of the engine.
But i am indecisive, because i do not know to which control is easy (DC engine or AC engine)
Can you help me please?
İf you have a ready-made circuit scheme for controlling a engine, which one can be useful for me, can you send me?
I know my english is terrible, i apologize from everybody for my this fault.
 
HarveyH42 said:
What machine? Get a woman, woman washes the clothes. Very simple.

yes, but their current consumption and noise level are very high. Plus they don't have an off switch. The good news is they are multifunction units with a variety of input and output facilities.
 
well humor aside, err most washing machines run on ac motors I'm not quite sure of what control you want from you not too great description you may need a stepping motor
 
I think AC is used, because wet clothes weigh a good bit, so you need a lot of power. Best bet would be to look through some appliance repair sites and see what's being used, and how it works. Haven't had to do repairs on the washer machine, had to do the dryer a couple of times. Both old machines. Takes some looking for the free information, but it's out there. Ususally the sites that sell parts have online repair guides.

Not sure what anyone can do in designing a machine from scratch. For speed, guessing you only would need a couple, plenty of AC motors in that area with 2 or more windings for selecting speeds. Haven't really taken much interest in it, but think there is just a slow speed for agitation, and kind of fast for spin-dry. Never messed with anything more than the basic wash cycles, don't wear anything delicate....
 
Most use universal motors which are far easier to control than AC motors.

An AC motor requires the frequency to be varied to alter the speed, this requires a rectifier followed by an inverter. A universal motor just requires a phase control (like a lamp dimmer).
 
Most i have seen have ac motors with split windings to allowe for direction change, especially in older AEG top loading machines with the drum with the removable lid.
To change direction the capacitor is swapped over to the other winding via the timer control.
These did not have a spin option as far as i can recall.

The older Fisher and Paykel machines have a heavy motor which drives via a belt a gearbox for the back and forth moving of the inner spindle.
In the spin mode, a solenoid locks the gearbox and the whole assembly comes up to speed via a centrifugal clutch.

If you design something from scratch, perhaps the universal AC series motor with brushes is your best bet.
This one will run on ac and dc.
These can be controlled via scr's or triacs.
By means of a dpdt relay the direction can be changes as well.

Good luck and keep us posted with the outcome.
 
I built a PIC controlled washing machine once - it hit world fame and I was getting thousands of people viewing the thread about it.

The main program was run on Windows 2000 (nicknamed Winwash 2000) and used RS232 to communicate between the PC and the Washing machine.

Main issue was speed control of the drum - apart from that it worked very very well until the missus got sick and tired of having to work out how to use the software I'd written to control the machine ;)

Original story here ............

https://www.migweb.co.uk/forums/showthread.php?t=131398
 
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picbits thanks for your answer.
Can you send me circuit scheme of the washing machine?
My time is restrictive, as soon as possible i must prepare the control circuit.

My MSN address is feboholding@hotmail.com
 
Sorry - missed the reply on this one.

I dont have a circuit diagram I'm afraid - I built it as two seperate circuits - one for handling the power side of things and another for the interface and phase control of the motors.

I found all that was left of it the other day - the Controller but it appears to have vanished again now in the depths of my workshop.
 
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