Electronic motor controls, laundry machines including such controls and/or methods of operating such controls

Abstract From the Canadian patent

A control apparatus and method for an electric motor having sensing devices which sense the frequency and polarity of EMFs in the rotor windings down to a condition where the rotor is in condition for reversing, and causing reversing of the motor when the frequency is such as to allow reversing and the polarits of a selected winding is at or near a zero crossing between positive and negative polarities. Cyclical reversal is effected by measuring the time the rotor takes to coast from a "power off" condition to the condition for reversing and with an electronically commutated motor reversing can usually be effected in one commutation period. The motor is used in a clothes washing machine or …