Gallery, Projects and General > How do I??

Washing Machine Motors

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RussellT:
Hi All

I've just dismantled a couple of washing machines because I wanted to see if a stainless incinerator made from the drums lasts better than the galvanised ones from the garden centre.

So I have two washing machine motors on the bench.  I was surprised to see that these appear to be induction motors and on looking at the plate it seems that these are probably driven by some sort of VFD.  They are marked 195V 315Hz 17,500rpm.

I'm assuming that the 195V makes these more or less useless for home use.  Can anyone enlighten me before I scrap them?

Russell

russ57:
If they are 3 phase, I guess you could use a vfd to drive them. I think you can set the output voltage as well as the frequency.

Or just a step down transformer.


Russ

John Rudd:
Russell,
Dont you have the control boards from the washing machines? I would have thought the speed control for the motor may be integrated within?
Have you a photo of the motor showing its leads and/or the control board?

RussellT:
Thanks for those thoughts.  It hadn't occurred to me that they might be 3 phase - although now Russ has suggested it it seems obvious.
I have got the controller boards but I'm sure I couldn't work out what's they're doing or how to influence it.

I've looked at the motor connections as John suggested and there are five wires.  Two of them are connected to a speed sensor on the end of the motor and the other three show 6.5 ohms between any pair - confirming I think that they're 3 phase motors.

I'm attaching pictures of the controller boards.  They are slightly different but the motors are identical.  Both boards have six large 3 lead components under the big heatsink and one has a big rectifier on the heatsink too.  The transformer looks to be part of the output but I haven't checked the board traces or the wiring loom to confirm that.

I'm guessing that somewhere on the board something is turning the big transistors on and off to produce 3 phase. :scratch: :scratch:

Russell

hermetic:
If you have saved the wiring harness as well, you need to isolate the wiring between the motor and the speed control board. You will find that there is forward, reverse and variable speed available. It all depends on whether there is a wiring diagram available, and the type of programmer the machine uses. Early machines were rotary mechanical types, later ones are all digital, and a bit more complex. By a process of deduction, and some VERY CAREFUL experimentation, it should be possible to see where the feeds need to go to produce forward, reverse, and probably a couple of spin speeds, or even infinitely available spin. Time to learn some basic electrickery!

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