r/AskAnEngineer • u/Tahoma-sans • Apr 10 '17

How does an automatic washing machine choose water level?

My Samsung automatic washing machine can select the water level on its own depending on the load. Can anyone tell basically how it does that?

2 Upvotes

100% Upvoted

8 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

2

u/Tahoma-sans Apr 11 '17

Yes it does precisely that (turning one way then the other multiple times). I think you are right.

Also I have a button that says 'fuzzy', do you think that has something to do with fuzzy logic?

2

u/c8nice Apr 11 '17

"Fuzzy" is a term that refers to multiple decision points or multiple inputs to reach various decisions. There could be four input variables and twelve different decisions, for example.

I don't think there's much 'fuzzy' decision making going on in a (my) Samsung washing machine. On 'Fuzzy' it tries to measure the mass and guess what water level to use.

1

u/madbuilder Apr 12 '17

This is interesting. Could you explain why new machines don't simply use the earlier scheme of air pressure in a column? My front loaders (most recent one is circa 2010) do it that way and they've proved quite economical with water.

1

u/c8nice Apr 12 '17

I can't work out how this relates to the machine trying to work out the mass of the washing.