Clothes washing machine

Abstract: An electric motor (30) stator (31) and rotor (51 to 55) are made by holding magnetic elements (32, 53) thereof in position in dies (25; 66 to 69) and injecting a plastics material into the dies to provide bearing carrier mountings (27, 51) substantially concentric with the pole faces (33) of the stator (31) and poles (53) of the rotor. The motor is completed by providing a bearing (21) in the stator bearing carrier mounting (27) and a shaft (13) in the rotor bearing carrier mounting (51), the shaft running also in a further bearing mounting tube (8). The motor and drive so made is mounted to drive an agitator (7) and spin tub (4) of a laundry machine (1).

Description: This invention relates to clothes washing machines. It is an object of the present invention to provide a clothes washing machine having an electric motor which directly drives the machine agitator and spin tub wherein a pair of bearings rotatably support the motor rotor and the rotating parts of the washing machine. The invention consists in a clothes washing machine (1) including a cabinet (2), a stationary water container (3) having a base and a side wall mounted in the cabinet; a perforated spin tub (4) within said container and a vertical axis agitator (7) within said spin tub wherein said base incorporates a plurality of downwardly extending ribs (4a, 5); a bearing tube (6) is mounted in said base supported by said ribs (4a, 5) a pair of vertically spaced bearings (20, 21) are mounted in said bearing tube (6); a vertical shaft (10) is rotatably mounted in said bearings; a seal (23) extends between said shaft (10) and said tube (6) above said bearings (20, 21); said agitator (7) is mounted on said shaft (10) for rotation therewith; spin tub bearing means are mounted on said shaft for rotatably supporting said spin tub on said shaft; an electric motor (30) having a stator (31) and a rotor (52) drives said vertical shaft (10) said stator (31) including a central hub portion, said shaft (10) passing through said hub portion, a plurality of stator poles (32) radially displaced from and facing outwardly from said hub portion, and a web (41) connecting said central hub portion and said stator poles (32), said hub portion including stator locating means (27) directly locating said hub portion on said bearing (21) such that the faces (33) of said stator poles (32) are concentrically located relative to said shaft (10); said hub portion of said stator (31) is fixed to the lower end of said bearing tube (6) and said rotor (52) is fixed to said shaft (10) in a manner so that said spaced bearings (20, 21) act as bearings providing relative rotation of said stator and rotor of said electric motor; and interconnecting means are provided between said spin tub and said agitator which on appropriate operation interconnect said spin tub (4) and said agitator (7) for rotation together in one direction by said shaft (10) to produce a spin action and disconnect said spin tub (4) from said agitator (7) so that only said agitator (7) is rotatably oscillated by rotating oscillation of said rotor (52) to produce a washing action. To those skilled in the art to which the invention relates, many changes in construction and widely differing embodiments and applications of the invention will suggest themselves without departing from the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims. The disclosures and the descriptions herein are purely illustrative and are not intended to be in any sense limiting. The invention consists in the foregoing and also envisages constructions of which the following gives examples only. One preferred form of the invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which; Figure 1 is a diagrammatic cross section of a laundry machine constructed according to the invention, Figure 2 is an enlarged diagram of the drive mechanism forming part of the laundry machine of Figure 1, Figure 3 is a plan view of a stator forming part of an electric motor also shown in figures 1 and 2, Figure 4 is a cross section of an assembled die containing cavities in which a stator according to Fig. 3 is moulded, Figure 5 is a plan view of a part of the die shown in Figure 4 and Figure 6 is a cross section of an assembled die containing cavities in which a rotor forming part of an electric motor, also shown in Figs. 1 and 2 is moulded. Referring to the drawings a laundry machine 1 is provided having an outer casing 2 and a container 3 which in use contains water in which clothes are to be laundered. The container 3 is preferably an injection moulding of a plastics material having reinforcing ribs 4a and 5. The ribs 4a and 5 support a bearing tube 6 preferably