Washing machine was working fine, then CLUNK and it wouldn't do
anything, after spending time running around etc seems our Guarantee ran
out on the 13th. Had convinced ourselves buying a new one was not such
a big deal, decided that as we were getting a new one anyway I would
have a look at it (don't mind minor D.I.Y. tasks but flaffing about with
electrics and water felt beyond me), found the belt lying in the bottom
not broken or anything just "off" so I put it back on and everything
SEEMS hunky dory as everything works and we don't have to buy a new one.
However one thing is niggling at me the shaft on the motor and the
pulley on the drum seem perfectly flat there are no grooves for the belt
to fit into what stops the belt "pinging off" again in the near future?

Machine is an Indesit W123
--
www.cheesesoup.myby.co.uk

"soup" wrote in message
...
Washing machine was working fine, then CLUNK and it wouldn't do
anything, after spending time running around etc seems our Guarantee ran
out on the 13th. Had convinced ourselves buying a new one was not such
a big deal, decided that as we were getting a new one anyway I would
have a look at it (don't mind minor D.I.Y. tasks but flaffing about with
electrics and water felt beyond me), found the belt lying in the bottom
not broken or anything just "off" so I put it back on and everything
SEEMS hunky dory as everything works and we don't have to buy a new one.
However one thing is niggling at me the shaft on the motor and the
pulley on the drum seem perfectly flat there are no grooves for the belt
to fit into what stops the belt "pinging off" again in the near future?

Machine is an Indesit W123
--
www.cheesesoup.myby.co.uk

Chances are the weights have worked loose? these are whats known as the
(bricks) if the drum was to become unbalanced then the belt would flip off
at some time or other.

The weights are bolted to the drums outer skin.

soup wrote:
However one thing is niggling at me the shaft on
the motor and the pulley on the drum seem perfectly flat there are no
grooves for the belt to fit into what stops the belt "pinging off"
again in the near future?

Same thing that has prevented it pinging off since you had the machine -
tension. Belt has probably stretched over time. There should be a couple
of bolts on the motor in slots to allow adjustment.


--
Dave
The Medway Handyman
www.medwayhandyman.co.uk
01634 717930
07850 597257

On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 14:17:32 UTC, soup wrote:

However one thing is niggling at me the shaft on the motor and the
pulley on the drum seem perfectly flat there are no grooves for the belt
to fit into what stops the belt "pinging off" again in the near future?

You'll notice, probably, that the pulley isn't actually flat, but curved
across its width. It has a larger diameter in the middle. That's what
keeps the belt on.

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

Maybe the manufacturer would still repair it under guarantee if it
only ran out a few days ago, this has worked for me sometimes in the
past. Is the machine only a year and a bit old, or was it an extended
warranty (e.g. five years) that has expired?

On 24 Mar, 14:17, soup wrote:
Washing machine was working fine, then CLUNK and it wouldn't do
anything, after spending time running around etc seems our Guarantee ran
out on the 13th. Had convinced ourselves buying a new one was not such
a big deal, decided that as we were getting a new one anyway I would
have a look at it (don't mind minor D.I.Y. tasks but flaffing about with
electrics and water felt beyond me), found the belt lying in the bottom
not broken or anything just "off" so I put it back on and everything
SEEMS hunky dory as everything works and we don't have to buy a new one.
However one thing is niggling at me the shaft on the motor and the
pulley on the drum seem perfectly flat there are no grooves for the belt
to fit into what stops the belt "pinging off" again in the near future?

Machine is an Indesit W123
--www.cheesesoup.myby.co.uk

On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 14:17:32 GMT, soup wrote:

Washing machine was working fine, then CLUNK and it wouldn't do
anything, after spending time running around etc seems our Guarantee ran
out on the 13th. Had convinced ourselves buying a new one was not such
a big deal, decided that as we were getting a new one anyway I would
have a look at it (don't mind minor D.I.Y. tasks but flaffing about with
electrics and water felt beyond me), found the belt lying in the bottom
not broken or anything just "off" so I put it back on and everything
SEEMS hunky dory as everything works and we don't have to buy a new one.
However one thing is niggling at me the shaft on the motor and the
pulley on the drum seem perfectly flat there are no grooves for the belt
to fit into what stops the belt "pinging off" again in the near future?

Machine is an Indesit W123

Notwithstanding and 'warranty' you are protected by the Sale of Goods
Act 1979. In particular the Act states:

(2B) For the purposes of this Act, the quality of goods includes
their state and condition and the following (among others) are in
appropriate cases aspects of the quality of goods—

(a) fitness for all the purposes for which goods of the kind in
question are commonly supplied,

(b) appearance and finish,

(c) freedom from minor defects,

(d) safety, and

(e) durability.

