Patent ID: 7958584

Claim:
A method of measuring a size of a load in a basket that is rotatably supported, the method comprising: accelerating the basket to a first stable rotational speed; determining a preliminary friction energy (PFE) required to maintain the first stable rotational speed of the basket; accelerating the basket to a second stable rotational speed; determining, on an iterative basis, an acceleration energy (AE) required to accelerate the basket from the first stable rotational speed to the second stable rotational speed by measuring an output voltage (V 2 ) while accelerating to the second stable rotational speed and measuring a driving speed (DS 2 ) while accelerating to the second stable rotational speed; calculating a preliminary acceleration energy (PAE) where: PAE=( V 2 2 )/DS 2 ; determining a friction energy (FE) from the preliminary friction energy (PFE) and PAE; subtracting the friction energy (FE) from the acceleration energy (AE) to obtain a load inertial energy (LE); and determining a load size from the load inertial energy (LE).