JPS6048198B2 - How to display the remaining time required for drying operation in a dryer - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a dryer configured to heat intake air and supply it into a drying chamber, and then exhaust the hot air from which moisture has been removed from the drying chamber. The remaining time required for the drying operation can be predicted and displayed at the beginning of the drying operation, and the remaining time required for the drying operation thus predicted and displayed can be corrected just before the end of the drying operation. To provide a method for displaying the remaining time required for drying operation in a dryer, which can display the remaining time of a drying operation in a dryer and is very convenient in actual use without the risk of the display on the display device becoming unnatural.

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings.
First of all, in Fig. 1 showing the general structure of the whole, numeral 1 denotes a rotating drum serving as a drying chamber, which is rotatably supported within an outer box 2, and its rotation stirs the objects to be dried inside, such as clothes. do.

Reference numeral 3 denotes a motor disposed at the lower part of the outer box 2, which rotates the rotary drum 1 via a belt 4, and
The fan 6 inside the fan casing 5 is rotated.

When the fan 6 is rotated, outside air is sucked into the outer box 2 through the intake hole group 7, and the sucked air is diffused by the air expansion plate 8, and is then passed through a heater for generating hot air provided on the air expansion plate 8. 9, and is supplied into the rotating drum 1 through a rear ventilation hole group 10. The hot air that has removed moisture from the clothes in the rotating drum 1 is discharged into the fan casing 5 through a gap 12 formed around the door 11 and a filter 13.
Further, the air is discharged to the outside of the outer box 2 through the exhaust duct 14, and in this way, the clothes inside the rotary drum 1 are dried using hot air. Reference numeral 15 denotes an exhaust temperature detection element, which is installed in the exhaust passage between the filter 13 and the fan casing 5, for example, to detect the temperature of hot air discharged from the rotary drum 1 through the air gap 12 and the filter 13, that is, the exhaust temperature. It is arranged.

Reference numeral 16 denotes an intake air temperature detection element, which detects the temperature of the outside air drawn into the outer box 2 from the intake hole group 7, that is, the intake air temperature, for example, between the outer box 2 and the air expansion plate 8. It is placed in the aisle. Next, a second section showing a block diagram of the electrical configuration is shown.
In the figure, 17 is a temperature difference signal output section, which is a temperature difference signal Sn that numerically corresponds to the temperature difference between the exhaust temperature D and the intake air temperature A detected by the exhaust temperature detection element 15 and the intake air temperature detection element 16. Output as . By the way, when drying the clothes in the rotary drum 1 by the drying operation using hot air as described above, the characteristic curve of increase in the exhaust temperature D detected by the exhaust temperature detection element 15 is as shown in FIG. It has been experimentally shown that this changes depending on the amount of clothing in the barrel. That is, this figure 3 shows the amount of clothing Pl, P
2, P3, and P4 (where P1>P2>P3>P4) are used as parameters, the horizontal axis represents the elapsed time t after the start of drying operation using hot air, and the vertical axis represents the exhaust temperature D detected by the exhaust temperature detection element 15. As will be understood from now on, the time required for drying the clothes T
1, T2, T3, and T4 have a characteristic that they become longer as the amount of clothes increases, and the rate of rise in the exhaust temperature D at the beginning of the drying operation becomes slower as the amount of clothes increases. In other words, there is a difference between the degree of increase in the exhaust gas temperature D at the beginning of the drying operation and the time required to complete drying of the clothes. There is a relationship that the period becomes longer. There is a remaining time prediction device 18 that utilizes the characteristics described above, and this will be described below. Reference numeral 19 denotes a temperature rise degree measuring section, which outputs the temperature difference signal Sn as a temperature difference signal S5 corresponding to the rise degree of the exhaust gas temperature D at the beginning of the drying operation, for example, when 5 minutes have passed from the start of the operation.