The key issues are at (a) and (e) Clearly if the washing machine
failed within a short time, likely within five years, it is neither
'fit for purpose' or 'durable' and the supplier of the machine must
take the appropriate action.

On 2007-03-25 08:23:16 +0100, Edward W. Thompson
said:

On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 14:17:32 GMT, soup wrote:

Washing machine was working fine, then CLUNK and it wouldn't do
anything, after spending time running around etc seems our Guarantee ran
out on the 13th. Had convinced ourselves buying a new one was not such
a big deal, decided that as we were getting a new one anyway I would
have a look at it (don't mind minor D.I.Y. tasks but flaffing about with
electrics and water felt beyond me), found the belt lying in the bottom
not broken or anything just "off" so I put it back on and everything
SEEMS hunky dory as everything works and we don't have to buy a new one.
However one thing is niggling at me the shaft on the motor and the
pulley on the drum seem perfectly flat there are no grooves for the belt
to fit into what stops the belt "pinging off" again in the near future?

Machine is an Indesit W123

Notwithstanding and 'warranty' you are protected by the Sale of Goods
Act 1979. In particular the Act states:

(2B) For the purposes of this Act, the quality of goods includes
their state and condition and the following (among others) are in
appropriate cases aspects of the quality of goods—

(a) fitness for all the purposes for which goods of the kind in
question are commonly supplied,

(b) appearance and finish,

(c) freedom from minor defects,

(d) safety, and

(e) durability.

The key issues are at (a) and (e) Clearly if the washing machine
failed within a short time, likely within five years, it is neither
'fit for purpose' or 'durable' and the supplier of the machine must
take the appropriate action.

This is true - however a few points from experience of using this for
other transactions.

1) There are also the Supply of Goods and Services Act 1982 (as
amended), Unfair Contract Terms legislation and where appropriate,
Distance Selling Regulations. There are aspects of these that may be
useful depending on the circumstances

2) There is a statute of limitations of 6 years after which you can't
pursue an action against the supplier unless there is a warranty
greater than that, in which case the supplier has committed himself for
that period.

3) If the item was purchased using a credit mechanism and the price
paid was £100, the credit supplier is jointly and severally liable
with the supplier of the goods. It is worth contacting them before
proceeding to legal action, because they may well lean on the supplier
to get them to fulfill their obligations. a) It costs nothing
financially and b) they do the work. c) It can be a lot quicker to
produce results than legal action. I've recently used this mechanism
quite successfully

4) It goes without saying that the supplier and not the manufacturer
has the responsibility for the product. The manufacturer may wish to
make life easier for the supplier by offering a warranty and executing
it, but this does not mean that the supplier can wash his hands of the
affair, despite what he might say. Initial contact with the supplier
can be verbally with the immediate place of purchase. After that, I go
to the head office, in writing, sent by Special Delivery. There is no
point in intermediate steps because if there is going to be a court
action, they will be involved anyway. They should also know that that
will cost them money and may then do something about the problem. If
the problem is a design or manufacturing defect, they won't be shy
about letting the manufacturer know about that.

5) The statute of limitations does not imply that everything has a 6
year automatic warranty or anything else. Once the goods are outside
of the original committed warranty and up to 6 years, one is in the
territory of reasonableness as far as the courts are concerned. This
means that they will look at the claim in the context of the
market,(meaning the price paid in the context of other products of the
same type). For a larger claim, they might also look at other
factors such as whether the product had been used at a greater level
than intended (e.g. a drill from Aldi used by a tradesperson) -
probably not in this case because the claim would be too small to
warrant it. For the particular example here, one can look at
the price range of washing machines. A quick look on a few web sites
indciates that washing machines start at £170 at the bottom end (Beko)
and go up to about £1250 (Miele), if one ignores the Maytag Neptune at
£1500. The Indesit W123 seems to be at around £220; so it is
certainly closer to the low end than the top. The court would take
this into account.
Thus, if I had a Miele (which I do), I would be pursuing the supplier
up to the full 6 years, regardless (academic because there are usually
5 and 10 year warranties anyway). However, if I had an Indesit, I
could *try* going for 5 years, but I think it would be a stretch.
Generally the court would award nothing or a token amount (perhaps
£20-50). Then one has to ask whether it would have been worth the
effort. There would not be an award for the time taken in preparing
the case and attending court (if it were necessary), unless one is in
an occupation where time is billed to customers. Even then, pursuing
that would be tough.

