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Fit a washing machine or not..??


4LeggedGrasshopper

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1 hour ago, cuthound said:

Technically any DC below 120 volts of extra low voltage (ELV) and less than 60 volts DC is safety extra low voltage (SELV).

I think it use to be 50 v until the GPO started putting phones in houses and then they lifted it by 10 volts for them. That is what I was told as an apprentice some 50 years ago, but it may have been a lie, I had no way of checking.

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22 hours ago, Slim said:

If decide to go down the modern automatic line you need to consider very carefully how it will be powered. They are very selective as to how clean the supply is.

Slim makes an important point here.  If you want a modern machine that has electronic controls you will probably be unable to run it from a modified sine wave (MSW) inverter.  If have one of those and a small Candy washer which has purely mechanical controls. It has seen better days and I won't have many choices when the time comes to replace it.

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28 minutes ago, philjw said:

Slim makes an important point here.  If you want a modern machine that has electronic controls you will probably be unable to run it from a modified sine wave (MSW) inverter.  If have one of those and a small Candy washer which has purely mechanical controls. It has seen better days and I won't have many choices when the time comes to replace it.

Just to clarify, both my inverters and both my generators were pure sine but obviously not pure enough!!

My Candy has electronic controls and was bought s/h from someone on this forum. I think he went on to buy a new, larger capacity machine that gave problems on his supply setup. May be wrong. 

 

Frank (Slim)

Edited by Slim
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36 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

When i was new and naive liveaboard i had one of those cheap twin tub machines which cost about £100.  For the price they're ok but they do have downsides.  You can only fit a couple of things at a time in them, the spinner tends to make the machine leap about a bit if you don't load it evenly.  Also, you drain them into the sink and the hose has a tendency to come out and drain all over the floor if you're not careful.  You can't use bio powder and there's no proper way to rinse and you'll be left with a residue.  When I used mine I used to spend a couple of hours doing my clothes in small batches until my airer was full.  All in all, its ok for occasional use but a pain for a full time liveaboard.  Almost any old inverter will run a machine like this.

After a couple of years a got sick of it and searched for an alternative.  I discovered that I had a space in my kitchen which wouldn't fit a normal washing machine (too narrow) but would fit a top loader.  I found a nearly new hoover toploader on gumtree for £70.  Plumbed it in and then had to figure out how to power it.  Luckily at the same time I got a hook up on my mooring, but still could not power it when cruising.  I had a 2000w msw inverter which the washine machine would deal with on a very short simple cold wash.  Anything else and it made funny buzzing noises and refused to work (because it wanted a psw inverter).  I got round the cold wash issue by pouring warm water into it.  But that's not ideal if you want to do a cold pre-wash or if the cycle requires the water to stay warm throughout.  Again, it's a bit of a bodge.  Checking the max power draw of the machine showed 1950w so i bought a Clarke 2200w peak (2000w continuous) gen off a forum member.  This meant that the generator was running almost flat out for part of the cycle.  It didnt like it and blew a gasket after a few weeks.  Machine Mart said it wasn't economic to repair :(.  

I now have a 2600w peak (2300w max) Kipor generator, bought from Midland Swindlers and I run my washing machine off that.  It's been great so far and had plenty of use.  I realised then that I didn't need a 2000w inverter any more, since i have this good genny.  So I bought a 800w Mastervolt PSW inverter off a forum member and I think i now have the perfect set up for me.  The inverter is far more efficient than my old one and runs everything I need except the washing machine and the vacuum cleaner, so I use the generator for those things, which also means I'm not stressing my batteries out by powering high power appliances with them.  It also means that I can charge my batteries while I'm doing my washing.

Clarke generators are poor, ok for someone using occasionally but not for a regular power supply. 

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3 hours ago, BWM said:

We bought an alternative waste water hose, as the one supplied was very shaky.

That’s s probably because you loaded the spinner unevenly. 

2 hours ago, BWM said:

Clarke generators are poor, ok for someone using occasionally but not for a regular power supply. 

Their newer one appear much better. 

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3 hours ago, WotEver said:

That’s s probably because you loaded the spinner unevenly. 

Their newer one appear much better. 

I meant shaky as a very cheap component, not fit for use. I've not used a Clarke generator for some time but at the price I doubt their reliability used daily. 

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I went the portable twin tub route, rather than an automatic machine. My reasoning was as follows. Heating water by electricity hammers batteries hard, so you should only be doing the wash part of an auto cycle with the engine, or generator running, or if on shore power. If away from shore power, then the water heating is subtracting charge that could be used for going in to the batteries. My boat almost always has hot water available. In the winter it is heated by the stove back boiler and in the summer it is heatd by solar collector, so it made sense to use that for laundry. Auto machines are rare these days woith hot fill. Some can be tricked in to using it without throwing a hissy fit. The more recent and sophisticated a machine, then generally the harder they are to trick in to being hot fill as far as I can see. Once you are manualy filling the machine, then part of the advantage of an automatic washer is lost. As others have said, the more modern machines are very particular on the power supply they will work with. Best bet is to pick a model that you knpow from others experience should work under boating conditions similar to yours.


ThE manual twin tubs have very simple mechanical controllers and only take a couple of hundred watts when the wash and spin motors are running, meaning a smaller and cheaper inverter can be used. At one time when the Victron sine wave inverter was poorly I fitted a cheap and nasty modified sine wave 600W inverter and it ran the twin tub fine till the Victron was back in action. The spin dryer is more effective than the spin cycle on many auto machines, shortening the drying time and making on board drying easier when the weather is bad.

