Thursday, June 27, 2019

How water flows inside a washing machine

I had a broken Indesit WIE 107 washing machine and I was curious to know how water is distributed to 3 containers with only 2 solenoid valves and so I took it apart.

Washing machine water inlet distribution box teardown


Washing machine water inlet distribution box teardown
Top side (original)

Washing machine water inlet distribution box teardown
Top side (with markers)

In the first image, the water routes from the two solenoid valves are marked with blue and red colors. Because the water jet is under pressure, it leaps over the big hole where the two streams intersect marked with yellow. When both solenoid valves are turned on, the two streams combined forms a jet at 45 degrees angle that reach to the third container. The water path is shown in yellow.

From the outside on the bottom side can be seen a third channel. Before opening I thought it got something to do with the third container but it's isolated from the other channels. The channel is marked with green color.


Washing machine water inlet distribution box teardown (bottom side)
Bottom side