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I used to have a dryer in which the door interlock switch failed. The switch was bypassed so that opening the door no longer stopped the drum from turning. Dangerous, but it kept a few wrinkles out of the clothes that would form after it stopped.
Clearly, this is too dangerous for the consumer
market. With a bit of safety equipment, the dryer could continue to run while it is being emptied.
Maybe an extension collar on the drum opening that telescopes out when the door is opened, fitted with optical sensors or some sort of proximity detectors could determine when a hand or other body part is approaching the opening of the drum.
A braking mechanism would rapidly stop the rotation of the drum before the appendage makes it in to harm's way. When the appendage, having retrieved an article of clothing, is removed from the vicinity of the drum the drum restarts thus keeping the clothes tumbling merrily away instead of compressing in the bottom of the drum.
(?) One dryer related injury
http://www.findarti...28/p1/article.jhtml
[half, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]
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Could you make it somewhat like the cement mixers that feed the concrete out at a certain rate? Have the drum turn slowly whilst feeding you clothes at a manageable rate? Otherwise, great idea [+] |
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Edit: I find that I tend to open the door, grab an article of clothing, close the door and push the start button. So much faster if I could reach in or have the clothes pop out so that I could fold or hang them warm. |
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What [Klaatu] said. Just have the drum keep turning slowly while the door is open. |
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Somebody posted a link not too long ago to a dryer that dries without tumbling, so clothes go in and come out folded. |
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The idea is to have the drum turning while the door's open. Turning quickly or turning slowly, it can still break arms, fingers, etc. if it's turning while you reach in side. It can put a serious hurt on ya. Trust me. However, the slower turning rate while the door's open would likely be an additional safety measure. I hadn't considered that. |
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Feeding the clothes automatically wouldn't be my preference. I can't figure a way to get it to feed a single article at a time. I tried to run my current dryer (Maytag Neptune) with the door open. Although it's a side effect of creating a large opening, my dryer does spit the clothes out while running with the door open. It was too erratic. It either dumped too many at once or I had to wait. |
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I like the idea that [DrCurry] cites. I wonder how big that thing must be. |
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As long as the drum makes a reasonably tight seal around the door 9to keep fingers out) I don't see how sticking your hand into a dryer is a risk. The door interlock is still necessary to detect a door that pops opne while it dries but a simple push button could defeat it temporarily until you start the next drying program. |
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Interesting. The potential for injury seems apparent to me having tinkered with, repaired and bypassed the safety features on numerous dryers. |
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The drum is not smooth inside. There are paddles that force the clothes to tumble. If your hand/arm encounters one of the paddles, some serious forces can be applied to the appendage at unnatural angles in a surprisingly short time. |
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It would be quite easy to have the load of clothes drop on your arm, briefly pinning it to the bottom or at least pushing in to the path of the moving paddle/bumpy thingies inside the drum. Entanglement of the arm in the clothes could also result in some serious arm twisting.
(link) |
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I think the interlock functionality you cite is probably secondary. |
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