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Dishwasher

Dishwasher description/claims

This application is a continuation application of co-pending application Ser. No. 11/284,208, filed on Jan. 24, 2006 entitled “Dishwasher—Camming Arrangement”. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11/284,208 is a continuation of 10/110,117, filed on Aug. 2, 2002 and entitled “Dishwasher”, now U.S. Pat. No. 7,152,612 which is the national phase filing of PCT/NZ00/00193, filed on Oct. 5, 2000, Published as WO 01/26532 on Apr. 19, 2001. The subject matter of 11/284,208 is incorporated herein by reference.

This invention relates to dishwashers and in particular but not solely to a dishwasher of the type disclosed in the applicant's international patent specification WO 93/12706.

The dishwasher of WO 93/12706 has a form generally indicated in FIGS. 1 and 2 and installation options as shown in FIGS. 4 to 6. The dishwasher disclosed in WO 93/12706 differs from conventional dishwashers in that a wash chamber and associated wash system is slidably mounted in the form of a drawer within a cabinet and the chamber is withdrawn horizontally to allow loading through the open top of the chamber. When the chamber is retracted an associated lid sealably closes off the top of the chamber to contain wash liquid in operation. The dishwasher of WO 93/12706 includes a cabinet or wrapper 203 wherein which all working components are housed. The cabinet acts as a chassis and a high finish wrapper. In use dishwashers are usually mounted in kitchen joinery and rarely used in a free-standing mode. When so used the presence of a high finish wrapper is redundant and constitutes an unnecessary manufacturing cost.

In WO 93/12706 the wash chamber lid is of unitary construction movably retained in the top of the cabinet and engaged by the wash chamber on retraction to move down onto the top of the wash chamber using a parallelogram linkage and cam mechanism. In practice it has been found that other types of wash chamber covers may be satisfactory and may have better production economics.

WO 98/33426 discloses a dishwasher similar to that depicted in FIGS. 1-6. In one preferred form it uses an inflatable gasket to seal the drawer when it is retracted into the cabinet. However, this may affect product reliability and impact on user satisfaction. The gasket inflation and deflation time may inconvenience the user with respect to the delays in opening the drawer mid-cycle and the rubber gasket may deteriorate over time creating maintenance problems.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a dishwasher of the type described which goes some way towards overcoming the above-mentioned disadvantages, or which will at least provide the public with a useful choice.

Accordingly in a first aspect the present invention consists in a washing appliance comprising:

(a) a wash system slidably mounted in such a way that it may be withdrawn horizontally for access thereto, said wash system including: (i) an open top wash chamber adapted to accommodate items to be washed and within which wash liquid is circulated, said wash chamber having a top peripheral rim, (ii) means for introducing and circulating wash liquid within said chamber, (iii) means for evacuating wash liquid from said chamber, and

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