Washing Machine Motors Unlocked

February 29, 2024 by 19 Comments

There’s great potential in salvaging a motor from a broken appliance, but so often the part in question is very specific to its application, presenting a puzzle of wires to the experimenter. This was very much the case with older washing machines and other white goods, and while their modern equivalents may have switched to more understandable motors, there are still plenty of the older ones to be had. [Matthias random stuff] sheds a bit of light on how these motors worked, by means of a 1980s Maytag washing machine motor.

Many of us will be used to old-style induction motors, in which two windings were fed out of phase via a large capacitor. This one doesn’t have a capacitor, instead it has a primary winding and a secondary one with a higher resistance. We’re not quite sure the explanation of the resistance contributing to a phase shift holds water, however this winding is connected in for a short time at start-up by a centrifugal switch. Even better, reversing its polarity reverses the direction of the motor.

The result is a mess of wires demystified, and a mains powered motor with a bit of strength for your projects. We’ve let a few of these motors slip through our fingers in the past, perhaps we shouldn’t have been so hasty.

This is a subject that we’ve looked at in the past.

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DIY Smart Washing Machine Redesign

November 24, 2023 by 17 Comments

[Mellow Labs] wanted a smart washer and built a simple controller. However, he found out after a few weeks it wasn’t working how he wanted. The detergent quit flowing, and he washed clothes with no soap for a week! So, a redesign was in order. You can follow the process and the result in the video below.

A bit of 3D printing, a larger pump, and proper voltage made a big difference. We didn’t see the print files, but unless you have the exact same setup, you’d probably have to customize it anyway. There is a real-time hand-drawn schematic, and the software is probably not hard to pull off the video screen (it is only 18 lines).

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Internet Of Washing Machines Solves An Annoyance

April 15, 2023 by 56 Comments

[Laurence Tratt]’s washing machine blew up, so he sprung for a brand new model with all the bells and whistles. Of course, these days, that means it has an Internet connection and an API. While we’re not quite convinced our washing machine actually needs such a thing, at least [Laurence] is making the most of it by creating an interface to the washer’s API that provides a handy countdown on the computer.

Honestly, there was one other option. The washer’s phone app — that sounds funny when you say it out loud — will notify you when the clothes are done. But it doesn’t provide a countdown, and it seems to regularly log you off, which means you don’t get the notifications anymore. You can see the minimal interface in the video below.

The exact combination of curl, jq, and pizauth probably won’t help you unless you have the same washer. On the other hand, it is a good example of how to hit some alien API and work out the details. Any API that uses OAuth2 and JSON won’t look too different. Speaking of OAuth2, that’s the purpose of the pizauth program — which, it turns out, [Laurence] is the author of.

Of course, you can refit an old washing machine to do this, too. We are more likely to steal the machine’s motor than to want to talk to it but to each their own!

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Companies Rumored To Harvest Washing Machines For ICs

July 5, 2022 by 162 Comments

Wired and SCMP are reporting on interesting trivia from the realm of chip shortages. Apparently, some large conglomerate out there is buying new washing machines and scavenging the chips they can’t obtain otherwise. My imagination pictures skilled engineers in a production room, heavy-duty electric screwdrivers and desoldering toolkits on the floor next to them, and a half-torn-down washing machine about to reveal its control board with an STM32 right in the middle. This might not be the most skilled job, but it’s a change of pace, and hey, as long as the rate stays the same?

Whichever company is doing this, they’re in a conundrum for sure. One of the articles offers an example of a $350,000 spectrometer manufacturing being stalled by lack of a $0.50 part – while this feels exaggerated, it’s within the realm of possibility. For car manufacturers, the difference isn’t as dire, but still severe enough, and not meeting the production targets has ramifications other than the financial ones. It might indeed make sense to buy a $150 washing machine in order to finally be able to move a $30,000 car off the assembly line.
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The Spin Cycle: Washing Machine Motor Converts 10-Speed To E-Bike

July 6, 2020 by 77 Comments

The “Spin Cycle” is an amazing electric bicycle built using a motor salvaged from a washing machine; when the puns are this perfect you have to roll with them. [jimminecraftguy’s] creation is one of the most hacked-together yet functional electric vehicle we’ve seen in a long time.