Give all of that, and an Indesit product, I would certainly go after
the supplier at a few days outside the warranty, no question. I would
think seriously at anything 2 years and probably not bother at 3
years.

On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 14:17:32 UTC, soup wrote:

Washing machine was working fine, then CLUNK and it wouldn't do
anything, after spending time running around etc seems our Guarantee ran
out on the 13th. Had convinced ourselves buying a new one was not such
a big deal, decided that as we were getting a new one anyway I would
have a look at it (don't mind minor D.I.Y. tasks but flaffing about with
electrics and water felt beyond me), found the belt lying in the bottom
not broken or anything just "off" so I put it back on and everything
SEEMS hunky dory as everything works and we don't have to buy a new one.
However one thing is niggling at me the shaft on the motor and the
pulley on the drum seem perfectly flat there are no grooves for the belt
to fit into what stops the belt "pinging off" again in the near future?

Machine is an Indesit W123

Interesting observation. This post contains one question. Most of the
replies don't answerr it at all (but we get a very long screed on the
SOGA, for example).

People have failed exams for less!

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

On 2007-03-25 09:36:41 +0100, "Bob Eager" said:

On Sat, 24 Mar 2007 14:17:32 UTC, soup wrote:

Washing machine was working fine, then CLUNK and it wouldn't do
anything, after spending time running around etc seems our Guarantee ran
out on the 13th. Had convinced ourselves buying a new one was not such
a big deal, decided that as we were getting a new one anyway I would
have a look at it (don't mind minor D.I.Y. tasks but flaffing about with
electrics and water felt beyond me), found the belt lying in the bottom
not broken or anything just "off" so I put it back on and everything
SEEMS hunky dory as everything works and we don't have to buy a new one.
However one thing is niggling at me the shaft on the motor and the
pulley on the drum seem perfectly flat there are no grooves for the belt
to fit into what stops the belt "pinging off" again in the near future?

Machine is an Indesit W123

Interesting observation. This post contains one question. Most of the
replies don't answerr it at all (but we get a very long screed on the
SOGA, for example).

People have failed exams for less!

This is true, of course. If you've ever looked at a Cisco exam, you
will have seen that in many cases, there are several right answers in
the multiple choice, which will work correctly, but that there is only
one correct *Cisco* answer (usually meaning some piece of technology
that only Cisco has).

In this case, there is presumably some mechanism that can't actually be
seen by the naked eye that causes the belt to (normally) stay in the
right place. Considering that Indesit is a product built to a price
point, the implementation is done to save cost of components.

One possibility is that there is a high point on both shafts and the
belt rides on that. My bandsaw (like others) has this arrangement -
there is a tyre on the cast wheel at the top and the same on the
bottom. The blade locates itself on the high spots. There is even an
adjustment made by tilting the wheels fractionally to make sure that
this happens. I don't know what the engineering principle is for
this but it does work. I can cut wood.

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 08:50:58 UTC, Andy Hall wrote:

In this case, there is presumably some mechanism that can't actually be
seen by the naked eye that causes the belt to (normally) stay in the
right place. Considering that Indesit is a product built to a price
point, the implementation is done to save cost of components.

See my previous post on the subject. A technique that has been used for
decades.

--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

In article ,
soup wrote:
Washing machine was working fine, then CLUNK and it wouldn't
do anything, after spending time running around etc seems our
Guarantee ran out on the 13th. Had convinced ourselves buying a
new one was not such a big deal, decided that as we were getting
a new one anyway I would have a look at it (don't mind minor
D.I.Y. tasks but flaffing about with electrics and water felt
beyond me), found the belt lying in the bottom not broken or
anything just "off" so I put it back on and everything SEEMS
hunky dory as everything works and we don't have to buy a new
one. However one thing is niggling at me the shaft on the motor
and the pulley on the drum seem perfectly flat there are no
grooves for the belt to fit into what stops the belt "pinging
off" again in the near future?

If you look carefully at the drum pulley you
should see that it is not flat, it is slightly
domed. This is a nice old mechanical trick that
forces a tight belt to wrap around the dome and
therefore self-centre itself at the crest.

Main reasons for the belt falling off are either
there was a sudden one-off snatch, or the belt
has become too slack for the self-centreing to
work properly.

A more obscure and less probable reason is that
the shafts have become misaligned or loose.

--
Tony Williams.

On 25 Mar 2007 09:10:07 GMT, "Bob Eager" wrote:

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 08:50:58 UTC, Andy Hall wrote:

In this case, there is presumably some mechanism that can't actually be
seen by the naked eye that causes the belt to (normally) stay in the
right place. Considering that Indesit is a product built to a price
point, the implementation is done to save cost of components.

