Patent ID: 7555798

Claim:
In a washer comprising a drum holding a laundry therein and a motor rotating the drum, a method of controlling a washing cycle, comprising the steps of: applying a drive voltage to the motor during an acceleration section to measure a motor RPM amount and a drive voltage amount during the acceleration section before supplying water to the drum; stopping supplying the drive voltage to the motor to measure a motor RPM amount of a deceleration section; and measuring a laundry amount of the laundry using the measured drive voltage amount, the motor RPM amount of acceleration section and the motor RPM amount of the deceleration section, wherein the motor is a three-phase coil type DC motor, and wherein the laundry amount is found by ‘area-A×Vref/Vdc+C×area-B/area-A’ where A, B, Vref, Vdc, and C are the motor RPM amount of the acceleration section, the motor RPM amount of the deceleration section, a reference DC voltage, a DC drive voltage amount applied during the acceleration section, and a constant for weight, respectively.