JPS633633B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method for detecting the amount of washed material, and after spraying water on a water-containing washed material whose bulk is stabilized by water spraying, the amount of the washed material is detected. The present invention relates to a method for detecting the amount of washed material.

As such cleaning items, for example, there are a wide range of items made of textiles.

An example of this is cloth products that need to be washed.To give an example of a washing machine that automatically performs washing, rinsing, and dehydration, there is a conventional method for detecting the amount of cloth to be washed. When washing clothes, the customer judged the amount of cloth to be washed and manually set the water level, but it was troublesome to readjust the water level every time the clothes were washed.
Therefore, except in special cases, such as when washing with water from a bath, the water level was often fixed.

Accordingly, even if there are only a few items to be washed, there are cases where washing is done at a high water level, which often results in wasted water.

In addition, since detergent is used according to the water level (amount of water), this results in secondary waste and the use of more detergent than necessary, which goes against the idea of saving water and detergent. .

To address this issue, we first put the items to be washed into the washing tank, apply ultrasonic waves directly to the fabric surface, measure the height of the fabric surface, and detect the amount. I tried it experimentally, but in that case, depending on how the cloth was pressed, the amount of bulge would be different even with the same amount of cloth, and on a dry cloth surface, ultrasonic waves would be absorbed or reflected diffusely. The frequency of failure to measure was high.

The present invention also includes solving the drawbacks of the above-mentioned methods for determining the amount of cloth to be washed, by accurately measuring and detecting the amount of cloth to be washed, and making it suitable for subsequent processing. The object of the present invention is to provide a method for detecting the amount of washed material by sprinkling water.

The gist of the present invention is to use a technology that places an ultrasonic transmitter/receiver in a position facing the cleaning tank and measures the amount of cleaning material in the tank from the round trip time of the ultrasonic waves.
Specifically, after the cleaning items are put in and before ultrasonic measurement, the cleaning items are sprinkled with water from above to absorb water, thereby stabilizing the bulk of the cleaning items, that is, the bulge, and It is designed to improve the reflection of ultrasonic waves and measure the amount of cleaning material.

The method for detecting the amount of cleaning material according to the present invention involves spraying water on the cleaning material that is water-containing and whose bulk is stabilized by water sprinkling, which is placed in a cleaning tank. The amount of the cleaning material is detected by measuring the round trip time of the ultrasonic waves reflected on the surface of the cleaning object using a sound wave transmitter/receiver and comparing it with a preset measurement reference value. This is what I did.

Next, one embodiment of the present invention will be described based on the drawings.

Therefore, this embodiment relates to an item to be washed in a fully automatic washing machine as an item to be washed whose amount is detected.

In other words, in order to eliminate the above-mentioned wastage when washing and to create an efficient and easy-to-use washing machine, the amount of cloth put into the washing tank is accurately measured using a detector, and based on this information, It is used to automatically set the washing program, and an ultrasonic transmitter/receiver is installed at a fixed position facing the washing tank at the top of the washing machine, and the amount of items to be washed in the washing tank is determined from the round trip time of the ultrasonic waves. It is designed to measure the amount of water contained in the washing tank.
After sprinkling water, the amount of items to be washed was measured.

First, FIG. 1 is an opened schematic sectional view of a fully automatic washing machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.

That is, 1 is an outer frame, and 2 is a top cover that is fixed to the upper surface of the outer frame 1 and has the function of supporting and fixing a panel operation section, a control section, a lid, etc.

Reference numeral 3 denotes corner plates provided at the four corners of the upper end of the outer frame 1.

4 is an outer tank serving as a water receptacle, and this outer tank 4 is suspended from the corner plate 3 by four hanging rods 5, and is elastically supported by a spring 6. There is.

Reference numeral 7 denotes a basket related to the washing tank, which rotates during dehydration to dewater the items to be washed using centrifugal force.

8 is a motor whose rotation is transmitted to the driven pulley 10 via the V-belt 9, and 11 is a clutch that reduces the rotation speed of the driven pulley 10 and switches between washing and dehydration. be.

12 is a pulsator, which is a blade that generates a water flow that transmits the rotational force of the motor 8 to the items to be washed.