See my previous post on the subject. A technique that has been used for
decades.

Yes, Shugart 8" (128k !) floppy disk drives had pulleys and belts that
worked like that 30 years ago.

A bit counter-intuitive, to me at any rate. I would have expected the
belts to slip off sideways/downhill rather than ride up to the high
point of the pulley.

DG

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 10:28:55 UTC, Derek Geldard
wrote:

On 25 Mar 2007 09:10:07 GMT, "Bob Eager" wrote:

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 08:50:58 UTC, Andy Hall wrote:

In this case, there is presumably some mechanism that can't actually be
seen by the naked eye that causes the belt to (normally) stay in the
right place. Considering that Indesit is a product built to a price
point, the implementation is done to save cost of components.

See my previous post on the subject. A technique that has been used for
decades.

Yes, Shugart 8" (128k !) floppy disk drives had pulleys and belts that
worked like that 30 years ago.

A bit counter-intuitive, to me at any rate. I would have expected the
belts to slip off sideways/downhill rather than ride up to the high
point of the pulley.

Same here. But it works OK on our Hotpoint! See:

http://www.old-engine.com/belts2.htm

and look at section 24. Old factory line shafting used it.
--
The information contained in this post is copyright the
poster, and specifically may not be published in, or used by
http://www.diybanter.com

On 2007-03-25 11:28:55 +0100, Derek Geldard said:

On 25 Mar 2007 09:10:07 GMT, "Bob Eager" wrote:

On Sun, 25 Mar 2007 08:50:58 UTC, Andy Hall wrote:

In this case, there is presumably some mechanism that can't actually be
seen by the naked eye that causes the belt to (normally) stay in the
right place. Considering that Indesit is a product built to a price
point, the implementation is done to save cost of components.

See my previous post on the subject. A technique that has been used for
decades.

Yes, Shugart 8" (128k !) floppy disk drives had pulleys and belts that
worked like that 30 years ago.

A bit counter-intuitive, to me at any rate. I would have expected the
belts to slip off sideways/downhill rather than ride up to the high
point of the pulley.


I remember those very well. The motor was mains driven.

During that era, I had a computer with these that needed to be shipped
to the U.S. for a trade show along with some other equipment. The
power aspect had been sorted in that 220v was to be provisioned at the
stand. Unfortunately, what was forgotten was that the motors in the
drives were of a type where the mains frequency influences the speed of
rotation. On arrival in the U.S., the drives simply didn't work
because they were now spinning 20% faster. The electronics wasn't
capable of dealing with the index signal happening more frequently or
indeed the higher data rate; so no computer. What was worse was that
this was a Friday and the trade show was opening on the Saturday. What
to do?

Fortunately, we had the technical manual for the drive and that had a
parts list and exploded diagram. In those days one could buy the small
piece parts individually. We determined that the only differences for
60Hz operation vs. 50Hz was a smaller pulley on the motor and a
different motor if you wanted 110v. Even the belt remained the same
because it was quite long and a bit stretchy. Result!

Then hopes were dashed again. Finding a Shugart repair centre in New
York open on a Saturday proved fruitless. Even new drives weren't an
option - nowhere open.

Then we hit on the idea of perhaps the pulley could be turned down to
the size of a 60Hz one - fortunately it was this way round. This was
an even longer shot. Machine shop in Manhattan open on a Saturday
afternoon? Didn't seem likely... but we found one. 30 mins or so on
the lathe and the guy had done it complete with convex surface.
Pullies back on drives and up it all came with relief all round.

I still don't why the belts ride on the high points, but they do.

The software was to control quite a complex automation system and it
all fitted comfortably on one 128k floppy. Nowadays it would probably
be run by Windows Vista and be crashing three times a day like the
video screens above the baggage carousels at airports. It takes away
much of the irritation of it being harder to find which carousel it is
when one can smile at the blue screen of death on the display.

Edward W. Thompson wrote:

Notwithstanding and 'warranty' you are protected by the Sale of Goods
Act 1979.

We are not the purchasers, machine was "given" to us (new)by the
"Family Fund" (Joseph Rowntree trust)it was a charity when it was the
JRT but now it is the FF it is a government agency. We qualify for help
from them by dint of my son having special needs they have a
service/repair agreement with the washing machine manufacturer, as the
FF is run by the government would take it that the legal side has been
covered. Perhaps it is more cost effective (if not good for the
environment)to bin and supply new than to try and keep old (greater than
5 years) washing machines running.


--
www.cheesesoup.myby.co.uk