JP7547264B2 - Clothes drying device - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a clothes drying device for drying clothes, and in particular to a clothes drying device that includes a housing and a rotating drum that is provided inside the housing and rotates around a horizontal axis of rotation.

Patent Document 1 shows a clothes drying device that includes a housing (main body case 2) and a rotating drum 3 that is provided inside the housing and rotates around a horizontal axis of rotation. In this type of clothes drying device, a drying chamber is formed inside the cylindrical portion of the rotating drum, and the housing is provided with a circular loading port (clothes loading port 4) for loading and unloading clothes into and from the drying chamber inside the cylindrical portion. The clothes in the drying chamber are dried while being agitated by the rotation of the rotating drum, and the dried clothes are then removed from the loading port.

JP 2018-047066 A

However, the diameter of the inlet of the clothes dryer is smaller than that of the cylindrical part of the rotating drum, and the lower part of the drying chamber is difficult to see because it is blocked by the periphery of the inlet of the housing. Therefore, when removing dried clothes from the inlet, it is possible that clothes at the bottom of the drying chamber are not noticed and clothes are left behind.
In particular, when relatively small clothes are placed at the bottom of the drying chamber, the entire garment is likely to be blocked by the periphery, making it easy for the small garment to go unnoticed and for it to be forgotten to be removed.

In view of this situation, the main objective of the present invention is to provide a clothes dryer that reduces the risk of small items of clothing being left behind.

A first characteristic configuration of the present invention is a method for producing a rotary drum comprising: a housing; and a rotary drum provided inside the housing and rotating about a rotation axis along a horizontal direction,
The rotary drum has a cylindrical portion having a drying chamber formed therein for drying clothes,
The housing has a circular opening for inserting the clothes into the drying chamber in the cylindrical portion,
The input port is formed to have a smaller diameter than the cylindrical portion and is located within the cylindrical portion when viewed in an axial direction along the rotation axis,
The clothes include large clothes that are large clothes and small clothes that are smaller than the large clothes,
The cylindrical portion includes a housing portion at a portion in a circumferential direction of the cylindrical portion,
The storage portion is formed to have a shape that is radially larger than the main portion of the cylindrical portion other than the storage portion, and has a circumferential width that is larger than the width of the small garment.

According to this configuration, the cylindrical portion of the rotating drum is provided with a storage portion that is radially larger than the main portion and has a circumferential width greater than the width of small clothes, so that when the rotating drum is rotated, small clothes in the drying chamber tend to gather in the storage portion. Therefore, even if part of the drying chamber is blocked by the periphery of the loading port and it is difficult to visually see the clothes, it is possible to remove all or almost all of the small clothes in the drying chamber by feeling around them to remove them, so that small clothes in the drying chamber are less likely to be left behind.

A second characteristic configuration of the present invention is a rotary drive means for rotating the rotary drum around the rotation axis;
a rotational position detection means capable of detecting a rotational position of the rotary drum;
An operation control means for controlling the operation,
The operation control means executes drying control, which rotates the rotating drum to dry the clothes in the drying chamber while agitating them, and stop control, which stops the rotating drum rotated in the drying control at a set rotation position where the storage portion is located at the bottom of the cylindrical portion based on detection by the rotation position detection means.

With this configuration, when the drying control has finished drying the clothes, the stop control stops the storage part in the cylindrical part so that it is positioned at the bottom of the cylindrical part, so that the person removing the clothes can do so in a position where the storage part is easily accessible without having to perform any special operations.

A third characteristic configuration of the present invention is a method for manufacturing a chuck, comprising: defining a side of the cylindrical portion in a direction along the rotation axis where the input port is located as a front side;
The housing portion is formed in a shape that becomes larger in the radial direction toward the front side.

With this configuration, the portion of the storage section that is easy to reach on the front side is made deep and the portion of the storage section opposite the front side that is difficult to reach is made shallow, making it possible to increase the storage capacity of the storage section while making the entire storage section easy to reach.

