drive motor 18 shown schematically in fig1 mounted on the cabinet 10 is a controller 20 for controlling the drive motor also mounted on the cabinet 10 is a sensor box 22 within sensor box 22 is a sensor 24 which is adapted to sense the vibration of the cabinet 10 the preferred vibration sensor 24 is an accelerometer such as shown in fig2 the accelerometer 24 in fig2 is electronically connected to the controller 20 and is mounted on cabinet 10 to sense machine vibration although the accelerometer can be positioned in a variety of different locations about the washing machine cabinet 10 mounting the accelerometer 24 toward the top of the washing machine cabinet 10 has been found to produce the most reliable results the accelerometer includes a piezoelectric film 26 with a mass 28 attached to the end of the film 26 leads 30 are also attached to the film 26 the accelerometer 24 is well suited for measuring vibration because acceleration of the mass 28 and the vibration of the cabinet 10 are proportional the accelerometer 24 shown in fig2 is only an example and other forms of accelerometers or vibration sensors may be used without detracting from the invention referring to fig3 the sensor or accelerometer 24 is connected electrically to the controller 20 and the controller 20 is also connected to the drive motor 18 drive motor 18 is adapted to rotate the basket 16 at.