I have a front loading washer. With drying function, which proved a huge space saver.
When it is at the final spin cycle it has to do it at 1200 rpm for some reason. Anyways, at that speed the machine would basically hit the wall so hard I’d swear someone was making sweet love. Other times, especially on full loads, the machine would basically move all over the place. The only way I can stop this is if I physically pin the machine in place with boards or whatever so it can’t move at all.
Is there anything I can do to remedy this situation? Or should I just fill whatever space the machine has that isn’t used to hold water with lead weights until it can’t move at all?
Yea, thing is, it usually have flimsy leveling screw that is almost, always broken. So I have to stack rubber sheets under it to level it, but it does not stop it from moving most the time, seems only physical restraint will.
I’m not quite sure what you mean from the description, but wouldn’t solid feet be better than rubber sheets? (It seems like compressible rubber sheets would be liable to squash while running and amplify the problem…)
Rubber feet dampens vibration and provides some (though not a lot) resistance from it moving. I used to just put a piece of aluminum under the feet but it still walked around eventually.
One of these days I want to machine a proper machine rest for this thing, and maybe find places to bolt weights to it. The washer is already heavy but not enough to keep it from walking. Actually many people stack machines like this with a dryer on top, so if the machine moved around it would seriously hurt things.
Yeah, I realise that, but my point is I don’t think this is a vibration issue so much as an unbalanced load issue, where non-rigid supports between the machine and the ground could make the problem worse not better (because the ability of the washing machine to move during the spin cycle will make the load even more unbalanced).
I might be wrong though - don’t know much about washing machines (I’m basing most of this on lab centrifuges).
I guess I will have to fix the situation when I move. Right now the space is so small, that without help I can’t physically flip the machine over myself, so I can install proper mounts that’s far more robust. What I need to do is find a way to rigidly bolt thick steel (or aluminum) plates to the bottom of the machine, then a proper adjustable rest made of M12 bolts or above would be installed, to make a good solid support than what the machine came with. Maybe I should just somehow solidly attach a very thick 1" thick steel plate to it, which the weight would help with its stability, then thick machine rests can be installed at the bottom of this steel plate.
Centrifuge is different, as it is top loading and as long as they are balanced right they should not vibrate too much. Front loading machine has to somehow spin in a specific way so that the clothing becomes balanced while the machine spins… I have no idea how it does it.
Yeah It sounds like that might be the main issue. I’ve had front loaders all my life, and they usually recommend 50% to 75% “fullness” of clothing, but it actually is about how heavy does the clothing get after wet. So you mostly have to eye-ball it.
Things like towels suck all the water and become much heavier for instance, so you shouldn’t really fill it up to 75% with only towels.
Moreover sometimes the clothes might clump up and generate a very uncentered center of gravity.
You can play lowering the max RPM, that’s always what I’ve done when I’ve felt too much shaking.
Also, the machines tend to wobble more and more as time goes by.
I was told the opposite, that front loaders can essentially be filled to about 90% full and still wash effectively. At least at the one I have says it can be filled with up to 9kg of clothing. But it goes without saying that you don’t cram it into the machine, it can be loosely filled to 90% and still work effectively…
Besides they take FOREVER to wash too… compared to top loaders anyways.
Idk the recomendations might vary from fabricator to fabricator, and might be different here in taiwan too, but I recall my front-loaders had an indicator somehow build-in the side plastic or the glass of the door.
About time… yeah I have noticed how top loaders here take like 40 minutes to wash. I was used to 2h cycles in front-loaders!!
But also, I can’t say that my current top-loader really washes my clothes. It just feels like it moves them in water for a bit and then centrifuges them sideways.
Front-loaders are supposed to wash better and use less water, but also they move better
This has been my experience as well. Top loaders don’t even wash clothes at all, just tie it into a knot. I think they need to be filled with a LOT of water and very little clothing (less than 50% of tub capacity) in order to work effectively at all. But the result is it uses a lot of detergent and uses a lot of water (not that water cost is even a concern at all in Taiwan, you could fill an Olympic sized swimming tool here for 1000-2000nt here). Otherwise it just ties all the clothing into a knot and not clean anything.
But I seriously doubt these washers can deal with 20lbs of weight on the drum… it’s not designed to move that much weight. Water weights like about 10lbs per gallon and 6 liters of water is nearly 2 gallons.
Do this with top loading washers and the same thing will happen too.
Open the front door, grab the drum and pull to see if there is too much play.
You can go to a shop and do it there first on a new machine to get the feel for what is right.
The drum is mounted on a suspention which sometimes gets loose.