The drive train of this bicycle starts with a brushless DC motor from a washing machine. It has been slightly modified to run on 48 volts, and is installed inside the triangle of the bike’s frame. It has a chain driving the bike’s crank, retaining the original chain and gearing setup (unlike many electric bike hacks that utilize hub motors). The crank has also been specially modified to include a freewheel, a necessary feature so that the motor can operate without spinning the pedals. Everything except the motor has been custom fabricated including the mounts and the electronics.

[jimminecraftguy] reports speeds of 110 kph which is a little crazy for a 20-year-old aluminum frame bike, and we’d guess it’s not street legal in many jurisdictions, but we can’t really find much fault with this build in general based on the amount of innovation required to get this working at all. A few more improvements for the build are in the works, including improved batteries and a cover for the sides to keep the local law enforcement from getting too suspicious. We can’t wait to see the final version. Continue reading “The Spin Cycle: Washing Machine Motor Converts 10-Speed To E-Bike” →

Rescue An Old Washing Machine With Modern Controls

January 2, 2018 by 25 Comments

The humble washing machine is an appliance that few of us are truly passionate about. They’re expected to come into our lives and serve faithfully, with a minimum of fuss. In the good old days, it was common for a washing machine to last for well over 20 years, and in doing so ingratiate itself with its masters. Sadly now while the simple mechanical parts may still be serviceable, the electronics behind the scenes can tend to fail. This is a Russian story (Google Translate link) about giving a new brain to an old friend.

The machine in question is known as an Oriole, and had served long and hard. Logic chips and entire controllers had been replaced, but were continuing to fail. Instead, a replacement was designed to keep the machine operational for some time yet. Rather than relying on recreating the full feature set of the machine it was decided to eliminate certain things for simplicity. Settings for different fabric types or wash modes were eliminated, which is an easy choice if like most people all your washes are done in the same mode anyway. A water level sensor was found to be no longer functioning properly and was simpler to eliminate than repair.

The brain is a PIC microcontroller, with an ESP12 acting as a webserver for monitoring and control. Additionally, a glass lens was taken from some former medical equipment and neatly installed in the control panel of the machine before an OLED display, giving the machine far more feedback than before. Control is still done with the machine’s original buttons. Temperature sensors were added as well to allow the machine to shut itself down in the event of an overheating problem. It’s all tied together on what looks to be a classic single-sided homebrew PCB.

It’s a great project that shows it’s easy to bring modern electronic might to bear on vintage mechanical hardware, with great results. A washing machine lives to see another day, another load – and the landfill remains just that much lighter, to boot.

We’ve seen controller builds for old washing machines before, too – like replacing mechanical control with an Arduino.

[Thanks to Tirotron for sending this in!]

Reusing Motors From Washing Machines

December 20, 2017 by 57 Comments

Big ol’ motors are great when you need to get a big job done, but they can be expensive or hard to source new. However, there’s a source of big, fat, juicy motors right at home for most people – the garden variety washing machine. These motors would usually require a special controller, however [Jerry] is here to show us how to hack the controller that comes with the machine.

The hack begins as [Jerry] decides to gut a Maytag MAH7500 Neptune front loader. Many projects exist that borrow the motor but rely on a seperately sourced variable frequency drive, so the goal was to see if the machine’s original controller was usable. The machine was first troubleshooted using a factory service mode, which spins the drum at a set speed if everything is working correctly.

From there, it was a relatively simple job to source the machine schematics to identify the pinouts of the various connectors.  After some experimentation with a scope and a function generator, [Jerry] was able to get the motor spinning with the original controller doing the hard work.

It’s a simple hack, and one that relies on the availability of documentation to get the job done, but it’s a great inspiration for anyone else looking to drive similar motors in their own projects. The benefit is that by using the original motor controller, you can be confident that it’s properly rated for the motor on hand.

Perhaps instead of an induction motor, you’d rather drive a high powered brushless DC motor? This project can help.