Schematic diagram of a clothes drying device Vertical cross-sectional front view of the cylindrical part Control flow chart of the operation control unit

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a clothes drying device according to the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
The clothes dryer 1 of this embodiment shown in Fig. 1 is a drying device for drying wet clothes C after dehydration, and includes a housing 10, a rotating drum 12 into which clothes C are put when a front door 15 is opened and a drying chamber 13 is formed inside, a hot air supplying means Y for supplying hot air H to the drying chamber 13, an exhaust air duct 23 and a ventilation fan 20 for discharging exhaust air E from the drying chamber 13, a rotary drive means X for rotating the rotary drum 12 about a rotation axis P, and an operation control unit 50 (an example of an operation control means) for controlling the operation of the clothes dryer 1. The rotary drum 12, the hot air supplying means Y, the exhaust air duct 23, the ventilation fan 20, the rotary drive means X, and the operation control unit 50 are provided inside the housing 10.

The housing 10 is provided with a circular inlet 16 for inserting clothes C into the drying chamber 13 inside the rotating drum 12. The rotating drum 12 rotates around a rotation axis P that is aligned horizontally. The clothes drying device 1 inserts the clothes C to be dried from the inlet 16 into the drying chamber 13, rotates the rotating drum 12 to agitate the clothes C in the drying chamber 13 while supplying hot air H into the drying chamber 13 to dry the clothes C, and then removes the dried clothes C from the drying chamber 13 through the inlet 16. Below, each component of the clothes drying device 1 will be described, with the side of the rotating drum 12 where the inlet 16 is located being the front side in the axial direction along the rotation axis P of the rotating drum 12, and the opposite side being the rear side.

The rotating drum 12 is supported so as to be freely rotatable around a horizontal rotation axis P, and is driven to rotate by a drive motor 25 via a belt B12. The clothes C stored in the drying chamber 13 formed inside the rotating drum 12 are agitated as the rotating drum 12 is driven to rotate. The mechanism that drives the rotating drum 12 to rotate via the belt B12 by the drive motor 25 functions as the rotation drive means X. Note that "along the horizontal direction" also includes a state inclined by several degrees from the horizontal direction, and the rotating drum 12 may be supported so as to be freely rotatable in an inclined position inclined by several degrees so that the forward direction is positioned upward from the horizontal.

An air intake port 36 is open in the front wall surface of the drying chamber 13 facing the drying chamber 13, and the rear side of the drying chamber 13 is connected to the primary side (suction side) of the ventilation fan 20 through a rear opening 28 to which a filter 17 is attached. The front wall portion 18 forming the front wall surface of the drying chamber 13 is fixed to the housing 10. An input port 16 is formed in the front wall portion 18 so that the rotation axis P is located at the center. An air intake port 36 is formed in the part of the front wall portion 18 below the input port 16.

The clothes drying device 1 is equipped with a rotational position detection means 38 capable of detecting the rotational position of the rotating drum 12. The rotational position detection means 38 is, for example, configured by a rotary encoder that outputs a pulse signal in accordance with the rotation of the rotating drum 12, and the operation control unit 50 is configured to determine the amount of rotation of the rotating drum 12 from a reference rotational position based on the pulse signal from the rotational position detection means 38. The rotational position detection means 38 may also be configured by a photoelectric sensor or the like that detects a reflector installed on the rotating drum 12, to detect a predetermined rotational position of the rotating drum 12.

The exhaust air duct 23 is an air duct to which the exhaust duct 22, which is laid indoors and leads to the outdoors, is connected. The ventilation fan 20 is a fan that takes in the hot air H from the drying chamber 13 as exhaust air E and sends it out into the exhaust air duct 23 and the exhaust duct 22, and is driven to rotate by the drive motor 25 via the belt B20. When the ventilation fan 20 is driven to rotate and operates, air A is introduced from indoors into the housing 10 through an opening formed on the bottom surface of the housing 10, and the outflowing air A is taken in as hot air H from the intake air duct 35 through the intake air port 36 into the drying chamber 13, and can be ventilated from the drying chamber 13 toward the exhaust air duct 23 and the exhaust duct 22. A burner 31 is provided below the rotating drum 12 to generate hot air H and supply it to the intake air duct 35 leading to the intake air port 36. The mechanism that operates the ventilation fan 20 to ventilate the drying chamber 13 while operating the burner 31 to heat the air A flowing into the drying chamber 13 and generate hot air H functions as the hot air supply means Y that supplies the hot air H to the drying chamber 13.