having a metal e.g. an aluminium alloy extrusion liner 8 moulded in the tube 6 when the container 3 is being injection moulded. The liner 8 is preferably shaped in plan to provide four wings into which motor mounting screws 65 extend. Mounted within the container 3 is a spin tub 4 having balancing rings 9 and mounted within the spin tub is an agitator 7. The agitator is mounted on and driven by a shaft 10 the driving being effected by splines 11 engaging corresponding parts 12 of the agitator. The described laundry machine also includes a clutch arrangement operated by a float 15 which is shown in a lower engaging position on the left hand side of the drawing and an upper disengaged position as shown in the right hand side. The operation of this float in connecting and disconnecting the spin tub 4 from the agitator 7 is fully described in European Patent Specification No. EP-A-239 261. The shaft 13 is mounted in an upper distal bearing 20 (Figure 2) and a lower proximal bearing 21. The upper bearing 20 is mounted within the bearing tube 6 and the two bearings are separated by spacers 19 and 22. A seal 23 of known form is provided to seal the shaft 13 from the bearing tube 6. The drive mechanism of the laundry machine above described includes an electric motor generally referenced 30 which in the preferred form is an inside out salient pole electronically commutated motor (herein referred to as an ECM). The ECM 30 is constructed preferably as follows: A ferromagnetic magnetisable member 31 (Figure 3) is provided having salient poles 32, the poles 32 extending outwardly from a yoke 29 and the poles 32 having pole faces 33 lying on an outer circumference. The stator member 31 is manufactured by punching the poles 32 and yoke 29 out of a strip of electrical steel having a lightly insulated surface and then curving the strip of steel on edge into a continuous helix arranged with adjacent coils of steel having the light insulation thereon touching. The continuous helix is wound so that the resulting ferromagnetic magnetisable member has an outside diameter which is slightly larger than the preferred outside diameter of the stator member 31 in it's completed form. The adjacent coils of steel are riveted together to maintain the desired shape. The plan shape is shown in Figure 3. To provide a frame for the stator the stator member 31 is fitted in a space 24 of die 25 (Figure 4) with the pole faces 33 a close fit against a face 28 of a part of the die. The outside diameter of stator member 31 is shaped precisely by three sliding cones 71, spaced 120° apart, which move radially toward the centre of bearing mounting 27 (Figure 5). A plastics material preferably a Dupont Rynite FR543 plastics material is injected to encase the stator member 31 with the exception of the pole faces 33 in the plastics material. The position of the pole faces 33 is accurately determined by angled pins (not shown) and the poles 32 are mounted over shaped portions 26 of the die as may be seen in Figure 5. The die also includes provision to provide a shaft carrier mounting comprising a bearing mounting 27 in which the bearing 21 is later fitted to carry the shaft 11. The die 25 has shaped cavities 37, 38, 39 and otherwise to provide the shape of the stator frame as may be seen in Figure 2. Referring now to that figure, the web 41 of the stator frame connects the plastics moulded section 36 to the bearing mounting 27. The web 41 has an annular shape containing a V shape 42 between a frustum of a cone portion 47 directed in one direction to a further frustum of a cone portion 48 directed away from the annular V shape 42 between the two portions 47 and 48. This shape has been found satisfactory in that after the plastics material has been injected any changes in volume thereof due to contraction of the plastics material while cooling result in changes of shape, for example, of the V shape 42 or change of angle between the portions 47 and 48 rather than varying the relative position of the bearing mounting 27 and the encasement 36 which encases the stator member 31 which in particular is fixed in position by the engagement of the pole faces 33 with the die face 28. The injection moulding also covers the pole pieces except the faces thereof with the plastics material giving electrical insulation 45 to such pole pieces. At a later stage, a protective coating is applied to the pole faces eg. by spraying. The moulding produced also provides terminal sockets 46. When the poles are wound the winding machinery places tails of winding wires automatically in the terminal sockets 46 and external wiring connections of spade type are then inserted in the sockets 46 giving a scraping action on the