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Toddler in washing machine

ebee

I have been told, third hand. A toddler apparently has a habit of climbing into a washing machine and closing the door behind them.

I would have thought that this possibility would have been designed out by the manufacturer.

I will probably have a chance to witness this during the next week or so.

Potential dangers are obvious, especially with a slightly older sibling about.

I would advise the parents to change washing machines/Keep machine unplugged when not in use. I know that this in reality will not happen.

So, is there a sort of "one shot adaptor" that could be plugged in to the socket and the machine plugged into it. switch washer to on then nothing happens till a "one shot" button is pressed and it will de-latch.

I remember years ago, a plumbing wholesaler around here, sold "one shot switches" for immersion heaters. It needed the wiring split and another wire adding to the cylinder stat and this enabled a mains relay to hold in via the thermostat and once the cylinder heated up it caused a dropout  therefore the tank cylinder would heat up once only unless the button was pressed again. I do remember examining one and the relay coil was powered by the stat, a resistor and a capacitor in series I think. They seemed to work in actual practice and apparently were intended mostly for dual heater cylinders with the remaining heater & stat wired in the conventional way maybe on off peak supply.

Off course the washing machine situation would require such relay or whatever to hold in whilst some current drawing and latch out on nil current.

Parents
  • 0

    There might be a smart socket you could replace the one the dryer is plugged into with. So that it is solely controlled by a phone app, or even alexa with suitable parental controls built-in.

  • 0 in reply to OlympusMons

    Thanks Olympus, I had thought about that but it might be left on or off so defeating the more simplistic approach. I do take your point though, modern tech can be fantastic and I`m sure the one shot (timed interval only) could be considered but for varying times, even by only a few mins, then the press a button to start then de-latch once a cycle completes would seem to accommodate a wide variety of timings on a wash or dry program, I`m still thinking that current draw monitoring rather similar to the "is the stat now satisfied?" approach might be an answer. a socket outlet controlled by say a 16A contacts relay and a little current sensing circuit might be quite strraightforward in a plastic box . |Sort of MAPJ1 or Big Clive kind of idea

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  • 0 in reply to OlympusMons

    Thanks Olympus, I had thought about that but it might be left on or off so defeating the more simplistic approach. I do take your point though, modern tech can be fantastic and I`m sure the one shot (timed interval only) could be considered but for varying times, even by only a few mins, then the press a button to start then de-latch once a cycle completes would seem to accommodate a wide variety of timings on a wash or dry program, I`m still thinking that current draw monitoring rather similar to the "is the stat now satisfied?" approach might be an answer. a socket outlet controlled by say a 16A contacts relay and a little current sensing circuit might be quite strraightforward in a plastic box . |Sort of MAPJ1 or Big Clive kind of idea

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