Furthermore, the degree of increase in the exhaust gas temperature D is detected using the temperature difference signal Sn. This is to exclude the influence of changes in intake air temperature A (ie, outside air temperature). Further, 20 is a storage unit, which stores a temperature difference signal based on the relationship that the temperature difference signal S5 is small and the time required for drying the clothes is approximately long, in other words, the remaining time required for the drying operation becomes long. The average actual measured value of the remaining required time corresponding to S5 is stored in advance as data of the predicted remaining time Rf. Furthermore, 21 is a control section which, when receiving the temperature difference signal S5, stores the predicted remaining time Rf corresponding to the temperature difference signal S5 in the storage section 21.
It reads out from 0 and outputs it as the predicted time value Fn. On the other hand, 22 is a remaining time determining device, which will be described below.

Reference numeral 23 denotes a drying rate detection unit to which a temperature difference signal Sn is input, and this uses the characteristic that the temperature difference signal Sn corresponds to the drying rate of the clothes in the rotating drum 1, and detects that the drying rate of the clothes is, for example, 95. % (100% drying rate here does not mean zero moisture, but refers to an artificially determined target value), this is detected by the temperature difference signal Sn and a dryness detection signal Sp is generated.
Output.

24 is a storage unit which determines the time required for the drying rate of the clothes to reach approximately 100% from 95% and stores the remaining time Rc
It is stored as data.

Note that the storage unit 24 stores a plurality of types of determined remaining time RC data depending on the amount of clothing, etc., and the user can select from this depending on the amount of clothing, etc. 25 is a remaining time determining unit, which receives the dryness detection signal S
When p is received, the remaining determination time Rc is read out from the storage unit 24 and outputted as the determination time value Cn.

Now, 26 is a timekeeping device into which the predicted time value Fn and the determined time value Cn are inputted, and this is used for each time value Fn and Cn.
When n is input, each time is subtracted, for example, in minutes, and the contents of the time are sequentially output from the time output terminal a.

Further, the timekeeping device 26 stops the timekeeping operation after a predetermined period of time, for example, N minutes, after the predicted time value Fn is input, and then restarts the timekeeping operation when the determined time value Cn is inputted. When the subsequent time counting operation is completed, a stop signal P is output from the signal output terminal b. Reference numeral 27 denotes a display device, which is arranged to receive the clock output from the clock device 26 and digitally displays a numerical value corresponding to the clock output.

At this time, the timekeeping device 26, during the timekeeping operation stop period until the determined time value Cn is input, displays each unit segment 27a of the display number (three digits in this case) on the display device 27 as shown in FIG. 27c are turned on sequentially at a predetermined period. Further, 28 is an operation stop device, which is the clock device 2.
The drying operation is stopped when the stop signal P from 6 is received. The display device 27 is disposed at a position that is easily visible to the user, for example, at the upper front side of the outer box 2 (see FIG. 1). Next, we will discuss the effects of the above configuration in the fifth section.
The explanation will be given with reference to the time chart shown in the figure.

In addition, FIG. 5 shows the display contents of the display device 27, and the horizontal axis shows the elapsed time t after the start of drying operation using hot air, and (1) and (■) indicate the predicted remaining time and determined remaining time, respectively. Each display time, (■) corresponds to the time display stop period. Now, when drying operation using hot air for clothes put into the rotary drum 1 is started, the exhaust temperature D gradually rises at the beginning of the operation, and the temperature difference signal output section 17 detects the constantly changing exhaust temperature D and intake air temperature. A temperature difference signal Sn
Output sequentially as . Then, when 5 minutes have passed from the start of the drying operation (time t1 in FIG. 5), the temperature rise degree measuring section 1
9 outputs a temperature difference signal S5. Then, upon receiving the temperature difference signal S5, the control section 21 stores from the storage section 22 the remaining required time Rf (for example, Rf=
120 minutes) and use this as the predicted time Fn="120 minutes".
", and the timekeeping device 26 that receives this predicted time value Fn="120" outputs the predicted time value Fn="120" as "
119'', ``118'', etc., and so on. As a result, the display device 27 that has received the clock output from the clock device 26 displays the contents of the clock output as the predicted drying operation remaining time value of "120", "119", "1", etc.
18'', . . . are displayed digitally in sequence. Then, the clock device 26 calculates the predicted time value Fn=“1”.
When N minutes have passed since "20" was input (time T2 in FIG. 4), the timekeeping operation is stopped, and the display device 2
7 is lit as described above to stop the time display. Thereafter, when the drying rate of the clothes reaches 95% at time T3 in FIG.
3 detects and outputs a dryness detection signal Sp, and the remaining time determination unit 25 that receives this dryness detection signal Sp reads the determined remaining time Rc (for example, Rc = 10 minutes) from the storage unit 24,
This is output as the determination time value Cn=[10]. Then, the timer 26 that received the determined time value Cn = "10" subtracts the time from this as [10], "9 above [8.k...", etc., and the display device 27 that receives this time output The content of the time measurement output is set as "10" as the determined remaining time value for drying operation.
, "9", "8", . . . are sequentially digitally displayed.

