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Consumerist reports:
[Dozens of] owners of Samsung top-loading washing machines say their appliances exploded while in normal use.
[...] The Consumer Product Safety Commission confirmed it is working with Samsung to address safety issues related to the top-loading washing machines after receiving dozens of reports that the appliances have exploded while in use.
[...] Owners of the machines, sold between March 2011 and April 2016, are advised to only use the delicate cycle when washing bedding, water-resistant, and bulky items. The lower spin speed of the delicate cycle lessens the risk of impact injuries or property damage due to the washing machine becoming dislodged
A Georgia woman [said] that on April 8, she and her four-year-old son were standing next to the machine when it exploded. "It was the loudest sound. It sounded like a bomb went off in my ear", the woman said, recalling that nuts, bolts, and wires were laying on the floor.
[...] Several consumers have banded together to sue Samsung in federal court, claiming that a support rod in the appliance is insufficient to hold the tub in place and can become unfastened during the spin cycle.
(Score: 2) by migz on Sunday October 02 2016, @12:52PM
Woman overloads washing machine.
Lawyers want to sue corporation. I hope this goes nowhere.
Disclaimer I own a Sammy Top loader, fantastic, great value for money. RTFM. Don't overload.
(Score: 2) by Pslytely Psycho on Sunday October 02 2016, @01:17PM
RTFM!
That's hilarious. Nobody reads the manual.
Well, maybe me and thee, as I repair pinsetters and read manuals all the time. But we are the minority.
Do I have to turn in my man card?
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by RamiK on Sunday October 02 2016, @01:37PM
Considering all the useless IoT crap being shoved down our throats everywhere, I'd argue Samsung been negligent by not putting load sensors on all axis and maybe even gyroscopes in all their models.
It sounds silly, but consider the some of possibilities: Automatically adjust optimal and safe RPMs; Simplify quiet\night-mode; Indicate overloads; Increase RPM for light loads; Reduce water consumption when there's no vibration indicating saturation...
It can't be helped: Nowadays there are higher standards for usability and automation in consumer electronics and washing machines aren't exempted when the sensors and controllers \ SoCs are so cheap and prolific.
compiling...
(Score: 2) by TheRaven on Monday October 03 2016, @12:18PM
sudo mod me up
(Score: 1) by Ethanol-fueled on Sunday October 02 2016, @02:19PM
Yeah, I wonder what tipped them off to their imbalanced overloads. Was it the "boom boom boom" noise? Sheesh, people are lazy fucking morons.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 02 2016, @02:29PM
> ... a support rod in the appliance is insufficient to hold the tub in place...
This doesn't sound like the whole story. If the load is too far off balance, then the "tilt switch" is supposed to stop the spin cycle. Speculation - that support rod might be the weak link after the tilt switch failed? Anyway, no fancy processor is needed. Please kids, don't try to patch some fundamental problem with a layer of computing or, horrors, IoTtS (from a previous Soylentil, internet of things that suck).
If the engineers/designers (or their managers) didn't test with the largest conceivable overload, then they should be fired, and maybe the company is negligent. When overloaded and out of balance, it should simply stop spinning before it gets to any speed. As noted elsewhere, most users won't read the manual or even if they do, won't weigh their clothes (etc).
Spin cycle is an interesting rotor dynamics problem. The spring suspension and freely tilting-pivot allows the drum to spin about the current center of gravity (maybe better called principal axis?), which usually is not straight up the center of the tub.
I fixed an older washer that was on a hair trigger, would slam around and trip the tilt switch with almost any small load. Turned out that the tilting pivot was rusty/high-friction (stick-slip at the bearing). So the fix was to get some oil into the bearing surfaces and waggle the drum around to spread the oil and knock the points off the rusty spots. Worked like a charm for many years after that simple fix.
(Score: 1) by shipofgold on Sunday October 02 2016, @08:28PM
In this day and age I don't know who to trust with product liability issues.
I have a Whirlpool dishwasher which went on the fritz about 6 years ago. I took it apart and found the circuit board scorched where a couple of parts overheaded and must have created quite a spark or mini fire in the control panel.
I did some quick googling and found: http://www.kitchenaidfire.com/. [kitchenaidfire.com] I tried to contact Whirlpool about the defect, and they claimed at the time that there was no product issue and the unit was out of warrantee. About 6 months later I saw a guy down the street dragging his dishwasher to the curb. The entire front had been melted and he said he has fire spitting out the front where the control board was.
Two years after that I was contacted by an attorney from Virginia who was defending a woman accused of arson and murder. She claimed the dishwasher did it....
http://www.dailyprogress.com/news/local/trial-set-for-nelson-woman-accused-of-felony-murder/article_362c0704-61f1-11e3-9f5d-0019bb30f31a.html [dailyprogress.com]
While I don't know the facts on her case, after my experience I wasn't so quick to discount her story.
Enough issues had been found to prompt a WWW site, but the manufacturer still persisted in stating that there was no product issue...eventually there was a recall.
To me this was probably a simple case of a missing fuse in the heater circuit to prevent overloading due to a short in the heating element.
I still have that scorched circuit board.
(Score: 2) by Magic Oddball on Monday October 03 2016, @12:31AM
A normal washing machine should be capable of handling a king-size comforter, and even if the load becomes unbalanced, the worst the machine should do is possibly move a few inches across the floor. Instead, the reports are pointing out that the machines are "exploding" at random points in the cycle, regardless of load size:
My wife put a small load of laundry in to the Samsung washer. After a few minutes, she felt what she explained to me as "a car driving into our house", the "whole house shook."
She then discovered that the washing machine had "exploded". The top flew off the base, being held only by the plastic drain hose. There were pieces of the washing machine all over the floor. The machine jumped forward about 2 feet and turned 90 degrees. It slammed into the dryer, leaving a huge dent in the side of it. The force was so powerful, it ripped the electrical outlet from its screws and bent it to the side.
That's not remotely near an acceptably safe failure mode; unless the owner deliberately threw a brick into the machine while it was spinning like PhotonicInductor [youtube.com], it shouldn't do anything remotely like that.