winding wires placed in the sockets 46, the insertion baring the tails of those wires and making electrical connection as desired. To provide a rotor for the motor having a plastics rotor web and hub, a die is provided, and that die includes removeable members 66 and 67 (Figure 6) which fits in a further die part 68 and associated with the die parts 66 and 67 is a further male die part 69. In use a series of pieces of magnetisable material (herein referred to as magnets) are placed in an unmagnetised condition in position in prepared slots (not shown) in the removable piece 67 and one such magnet is shown at 53 in Figure 6. The magnets are later magnetized in a separate process to be permanently magnetized in the known way. The material is preferably of the Neodymium type. The magnets are held in place by friction, being a reasonably tight fit in the slots or otherwise held temporarily in position and a strip of lightly insulated ferromagnetic material (steel) is then wound into a spiral coil in a clock spring manner over the magnets and in contact therewith until a suitable thickness is built up. The steel is shown at 54 in Figures 2 and 6. In order to resist forces acting during cooling of plastics web and hub the rotor after moulding, adjacent turns of the steel are fixed to each other preferably by the use of a suitable adhesive such as Loctite 290. The magnets are then held in a fixed position on the face of the removable die member 67 and the steel 54 is locked into a substantially solid form by the adhesive with the inner surfaces of the magnets each maintained in a circumferential position. The die parts are then assembled with the part 67 carrying the steel 54 and magnets 53 in position as shown in Figure 6. A plastics material preferably Rynite 545 made by Dupont is injected into the closed die parts. In the preferred form for injection moulding both the stator and the rotor, the plastics material is injected at 290°-300°C into the die parts which are maintained at 110°C. After injection, the die remains closed for about 15 seconds and the male and female die parts then separated. Ejection pins then eject the moulded part almost immediately. The plastics material encases the steel and all of the surfaces of the magnets except the face in contact with the die surface. In the finished rotor, the web injected into space 58 of the die interconnects the encased steel 54 and magnets 53 to hub 51. The web 52 is formed to a shape such and the fixing of the steel and the magnets in the die is such that distortion of the position of the hub relative to the magnets and particularly concentricity are controlled during cooling of the plastics material to die temperature, we have found that an extended frustum of a cone shape of the portion 52 passing through an annular change of direction of the base of an annular 55 V from the cylindrical portion 57 to the plastics material 43 encasing the magnets and steel has been found satisfactory in this respect. Thus the web 52 is formed to a shape which resists distortion of the portion of the hub relative to the permanent magnets and we have found that a cone shape changing through a V shape to a cylinder is satisfactory in this respect. Referring again to Figure 2 the hub 51 is held in place on the shaft 11 by a screwed cap 56. A useful adjunct to the invention is the provision of a downwardly directed short cylinder 60 on the stator member 52 and this co-acts with an upstanding cylindrical member 61 on the rotor so that should the seal 23 leak water will pass downwardly to be expelled through apertures 62 in the rotor. The number of poles in the stator and the rotor may be varied but for example for a 42 pole stator 56 permanent magnets are spaced equi-distantly on the rotor. The lower end of the shaft 11 has a splined portion 50 and the hub 51 of the rotor is mounted on this splined portion. During assembly the bearing 21 is placed with its outer race partly in the bearing mounting 27 and partly in the extruded liner 8. The above construction has the advantage that an electric motor may be made by a plastics injection process in which in particular the bearing 21 maintains its concentricity relative to the pole faces 33 and thus enables a motor to be produced very quickly and very easily. Also the mounting of the tube 6 in the injection moulding of the outer container 3 enables the shaft 11 to be mounted quickly and readily. The whole arrangement has the advantage that the motor may be dismounted quickly and easily by undoing the cap 56, removing the rotor and then undoing screws 65 so that the motor may be dropped from the tube 6. The shaft may then be withdrawn and the bearings replaced if necessary.

