Staber System Washing Machine
Bob-O & Kathleen Jarschke-Schultze
©1995 Bob-O & Kathleen Jarschke-Schultze
There is a small revolution going on in the appliance industry that has manufacturers scrambling. More and more buyers are demanding less and less. Less energy consumption and fewer expensive components to wear out and replace. Add to this the very real possibility that the US Department of Energy (DOE) will soon be mandating high efficiency standards that most of today's top loading washers can't meet. The Staber System 2000 washing machine not only exceeds the DOE standards, but is compatible with modified-sine wave inverters!
Ye Old Washing Machine
Until now, there have been just two types of washing machine design, the top loader and the front loader.
Top loading machines are big. They hold a lot of clothes and use a lot of water. The average water consumption per load for current machines is about 43 gallons and some use well over 60 gallons. It takes a lot of energy to pump and heat that much water. The machines need a lot of soap to get the clothes clean and the resulting waste water needs more treatment before it can be recycled. The clothes sit in the tub of water and are moved with a paddle-like agitator. Since the clothes and the agitator are always in direct contact with the water, it takes a good deal of energy to move them back and forth and circulate them within the tub for good cleaning action. Top loaders require an energy-eating transmission, clutch, and mechanical brake to shift between wash and spin. Any load imbalance, such as all your Levis on one side of the tub and your T-shirts on the other, tends to make them do the jitterbug across the floor.
Front loading machines tend to be smaller. They don't hold as many clothes as the top loaders. The loading door is actually part of the tub and needs to press firmly against a rubber seal to keep the water, soap, and clothes in. Once you start a load, you're pretty much committed. The drive pulley and belt are in the rear of the machine. The clothes basket is driven and basically supported by the rear bearing since the loading door is where the front basket bearing should be. This design anomaly and leaky door seals have led to repair frequencies of front loaders far higher than those of top loaders.
On the bright side, front loaders use less than half the water and soap of top loaders. Since the clothes tumble through (but are not immersed in) the water, it takes less energy to move them around and load imbalances tend to sort themselves out.
The Staber System 2000 H-Axis Washer
The Staber H (or horizontal) axis washing machine combines the best features of the front and top loading machines and adds a few of its own. It is essentially a front loader washer with the door on top! This allows the clothes basket to be supported by shaft bearings on both sides and the drive pulley and belt assembly to be located at the front of the machine for easy access and service. The design also allows clothes to be added in mid-cycle, impossible with a front loader where the door forms part of the outer tub.
The active electrical components are the efficient DC drive motor and an electric water pump. That's it! The motor is controlled by an electronic module which provides motor reverse for agitation and speed control of spin and wash cycles. A safety interlock door-latch prevents opening the machine until the clothes basket is fully stopped. The octagonal outer tub and the perforated hexagonal inner clothes basket are made of stainless steel and warranted for 25 years. The six-sided clothes basket rotating inside an eight-sided tub is a very ingenious design. It actually causes a
Cut-away view of the Staber System 2000 Washer
Hexagonal
Clothes
Octagonal
Water
Tub pumping action which forces the water through the clothes basket and agitates the clothes. The System 2000 spins at a higher RPM than most agitator washers. Faster spin cycles extract more water which leads to less drying time.
Power and Resources Consumption
We tested the Staber HXW2300. It's their top of the line residential model and features a prewash cycle, soap/bleach dispenser, different wash/spin speeds for delicate and permanent press clothes, and a two-level water control. The chart pretty much speaks for itself. With an average electrical consumption of about 250 Watts per load, the Staber is an extremely efficient machine. Most top loaders consume twice that. Half the water consumption also means half the energy used to pump and heat the water.
Staber Industries recommends that you don't use any soap the first two times you wash your clothes. I put the drain hose into a bucket to see what the wash water looked like. Besides all the dirt that came out of the clothes, there were also suds from the soap residue of earlier washings. I used about 1/4 cup of liquid soap after that. Then Bob-O wanted to run the machine with no clothes in it to see the power draw when empty. He didn't look inside first and rewashed a load (without soap) that was still in there. More suds. Even 1/4 cup soap is too much for normal loads. Now I use 1/8 cup soap per load.
The System 2000 Off-grid
We tested the Staber machine with all the inverters we had. It performed well with both sine wave and modified sine wave inverters. It ran just as well on a small 500 Watt Exeltech as it did on our 4 kW. Trace. We're pretty confident it will run on any sine or modified- sine wave inverter over 600 Watts or so. One reader reported it ran great on her Trace 724. This is great news for the thousands of off-grid users with modified sine wave inverters.
Ain't nothin' perfect...
Our test machine arrived with a good sized dent in the housing due to the shock-mounted tub shifting in transit. Staber Industries immediately took steps to correct the problem, reinforcing the housing to prevent future problems. This is one of the great advantages of dealing with a small company versus a giant "Appliance-O-Rama" firm. Responsiveness. There have been no new reports of shipping damage.
Hexagonal
Clothes
Octagonal
Water
|
inverter Used |
Loeo lbs. |
Wash Cycle |
Water Level |
Water Temp. |
Time (min.) |
Ave. Amps |
Watt H a uro |
Peak Amps |
Water Used |
|
Trace 4024 |
Average user rating: 5 stars out of 2 votes
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