The dispensing ball is a special plastic ball used to dispense liquid

fabric softener A fabric softener (American English) or fabric conditioner (British English) is a conditioner that is applied to laundry during the rinse cycle in a washing machine to reduce harshness in clothes that are dried in air after machine washing. In con ...

in clothes

washing machine A washing machine (laundry machine, clothes washer, washer, or simply wash) is a home appliance used to wash laundry. The term is mostly applied to machines that use water as opposed to dry cleaning (which uses alternative cleaning fluids and ...

s that lack built-in softener dispensers. Liquid fabric softener has to be added at the correct time to a load of laundry (the rinse cycle) in order to work effectively. In top-loading machines, the ball accomplishes this with no user input, other than the initial loading, and filling of the ball.

Operation

In a top-loading washing machine, the ball floats on the surface of the water during the mild forces of the washing process, and remains sealed. The stronger forces of the later spin cycle causes the seal on the ball to be broken, releasing the liquid softener. These balls can not be used in front-loading tumbling washers, because the tumbling releases the fabric softener before the rinse cycle. They cannot be used at all in the dryer.

Downy Ball

The

Downy Downy, also known as Lenor in Europe, Russia and Japan, is a brand of fabric softener produced by Procter & Gamble that was introduced in 1960. Lenor is a brand name of fabric softener and dryer sheets, also produced by P&G, sold in Europe, Rus ...

Ball is a variant sold by

Procter & Gamble The Procter & Gamble Company (P&G) is an American multinational consumer goods corporation headquartered in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble. It specializes in a wide range of personal health/consumer he ...

specifically designed for use with traditional agitator-based top-loading washing machines which lack built-in fabric softener dispensers, and it won't work correctly on front-loading machines.How does the Downy fabric-softener ball work?

HowStuffWorks HowStuffWorks is an American commercial infotainment website founded by professor and author Marshall Brain, to provide its target audience an insight into the way many things work. The site uses various media to explain complex concepts, termin ...

Liquid fabric softener is poured into the Downy Ball through a hole on the top side. The ball is then tossed into the washing machine with the clothes and detergent, where it floats in a vertical position, with an internal rubber weight floating inside and trapping the softener inside. In the spin cycle, between the wash and rinse cycles, the internal rubber weight moves aside due to

Newton's first law of motion Newton's laws of motion are three basic laws of classical mechanics that describe the relationship between the motion of an object and the forces acting on it. These laws can be paraphrased as follows: # A body remains at rest, or in motion ...

, allowing the fabric softener to spill out onto the clothes, just in time for the rinse cycle.

References

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