I’m trying to save money.
Heating up water with electricity is madness. It costs a fortune and most likely fossil fuels were burned for that before. So why not use my gas/water heater and a simple bucket for getting warm water into my washing machine ? It only comes with a hose for cold water. The tricky thing is hidden in here:
This machine has a temperature sensor. Good. It’s also used by the on-board brain to lock down the lid if the contents are above 40°C. Why 40?
If you just fill the machine with hot water by hand and start it, it will pump out all of it again. To trick the machine, you need to start it and let it suck in some cold water and only then pour in more hot water by hand. If anything goes wrong the machine locks the lid. Of course that’s what happened. Fortunately the lid can be opened by removing power for 2 minutes. Unfortunately this also resets the microcontroller, but I found that one out too late.
Now all hot water will be pumped out again, but that is not what we want. As the machine is still hot inside tricking it by letting it suck in some cold water doesn’t help either. Because of the thermal lock-down the lid will stay shut. The lid must stay open while the machine runs in this case. Of course normally you’d just let it suck in some water and then add hot water by hand, but that only works once and with a cold machine.
Fortunately the machine can be tricked by pushing the lid lock switch by hand with the machine still open. Now you can add hot water. As the machine is hot and its brain thinks it favourable to lock the lid, the lid now cannot be closed anymore. Argh!
Outsmarted by a washing machine. But I’ve got sticky tape, HAH!
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modern soaps work just fine with cold water.
Good to know. Usually I only wash at 30°. I haven’t tested yet if the machine tolerates an absent heating element, or if it complains when I disconnect it. The only problem is bacteria buildup in the machine. Once in a while it should get hotter than 60° in there to kill them.