It was a 30 year old Frigidaire that we’ve had repaired before. It died mid-cycle so I had to empty the drum by hand and wring out the freezing cold wet clothes to toss them in the dryer. I’ve got a floor drain in the basement close by so it wasn’t too bad.
The wife okayed a Speed Queen as a replacement, so I went to the appliance store and ordered one. Should be here in a week.
Did you check the lid switch? I’ve had that issue before. The machine thinks the lid’s open, and stops running. Very simple, cheap fix that doesn’t require a multi thousand dollar new machine.
I did check that, but thank you. The failure was accompanied by a bunch of magic smoke so something’s good and dead.
I’ve repaired my washer a good number of times. I’m particularly proud of the time I designed and 3D-printed an adapter to let me run the draining pump on my partially-dissassembled washing machine from a cordless drill. Specifically so I didn’t have to bail water by hand.
To be fair, the plastic out of which I printed the adapter wasn’t terribly strong. But I had the presence of mind to print it as strong as I could (100% infill) and print a good handful of replacements in case one or five broke before I’d finished draining it. It took three to finish draining the whole drum IIRC.
I wish I’d thought to look for something like that beforehand.
Do you happen to have the stl on hand? There might be room to improve the design to be more durable.
You printed in PLA, I assume?
Yup! I still have the STL. And the OpenSCAD file I used to create the STL. Just because it was relevant, I went ahead and published it just now.
The place where it always broke was right where the hexagonal part met the part that goes into the pump. Basically right where that transition is. At the time I made it, it was just a quick and dirty solution to a quick and dirty problem, so I didn’t go wild trying to optimize the model. And just printing a handful was a quicker solution than updating the model. But I think probably just making a smoother transition between those two parts of the model (some “hull()” magic in the OpenSCAD file could do that) might improve the strength of the part. Or maybe it’d just focus the torque on a slightly different part of the part and the problem would persist. Not sure.
Making the hex part the same width as the pump coupler and printing it laying down might make it more durable.
Probably doesn’t matter anyways, since you got the job done. But when designing for 3D printing you always need to keep printability in mind. Keeping it simple helps a lot.
Let us bow our heads for a moment of silence lads…
We bought a new Speed Queen about three years ago. We’re definitely getting our money’s worth out of it. No complaints so far.
I’m so jelly, always wanted a speed queen
We have a Speed Queen and it’s great. It washes clothes without complaining. I haven’t looked recently, but we specifically picked a “classic” style with a normal agitator and stuff.
Got one of those commercial Maytag units that can fit 2 comforters. Love how everything is cheap to replace, except the MCU. I’ve rented a place before with brand new Samsung front loader that broke 2x so I knew better.
