Amazed no-one had come up with this before...

boogieman

Gagaryn said:

Axe_meister said:

boogieman said:

aord43 said:

FX_Munkee said:

I do hope they've considered what happens when it freezes.
Seeing as the concrete is just there as a mass damper, there's loads of other solutions you could use but all of them would require cost in terms of design and materials.
Would be nice to see a £3k Miele machine with active suspension

"If" it freezes, surely?
Either using a container with expansion space, or antifreeze should do the trick, I would have thought.
It's not as if there is no other water in various pipes in the machine anyway.
Active suspension lol

Wouldn't it need some sort of additive in the water anyway to stop it eventually turning green and stinky? Antifreeze sounds a good idea. 

No you just fill the tank as part of the wash cycle and empty it as part of the spin cycle.

Is the correct answer. Edit - however, I'm sure the Ecover shitey washing product lovers would point out that that is a waste of water.

What you could do, is empty and refill  the ballast after a set number of washes. My machine already reminds me to check the filter and run a clean cycle periodically so could easily do that.

Or those of us with water meters. I'll stick with concrete. 

Emp_Fab

Legionreturns said:

If you can use water, presumably you could also use sand ala the old swing ball bases you used to have in your garden? Sand is less likely to leak and doesn't change with temperature. I'm certainly not a scientist or engineer though. Just the ponderings of a guy who lived through the 80s...

I have some gazebo leg weights that I'm going to fill with sand first, then water, to make them as heavy as possible whilst still remaining able to be emptied.  Wet sand is the biz.

lewism

FX_Munkee said:

I do hope they've considered what happens when it freezes.
Seeing as the concrete is just there as a mass damper, there's loads of other solutions you could use but all of them would require cost in terms of design and materials.
Would be nice to see a £3k Miele machine with active suspension

We've got a Miele (but not a £3k one!). I think they use a cast iron block rather than concrete. The blokes who delivered it weren't pleased.....

mellowsun

Nah, the future of the washing machine is surely having a superconducting magnet allowing the drum to be suspended and rotate in an electromagnetic field.

I don't really know what I'm talking about however, although ...

ThePrettyDamned

It's smart. Perhaps sand could work better - won't freeze or cause so many problems down the line. Not sure what it's density is relative to water though. 

It would also still need to be transported - so perhaps that's not an option after all. 

Myranda

lewism said:

FX_Munkee said:

I do hope they've considered what happens when it freezes.
Seeing as the concrete is just there as a mass damper, there's loads of other solutions you could use but all of them would require cost in terms of design and materials.
Would be nice to see a £3k Miele machine with active suspension

We've got a Miele (but not a £3k one!). I think they use a cast iron block rather than concrete. The blokes who delivered it weren't pleased.....

They have two concrete blocks... twice the weight for twice the stability.

(source - grumpy friend who worked in a show-room selling them, and grumping about moving them when the manager decided they wanted to change things around a bit)