13 is a trap chamber provided at the bottom of the outer tank 4, and a vinyl tube 14 is connected to the upper part of the trap chamber 13.

This vinyl tube 14 is attached to the top cover 2.
is connected to a pressure switch 15 fixed to the tank, converts water pressure generated by the water level in the tank into air pressure,
A diaphragm (not shown) inside the pressure switch 15 is inflated to detect the water level.

16 is a water supply valve, and a water inlet 18 is connected by a hose 17.
This water supply valve 16 is connected to a water supply hose from a faucet to supply water into the tank.

19 is the water inlet 1 at the top facing the basket 7.
8 is an ultrasonic transmitter provided on the inside of the washing tank, and a receiver 20 is fixed close to the ultrasonic transmitter to measure the items to be washed in the washing tank. It is located at the back, perpendicular to the plane of the paper.

It is preferable that these transmitting and receiving elements 19 and 20 are not covered with water, and the illustrated one is disposed on the side and inside of the water inlet 18.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of an ultrasonic transmitter/receiver circuit showing the principle of distance measurement.

The ultrasonic waves emitted from the transmitter 19 attached to the upper part facing the basket 7 related to the washing tank are
It propagates at the speed of sound v in the air and returns by being reflected on the surface of a reflecting object.If the time required for the round trip is t, then the distance L to the reflecting object is determined by the following equation.

L=vt/2 Next, the operation of the illustrated circuit will be briefly explained.

The oscillation circuit generates a carrier wave with a frequency of 40KHz, and the pulse from the multivibrator circuit causes the ultrasonic pulse to be transmitted from the transmitter 19, received by the reflected wave receiver 20, processed by the amplification and detection circuit, and sent to the comparator. , the timing is determined by the multivibrator circuit, and compared with the signal processed by the smoothing circuit (RC), and if the level of the received signal exceeds the level of the smoothing circuit, a signal is sent to the flip-flop circuit. It is something.

Here, to explain the above-mentioned smoothing circuit, in addition to the reflected waves from the reflecting object, the receiver 20 receives so-called leakage waves that directly enter the receiver 20 from the transmitter 19. Ru. The amplification and detection circuits associated with the receiving section amplify and detect these waves, and remove high frequency components.

Here, since the above-mentioned leakage wave interferes with distance measurement, the pulse from the multivibrator circuit is smoothed by a smoothing circuit with a time constant consisting of R and C. The comparator circuit obtains the timing at which the true reflected wave returns, undisturbed by the leakage waves. Based on the timing of the return of the reflected wave and the timing of the transmission from the multivibrator circuit, the flip-flop circuit obtains a pulse having a width proportional to the time required for the ultrasonic wave to travel back and forth.

As described above, the flip-flop is inverted by the signal from the comparator circuit, and apart from these, an AND with the clock pulse that is the reference for measurement from the circuit that continuously generates clock pulses is sent to the gate circuit. A pulse having a width proportional to the required time and a clock pulse serving as a reference for measurement are added to the gate, and the clock pulses counted only while the gate is open are counted by a counter and transmitted to the instruction control section 21. By counting the number of clock pulses with a counter in this manner, the distance can be determined, and the data is input to the instruction control section 21 and used for processing such as determining the water level.

The instruction control section 21 described above is composed of a computer such as a microcomputer, and is incorporated into a control board (not shown) and mounted on the panel section of the top cover 2.

Furthermore, the circuits included in FIG. 2 are also incorporated and mounted within the control board.

Next, an embodiment of the water spray measurement according to the present invention having the above-mentioned configuration will be described.

Here, FIG. 3 is a diagram explaining the principle of the water spray measurement method, and FIG. 4 is a diagram showing the relationship between the amount of water sprinkled and the amount of cloth.

In other words, Figure 3 shows that by sprinkling water on the items to be washed, the items to be washed absorb moisture and descend, increasing their bulk.
The height h of the items to be washed varies depending on the amount of items to be washed.

This is shown by the characteristic curve shown in Figure 4, and has the characteristic that no matter what the load, the change in height becomes constant as measured by ultrasonic waves after approximately 10 water sprinklings.