Thereafter, when the timekeeping operation of the timekeeping device 26 is completed and the display on the display device 27 becomes "0", the timekeeping device 26
A stop signal P is output from the drying device 28, and the operation stop device 28 that receives this stop signal P stops the drying operation at time T4 in FIG. According to the above configuration, the user can easily know the remaining time required for the drying operation by visually checking the predicted remaining time displayed on the display unit 27 at the beginning of the operation, and can determine the end time of the drying operation. Therefore, it is possible to take out the clothes in the rotating drum 1 immediately after the drying operation is completed, and it is possible to prevent the clothes from being left in the rotating drum 1 for a long period of time and from becoming wrinkled. It is something.

Furthermore, it is possible to perform other tasks while keeping an eye on the end time of the drying operation, which is convenient in real life. Furthermore, it is even more convenient because the accurate remaining time required for the drying operation, that is, the determined remaining time is displayed just before the end of the drying operation, and the predicted remaining time is corrected. Moreover, since a time display stop period is provided between each display period of the predicted remaining time and the determined remaining time, the display on the display device 27 due to the error between the predicted remaining time and the determined remaining time. There is no risk of it becoming unnatural. Moreover, since a part of the display device 27 is turned on during the time display stop period, it is possible to know whether or not the drying operation is being performed normally during this period by checking the lighting state of the display device 27. It's convenient to do. In the above embodiment, the degree of increase in the exhaust gas temperature D is determined based on the temperature difference between the exhaust gas temperature D and the intake air temperature A after a predetermined time (5 minutes) has elapsed from the start of the drying operation. However, the present invention is not limited to this, and for example, the time required for the temperature difference to reach a predetermined value may be measured, and the degree of increase in the exhaust gas temperature may be determined based on this.

Moreover, it goes without saying that the object of the present invention is not limited to only drum-type dryers or clothes/dryers.

As explained above, the present invention provides an indication of the remaining time required for drying operation in a dryer configured to heat the suction air and supply it into the drying chamber, and then exhaust the hot air from which moisture has been removed from the drying chamber. In the method, the remaining time required for the drying operation can be predicted and displayed at the beginning of the drying operation, and the remaining time required for the drying operation thus predicted and displayed can be corrected just before the end of the drying operation. Furthermore, there is no risk that the display on the display device will become unnatural, and it is very convenient in actual use.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawings relate to one embodiment of the present invention, in which Fig. 1 is a schematic longitudinal sectional side view of the whole, Fig. 2 is a block diagram, Fig. 3 is a temperature rise characteristic curve diagram, and Fig. 4 shows the display state of the display device. A front view and a time chart are shown in FIG. 5 for explanation. In the figure, 1 is a rotating drum (drying chamber), 18 is a remaining time prediction device, 22 is a remaining time determining device, and 27 is a display device.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a dryer that heats intake air and supplies it into a drying chamber, and then exhausts the hot air from which moisture has been removed from the drying chamber, the degree of rise in exhaust temperature from the drying chamber at the beginning of drying operation is detected. a remaining time prediction device for predicting the remaining time required for the drying operation based on the detection result and predicted remaining time data stored in advance; a remaining time determining device that determines the remaining time required for the drying operation based on the detection result thereof, and a display device that displays the remaining time predicted by the remaining time predicting device and the remaining time determined by the remaining time determining device, respectively. established,
A method for displaying remaining time required for drying operation in a dryer, characterized in that a time display stop period is provided between each display period of the predicted remaining time and determined remaining time on the display device.