Patent ID: 7748067

Claim:
A method of minimizing an unbalanced load of laundry within a clothes laundering machine before a high-speed spinning phase, the clothes laundering machine comprising a drum in which clothing is to be laundered and being adapted to initiate a drum speed acceleration, a drum speed deceleration, and a combination of a drum speed acceleration and a drum speed deceleration in response to detecting a distribution condition within the drum, the method comprising: rotating the drum of the clothes laundering machine at a suitable rotational speed (ω MAIN ) to initially retain at least a portion of the laundry within the drum against an inner surface of the drum; determining that the distribution condition exists within the drum when at least one of the following conditions is satisfied: an unbalance mass (m) is greater than a maximum allowable mass value (S); and an elevation torque (T ELEVATION ) is greater than a maximum allowable elevation torque (T ELEVATION MAX ); and in response to said determining, initiating a distribution control phase to establish: a value of the unbalance mass (m) that is less than or equal to the maximum allowable mass value (S), and a value of the elevation torque (T ELEVATION ) that is less than or equal to the maximum allowable elevation torque (T ELEVATION MAX ), wherein the distribution control phase comprises at least one of: the drum speed acceleration, the drum speed deceleration, or the combination of the drum speed acceleration and the drum speed deceleration initiated by the clothes laundering machine to bring about a desired distribution of laundry within the drum before a high-speed spinning phase is initiated, responsive to said determining that the distribution condition exists, calculating a difference between the unbalance mass (m) and the maximum allowable mass value (S); and if the difference is less than a predetermined limit that is established as a function of the elevation torque (T ELEVATION ), accelerating the rotational speed of the drum by a predetermined speed increase.