The rotating drum 12 includes a cylindrical portion 26 in which the drying chamber 13 for drying the clothes C is formed, and a rear wall portion 27 which forms the rear side wall surface of the drying chamber 13. The rear wall portion 27 is formed with a rear opening 28 in which the filter 17 is attached.
The cylindrical portion 26 has an inner diameter larger than that of the input port 16, and is located outside the input port 16 when viewed in the axial direction along the axial center direction. In other words, the input port 16 has a smaller diameter than the cylindrical portion 26, and is located inside the cylindrical portion 26 when viewed in the axial center direction.

As shown in Figs. 1 and 2, the cylindrical portion 26 has a storage portion 40 at a portion of the circumference of the cylindrical portion 26. As shown in Fig. 2, the storage portion 40 is formed to have a shape that is radially larger than a main portion 41, which is the portion of the cylindrical portion 26 other than the storage portion 40, and has a convex shape that protrudes radially outward from the main portion 41. Furthermore, when the storage portion 40 is located at the bottom of the cylindrical portion 26, it can be said that the storage portion 40 is formed in a recessed shape that is recessed downward. The storage portion 40 has a shape in which the circumferential width is larger than the width of the small garment CS (see Fig. 1).

To explain further, as shown in FIG. 1, there are large garments C, which are large garments C, and small garments C, which are garments C smaller than the large garments CL, and the storage section 40 has a shape in which the circumferential width is greater than the width of the small garments CS.
Specifically, large clothing CL is defined as clothing such as shirts and bath towels whose length of the set part is equal to or longer than the set length (e.g., 35 cm), and small clothing CS is defined as clothing such as socks and handkerchiefs whose length of the set part is shorter than the set length. Incidentally, the length of the set part is defined as the width (e.g., 50 cm) or length (e.g., 68 cm) for shirts, the length of the long side (e.g., 120 cm) for bath towels, the length of one side (e.g., 25 cm) for handkerchiefs, and the size from toe to heel (e.g., 26 cm) for socks, which are the lengths of the main parts of clothing C.

As shown in FIG. 2, the circumferential width L of the storage portion 40 is set to 1/4 to 1/6 of the total circumferential length of the cylindrical portion 26. In this embodiment, the circumferential width L of the storage portion 40 is set to the same length as the set length. In other words, the circumferential width L of the storage portion 40 is larger than the set point of the small garment CS and is the same as or smaller than the set point of the large garment CL. Therefore, the small garment CS can enter the storage portion 40 without twisting, making it easier to store in the storage portion 40.

The main part 41 of the cylindrical part 26 is formed in an arc shape centered on the rotation axis P, while the storage part 40 of the cylindrical part 26 is formed in a rectangular shape that protrudes radially outward from the main part 41. As shown in FIG. 1, the storage part 40 is formed in a shape that becomes larger radially toward the front side. The front side is the side of the cylindrical part 26 in the direction along the rotation axis P where the insertion port 16 is located, and corresponds to the front side. In this embodiment, the storage part 40 is formed across the entire width or approximately the entire width of the cylindrical part 26 in the axial direction. Although the storage part 40 becomes larger radially toward the front side, the circumferential width is constant.

The operation control unit 50 executes drying control and stop control. These drying control and stop control are executed in the order described. Drying control is a control that rotates the rotating drum 12 to dry the clothes C in the drying chamber 13 while agitating them. Stop control is a control that stops the rotating drum 12 rotated in the drying control at a set rotation position where the storage portion 40 is located at the bottom of the cylindrical portion 26 based on detection by the rotation position detection means 38.

The control of the operation control unit 50 will be explained based on the control flow chart of FIG. 3. When the operation of the drying operation is performed by the operation panel (not shown) provided on the outer surface of the housing 10 (in the case of Yes in S1), the operation control unit 50 starts the drying control (S2). In the drying control, the hot air supply means Y and the rotary drive means X are controlled so that the clothes C in the drying chamber 13 are dried while rotating the rotating drum 12. Then, after a set time has elapsed since the rotation of the rotating drum 12 has started, or when it is determined that the clothes C in the drying chamber 13 have dried based on the detection of the dryness detection means (not shown), the stop control is started (S3). In the stop control, the rotary drive means X is controlled based on the rotation information of the rotation position detection means 38 so that the rotating drum 12 is stopped at the set rotation position. In this way, by executing the drying control and the stop control, the clothes C in the drying chamber 13 can be dried, and after the drying of the clothes C is completed, the rotating drum 12 stops at the set rotation position where the storage portion 40 is located at the bottom of the cylindrical portion 26.

