This machine tumbles your clothes through water and detergent inside a spinning drum. Use the buttons to look inside it and follow the wash from fill to final spin.
A washing machine cleans clothes by tumbling them through water and detergent inside a rotating drum. Instead of scrubbing by hand it uses motion, chemistry and time: the drum turns, the detergent loosens the dirt, and the water carries it away.
Almost everything happens inside one sealed tub. A drawer adds detergent, an inlet valve lets the water in, a motor turns the drum, and a pump drains the dirty water at the end.
From the outside it is just a white box. Hiding the outer housing shows where the water goes, how the drum is driven, and why the machine shakes during the spin.
Two ideas matter most: the drum only ever needs a shallow pool of water, and the three fins do the work by lifting and dropping the clothes. Everything else exists to fill, drain and spin the drum reliably.
You start the cycle and the inlet valve opens. Water flows through the detergent drawer, picking up the soap on the way, and runs down into the tub. It only fills a shallow layer at the bottom of the drum.
A motor turns the drum slowly through a belt and pulley. Three fins catch the clothes, lift them up and let them fall back into the water. This tumbling, repeated for a long time, is what loosens and lifts the dirt.
When the wash is done, the drain pump pulls the used water out of the tub and pushes it down the drain pipe. The drum stops, the murky water goes, and the load is left damp.
Fresh water fills the drum again and the drum tumbles a few more times to rinse away soap and loosened dirt. Then the pump drains that water too. Some cycles repeat this rinse more than once.
For the finish the drum spins very fast. Centrifugal force throws the water in the clothes out through the holes in the drum wall, where it collects in the tub and is pumped away. The load comes out damp rather than soaking.
No. A front-loading machine only needs enough water to soak and tumble the load, so the drum fills roughly a third of the way and the clothes are lifted and dropped through the water rather than swimming in it.
The three plastic fins, called baffles, catch the clothes as the drum turns and lift them up, then let them fall back into the water. That tumbling action is what does the cleaning.
A motor turns a small pulley, and a belt links that pulley to the drum. The drum can be driven slowly for washing or very fast for the spin.
A drain pump pulls the used water out of the tub and pushes it down the drain pipe. The same pump empties the machine after each rinse and before the spin.
A fast spin throws the load to one side, so the drum and tub try to vibrate. Shock absorbers hold the tub and soak up that movement, which stops the machine from walking across the floor.
You pour it into the drawer at the top. When the inlet valve opens, the incoming water flows through the drawer and carries the detergent down into the drum.