If you water more, the water level will rise, resulting in a positive change, so a water supply of about 10 is the optimal amount of water.

In the present embodiment, the water sprinkling measurement method based on this new knowledge is used as a judgment method for detecting the amount of cloth.

Note that the parameters in FIG. 4 indicate the amount of laundry to be washed (Kg).

That is, in this example, when actually measuring the distance to the cloth surface, in order to reduce the problems of poor reflection on the cloth surface and variations in the bulge of the cloth, which were problems with the experimental method, , water is sprayed onto the fabric surface from above before measurement using ultrasonic waves, and as shown in Fig. 3, water is sprayed from the water inlet 18 so that the entire fabric surface is covered with water. be.

As a result, the fibers of the cloth absorb water, and the bulge descends to a constant, stable height proportional to the amount of cloth.

The relationship between the amount of water sprinkled and the height when the amount of cloth is changed is as shown in FIG. 4, as described above.

As you can see from the figure, even if it was a small amount of cloth to be washed, or about 2.8 kg, which is the maximum washing capacity of a standard fully automatic washing machine, it was possible to make it to a stable height by spraying water about 10 times. be.

On the other hand, if you increase the amount of water, as mentioned earlier, if the amount of washing is small, the items will start to float, making it impossible to measure the amount accurately. be.

As a result, it was found that the optimum amount of water to be sprinkled is between 10 and 15, including the amount mentioned above, when considering 2.8 kg.

Furthermore, by uniformly sprinkling water to impregnate the cloth, the reflection of ultrasonic waves on the cloth surface becomes very good, and there are almost no cases where measurements cannot be made.

As described above, it can be used to determine the amount of load to be washed, and can contribute to the washing operation.

According to the present invention according to this embodiment, the following effects can be expected, and it has excellent advantages not found in conventional methods.

(1) It has become possible to smooth out the variations caused by the way washing items are loaded.

(2) Good reflection on any fiber surface;
The number of cases where measurements were impossible to measure has been drastically reduced.

(3) It was possible to eliminate the difference in the level of swelling between wet laundry items and dry laundry items.

Next, Figures 5 and 6 show the previous sending and receiving child 1.
9 and 20 are a main part sectional view and a main part perspective view of a fully automatic washing machine according to another embodiment of the arrangement.

That is, the one shown in FIG. 5 has transmitting and receiving elements 19 and 20 arranged in parallel on the side of the water inlet on the side of the water inlet that cannot be seen on the back side of the top cover. Figure 5 shows what is behind the water inlet.

Moreover, the one shown in FIG. 6 is attached to the back side of the lid.

All of these are arranged in the upper part facing the washing tank.

However, as stated at the beginning, the above-mentioned embodiments are exemplified by the cloth for washing items, but the present invention is not limited to such cloths, but can be applied to a wide range of textile products and contaminated sponge bodies, etc.
In short, this is a water-containing material that can be used for general purposes to detect the amount of cleaning material whose volume stabilizes when water is sprinkled on it.

In summary, the present invention can provide an amount detection method based on new knowledge that can accurately measure and detect the amount of washed material, and has excellent effects. It can be said that it is an invention that plays a role.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is an exploded cross-sectional view of a fully automatic washing machine according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is an ultrasonic transmitting/receiving circuit that also shows the principle of distance measurement. 3 is a diagram explaining the principle of the water spray measurement method, FIG. 4 is a characteristic diagram of the relationship between the amount of water sprinkled and the amount of cloth, and FIG. A sectional view of the main parts of a fully automatic washing machine, No. 6
Similarly, the figure is a perspective view of a main part of a fully automatic washing machine which is still another embodiment. 7...Basket, 18...Water inlet, 19...
Sender, 20...Receiver.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. After sprinkling water on laundry that contains water and whose bulk can be stabilized by water sprinkling, which is placed in a washing tank, an ultrasonic transmitter/receiver placed facing the tank is used to detect the surface of the laundry. The amount of the cleaning object is detected by measuring the round trip time of the ultrasonic wave reflected by the object and comparing it with a preset reference value for measurement. Detection method.