[Another embodiment]
Other embodiments of the present invention will be described below. Note that the configurations of the embodiments described below are not limited to being applied alone, but may also be applied in combination with the configurations of other embodiments.

(1) In the above embodiment, based on the detection of the rotational position detection means 38, stop control is performed to stop the rotating drum 12 rotated during drying control at a set rotational position where the storage portion 40 is located at the bottom of the cylindrical portion 26. However, without performing such stop control, for example, the storage portion 40 may be made heavier than the main portion 41 so that the rotating drum 12 can rotate freely when the rotation of the rotating drum 12 is stopped, and the weight of the storage portion 40 causes the rotating drum 12 to stop when the storage portion 40 is located at the set rotational position.

(2) In the above embodiment, the storage portion 40 is formed in a shape that increases radially toward the front side, but the storage portion 40 may be formed in a shape in which the radial size is constant at any position in the axial direction.

REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 Clothes drying device 10 Housing 12 Rotary drum 13 Drying chamber 16 Insertion port 26 Cylindrical portion 38 Rotational position detection means 40 Storage portion 41 Main portion 50 Operation control portion (operation control means)
C Clothing CL Large clothing CS Small clothing P Rotation axis X Rotation drive means

Claims (3)

The apparatus includes a housing and a rotary drum that is provided inside the housing and rotates around a rotation axis along a horizontal direction,
The rotary drum has a cylindrical portion having a drying chamber formed therein for drying clothes,
The housing has a circular opening for inserting the clothes into the drying chamber in the cylindrical portion,
The input port is formed to have a smaller diameter than the cylindrical portion and is located within the cylindrical portion when viewed in an axial direction along the rotation axis,
The clothes include large clothes that are large clothes and small clothes that are smaller than the large clothes,
The cylindrical portion includes a housing portion at a portion in a circumferential direction of the cylindrical portion,
The storage portion is formed in a rectangular shape that is radially larger than the main portion of the cylindrical portion other than the storage portion, protrudes radially outward from the main portion , and has a circumferential width that is greater than the width of the small garment , and the storage portion rotates around the rotation axis as the rotating drum rotates around the rotation axis.This is a clothes drying device. The apparatus includes a housing and a rotary drum that is provided inside the housing and rotates around a rotation axis along a horizontal direction,
The rotary drum has a cylindrical portion having a drying chamber formed therein for drying clothes,
The housing has a circular opening for inserting the clothes into the drying chamber in the cylindrical portion,
The input port is formed to have a smaller diameter than the cylindrical portion and is located within the cylindrical portion when viewed in an axial direction along the rotation axis,
The clothes include large clothes that are large clothes and small clothes that are smaller than the large clothes,
The cylindrical portion includes a housing portion at a portion in a circumferential direction of the cylindrical portion,
The storage portion is formed to have a shape that is radially larger than a main portion of the cylindrical portion other than the storage portion, and has a circumferential width that is larger than a width of the small garment,
A rotation drive means for rotating the rotary drum about the rotation axis;
a rotational position detection means capable of detecting a rotational position of the rotary drum;
An operation control means for controlling the operation,
The operation control means of the clothes drying device performs drying control in which the rotating drum is rotated to dry the clothes in the drying chamber while agitating them, and stop control in which the rotating drum rotated in the drying control is stopped at a set rotation position where the storage portion is located at the bottom of the cylindrical portion based on detection by the rotation position detection means. The apparatus includes a housing and a rotary drum that is provided inside the housing and rotates around a rotation axis along a horizontal direction,
The rotary drum has a cylindrical portion having a drying chamber formed therein for drying clothes,
The housing has a circular opening for inserting the clothes into the drying chamber in the cylindrical portion,
The input port is formed to have a smaller diameter than the cylindrical portion and is located within the cylindrical portion when viewed in an axial direction along the rotation axis,
The clothes include large clothes that are large clothes and small clothes that are smaller than the large clothes,
The cylindrical portion includes a housing portion at a portion in a circumferential direction of the cylindrical portion,
The storage portion is formed to have a shape that is radially larger than a main portion of the cylindrical portion other than the storage portion, and has a circumferential width that is larger than a width of the small garment,
The side of the cylindrical portion in the direction along the rotation axis where the insertion port is located is defined as the front side,
The storage portion is formed in a shape that becomes larger in a radial direction toward the front side of the clothes drying device.

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