Anyhow that is my reasoning. Have been using twin tubs for years now on board. Others come to different decisions. You have to work out what is best for your circumstances.

Jen

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56 minutes ago, bizzard said:

A seasonal carol.

While shepherds washed their socks by night

All seated round the tub

A bar of Sunlight soap came down

And they began to scrub.

While shepherds washed their socks by night,

While watching ITV,

The Angel of the Lord came down,

And switched to BBC,

The shepherds shouted, "Switch that Back!"

But the Angel tripped and fell,

It landed on the aerial,

And the shepherds shouted "Bl**dy Hell!

 

 

  • Greenie 1
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28 minutes ago, nbfiresprite said:

While shepherds washed their socks by night,

While watching ITV,

The Angel of the Lord came down,

And switched to BBC,

The shepherds shouted, "Switch that Back!"

But the Angel tripped and fell,

It landed on the aerial,

And the shepherds shouted "Bl**dy Hell!

 

 

Not boaty enough?

 

The boy stood on the burning deck

His leg was all a quiver

He coughed, his leg fell off

and floated down the river.

 

......does it have to be festive?

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In general, the really clever auto washing machines need a really good mains supply. They are sensitive to mains frequency failures (when the generator slows down a bit) and mains voltage sags when the mains or the inverter supply is heavily loaded, AND they can be very sensitive to odd waveforms from "modified sine" inverters. Add to that the simple quantity of power taken from batteries to heat the water then there is a huge can of worms to deal with.

Try to find a known working brand of washer and generator, don't be surprised if it's not the cheapest, don't be surprised if you need a 5+KVa supply to keep a full auto washer happy.

Keep a bucket/wash tub ready!

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34 minutes ago, Arthur Brown said:

In general, the really clever auto washing machines need a really good mains supply. They are sensitive to mains frequency failures (when the generator slows down a bit) and mains voltage sags when the mains or the inverter supply is heavily loaded, AND they can be very sensitive to odd waveforms from "modified sine" inverters. Add to that the simple quantity of power taken from batteries to heat the water then there is a huge can of worms to deal with.

Try to find a known working brand of washer and generator, don't be surprised if it's not the cheapest, don't be surprised if you need a 5+KVa supply to keep a full auto washer happy.

Keep a bucket/wash tub ready!

Sorry can't agree - the last boat had a 3Kw generator and that was more than adequate.  My current boat has a 3 Kw Victron inverter and that works fine, although as I said in a previous post we put hot water in the soap tray to stop the heater dragging amps out of the battery as the engine alternator is not up to the full requirement.  Its a one year old top of the range Indesit and is 100% reliable as was the Candy in the last boat.

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1 hour ago, mross said:

What's the name of that contactor sensor thingy in a washing machine?  It's used instead of a push-button on/off switch.  Something like a true power device?  This is so pernickety it can prevent the machine from switching on.

No idea what it is called, but give it a spray with some of this stuff:

Originally for automotive use, but with many boating applications too. Don't get the marine version though. It is exactly the same and costs twice as much.

Jen

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3 hours ago, larryjc said:

Sorry can't agree - the last boat had a 3Kw generator and that was more than adequate.  My current boat has a 3 Kw Victron inverter and that works fine, although as I said in a previous post we put hot water in the soap tray to stop the heater dragging amps out of the battery as the engine alternator is not up to the full requirement.  Its a one year old top of the range Indesit and is 100% reliable as was the Candy in the last boat.

Victron and Mastervolt both make inverters with high quality outputs, hence "sensitive" appliances usually work well on thrm.

This is not the case for many cheaper inverters.

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On 13/12/2017 at 21:00, smileypete said:

If you shoehorn in a cubbyhole for a studio size washer then you're restricted to that type with few choices and high prices.

So if refitting I'd allocate space for a full size one if possible, it can be repurposed as cupboard space if you find you don't need it (!) or don't need it yet.

Some models are slim depth (45 to 50cm) which may play better in a narrowboat, also some models have a cold wash button or temperature dial which will play better with cold washes or separately heated water.

Thanks SmileyPete, we are partly refitting so this seems like good advice 

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I've not read all this thread yet so sorry if I'm repeating someone else's comments.

I fitted a Hoover 1600 spin machine - rated at 1800watts on Ellis.  It's a bit slimmer than most models at 45cm I think it was - (perhaps 50) deep and whilst it has a host of programs, it's very easy to stop it heating up by setting whatever program you want on cold fill only and then pouring hot water into the drawer - I keep 2 , 5 litre water bottles to hand to fill with hot water from the tank and pour these it at the start of a wash program - typically, I can get a 7kg load done at "tank temperature" (well, tmv temp which tends to come out of the tap at about 48 degrees) in about an hour - the current draw  during the load (assuming I've set the heat at "off" never exceeds about 600 watts and that's on the 1600 spin'/pumpout....

IF I could be bothered, I'd pipe in the "Y" peice I bought so as to be able to fill it from the hot water direct but to be honest, it's no hardship pouring the hot water in the drawer...  I Might do it "one day"... but like many other boaty things... once you live with something, it's annoyance  - loses it's power lol.

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