Claims: A clothes washing machine (1) including a cabinet (2), a stationary water container (3) having a base and a side wall mounted in the cabinet; a perforated spin tub (4) within said container and a vertical axis agitator (7) within said spin tub wherein said base incorporates a plurality of downwardly extending ribs (4a, 5); a bearing tube (6) is mounted in said base supported by said ribs (4a, 5) a pair of vertically spaced bearings (20, 21) are mounted in said bearing tube (6); a vertical shaft (10) is rotatably mounted in said bearings; a seal (23) extends between said shaft (10) and said tube (6) above said bearings (20, 21); said agitator (7) is mounted on said shaft (10) for rotation therewith; spin tub bearing means are mounted on said shaft for rotatably supporting said spin tub on said shaft; an electric motor (30) having a stator (31) and a rotor (52) drives said vertical shaft (10) said stator (31) including a central hub portion, said shaft (10) passing through said hub portion, a plurality of stator poles (32) radially displaced from and facing outwardly from said hub portion, and a web (41) connecting said central hub portion and said stator poles (32), said hub portion including stator locating means (27) directly locating said hub portion on said bearing (21) such that the faces (33) of said stator poles (32) are concentrically located relative to said shaft (10); said hub portion of said stator (31) is fixed to the lower end of said bearing tube (6) and said rotor (52) is fixed to said shaft (10) in a manner so that said spaced bearings (20, 21) act as bearings providing relative rotation of said stator and rotor of said electric motor; and interconnecting means are provided between said spin tub and said agitator which on appropriate operation interconnect said spin tub (4) and said agitator (7) for rotation together in one direction by said shaft (10) to produce a spin action and disconnect said spin tub (4) from said agitator (7) so that only said agitator (7) is rotatably oscillated by rotating oscillation of said rotor (52) to produce a washing action. A clothes washing machine as claimed in claim 1 wherein: only said hub portion of said stator (31) is connected to said container, said stator poles (32) and said connecting web (41) between said hub portion and said stator poles, being supported only by said hub portion. A clothes washing machine as claimed in either claim 1 or claim 2 wherein: said container (3) base comprises a plastic injection moulding having an undersurface thereon; and said ribs (4a, 5) are integral with said moulding on said undersurface thereof. A clothes washing machine as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 3 wherein: the lower end of said bearing tube (6) includes a first partial bearing housing, said shaft locating means (27) of said stator hub comprises a second partial bearing housing, said first and second partial bearing housings together housing said proximal bearing (21). A clothes washing machine as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 4 wherein: said bearing tube (6) comprises a boss moulded integrally with said container; a metal insert (8) is moulded into said boss; said spaced bearings (20, 21) are mounted in said metal insert (8). A clothes washing machine as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 5 wherein said spin tub (4) comprises; a lower part and an upper part defining an opening; a moulded balance ring (9) forming part of said lower part and having a radially outer face; a cylinder fixed to said radially outer face of said balance ring; and a further balance ring (9) fixed to said upper part of said cylinder. A clothes washing machine as claimed in any one claims 1 to 6 wherein; said spin tub includes an air chamber (15) and part of said interconnecting means; a co-acting part of said interconnecting means comprises a part of said agitator mounted on said shaft, the construction and arrangement being such that when said container (3) is empty or substantially empty of cleaning liquid said interconnecting means connects said spin tub (4) to said vertical shaft (10) so that said spin tub and said agitator are both rotated by said vertical shaft and when a predetermined amount of cleaning liquid is in said container (3) said air chamber (15) raises said spin tub to float in said liquid and disconnect said part of said interconnecting means from said co-acting part so that only the agitator is driven by said electric motor (30) through said drive shaft. A clothes washing machine as claimed in Claim 5 wherein said metal insert (8) is of sufficient radial thickness to receive one or more fastening means (65) inserted axially in the lower end thereof, and said stator hub is fastened to the lower end of said bearing tube (6) by fastening means (65) passing through said stator hub, and being secured in the proximal end of said metal insert (8).

Inventors: FERGUSON KEITH DESMOND, SHACKLOCK FRANK, WILLIAMS JOHN JULIAN AUBREY, FERGUSON, KEITH DESMOND, SHACKLOCK, FRANK WHITNEY, WILLIAMS, JOHN JULIAN AUBREY
Applicants: FISHER & PAYKEL, FISHER & PAYKEL LIMITED
Application year: 1989
Main classification: D06F37
IPC codes: H02K21, H02K15, H02K1, D06F37