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Danby’s search for improvement lacks foresight., August 20, 2009

Living in a small apartment in NYC this product is a godsend. However, we wish Danby’s design department think things through.

This is our third generation of Danby dishwashers. The first one had problems with the window leaking after a year, and the soap dispenser and door broke.

The second generation Danby improved the soap dispenser problem and created a well for the soap to be put in, plus, the spray arm was built beefier and worked nicely. But the rack was a disaster. Less material made in the rack produced too many wide spaces for small things to fall through. This dishwasher was sensitive to the amount of soap you used and tend to foam up quite often. This window did eventually come out on us as well and we glued it back in and all was fine until the timer went and our dishwasher was prone to flood from the feed water not stopping.

Alas it was time for the third generation.

1. The delivery was flawless, the packaging perfect.

2. The spray arm is terrific.

3. The rack, still much to be desired. I think Danby should go back to the old one, customers will approve of this one. (We kept the rack from the first one)

4. The mechanical timer has been replaced with an electronic one which is great except the programs are many, P1,P2,P3,P4,P5. Which is complicated enough but the dishwasher does not let us know how much time we have left, what the cycles mean, go to your manual folks and make a copy, take a magnet and viola! With all the digital wonders out there another read out would be nice because the length of time on the programs has been extended and we find ourselves waiting for that final beep. The most annoying thing about this is the space of time between the final wash cycle and the when the water drains out of the basin. This is a concern for us as we like to open the door to air-dry the dishes and shut off the power.

What we like is that the dishes do come out nice and clean.

And on a small note this dishwasher is not the silent type, yet nothing we can’t handle.

Danby, this is great product for people with limited space and small sinks, and busy lives.

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Danby Does Pretty Good, September 29, 2010

By 

K. Schroeder (Los Angeles, CA United States) – See all my reviews

  

I acquired my Danby dishwasher about a month ago as a replacement for my previous portable dishwasher, an Equator 20″ PLS602 model. While I am quite happy with my new machine, there are many things about the old one which I miss. This review will be a compare and contrast of the two models.

My old Equator was a 20 inch cube (20x20x20) which, though still small, provided enough space to put in massive plates and frying pans. The interior of the Danby is just as wide and just as deep as the Equator, but it is at least 2 inches SHORTER than the Danby and I now find myself cramming in dishes which used to fit just fine and having to wash many of my frying pans in the sink (which, er, starts to defeat the purpose…).

The Danby has a stainless steel interior. This is a major bonus! My Equator had a plastic interior and though it held out for more than five years of regular use, eventually some of the plastic parts began to crack. I do not see this happening with the Danby.

The Equator has a plastic dial on the front which grants you to set the cycle and to view how far along the cleaning process the machine has gotten at any given moment. The Danby grants you to choose from five different cycles, but it’s digital display does not tell you where in any given cycle it is (wash? Rinse? Etc.) Also, the very longest wash cycle on the Equator was approximately 45 minutes; the standard wash cycle on the Danby is almost 2 hours! it should not take two hours to clean 4 plates, 4 cups, and 4 settings of silverware.

The Danny has a viewing window — this is kind of fun. The Equator did not.

The silverware caddy in the Danby is much too small, and I have taken the one from my Equator and am using it in the Danby instead. Also, the interior rack of the Danby has such massive gaps between its rungs that sometimes items actually fall through. This never happened with my Equator.

The Equator hooked up directly to a hot water source (in my case, from my am outlet port on my hot water heater) and its exhaust tube had to be clamped onto a sink in order to drain properly. The Danby does not work this way: it’s intake and outflow tubes connect directly to the hot water tap of your faucet through a snap-attachment. Mine did not come without the universal steel nipple attachment for the kitchen faucet, but this was only a minor inconvenience to acquire at the hardware store.

I acquired the Danby used. Perhaps this explains its final quirk: at the end of its last rinse cycle on any of its five cycles, it does not drain. In order to make a drain I must turn the machine off, turn it back on again, and tell it to begin a new cycle. This will make the machine conduct a preparatory drain of the interior, and all I need do then is make sure it does not actually begin a new cycle. Simple enough, I suppose, but this is one more complication my Equator did not have.

And so I must give the Danby only 4 of 5 potential stars. My biggest complaints are the small interior compared to my last model, and the incredibly long wash times. But it does get dishes clean, yes, that it does. If you are willing to wait long enough, and if you are willing to wash the big things by hand, the Danby will take care of the rest.

Oh, and it is noisy. No debate on that. I could never sleep in a room where this thing was going.

MANUAL can be found here: [...]

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