JPH0673586B2 - Fully automatic washing machine - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION Object of the Invention (Industrial field of application) The present invention has a control circuit composed of a microcomputer for controlling a plurality of steps such as washing, and a multi-digit numeral display element. A fully automatic washing machine having a time indicator configured and driven by a control circuit.

(Prior Art) Conventionally, in a fully automatic washing machine, a control circuit including a microcomputer is provided to automatically control a plurality of steps such as washing, rinsing, and dehydrating, and a plurality of numeral display elements are provided. A time display device arranged in columns is provided, and this time display device is drive-controlled by a control circuit, for example, while the washing machine is in operation, the remaining required time until the end of operation is displayed, and The one that displays the time when not in use is provided.

(Problems to be solved by the invention) By the way, in this type of washing machine, with the diversification of control contents for each stroke (for example, stroke execution time value arbitrarily set for each stroke), On the side of the user, the recognition of the control contents becomes insufficient, and it may take some time to grasp the control contents when actually using the control device. Therefore, in order to make it possible to recognize the control content of each stroke, it is considered to provide a control content indicator for displaying the control content of each stroke individually. When the washing machine operation panel is further provided with a plurality of control content indicators, the size of the operation panel is limited. Due to the relation with the display and other electric components, there is a problem in that they are difficult to dispose, and the productivity is generally poor, and the cost is high.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and an object thereof is to display the control content for each stroke of a plurality of strokes without increasing the number of parts, and further to reduce the time on the operation panel. An object of the present invention is to provide a fully-automatic washing machine which can improve manufacturability without any trouble in disposing an indicator and other electric components.

[Structure of the Invention] (Means for Solving Problems) The present invention relates to a control circuit including a microcomputer,
A time display device having at least a 4-digit number display device, wherein the control circuit controls three steps of washing, rinsing, and dehydration, and at the same time, drives and controls the time display device, In addition to displaying the time on the time display and allocating the control contents of the three strokes to predetermined digits of the numeral display element at a predetermined time, the display is switched to the remaining time after the start of operation. It was done.

(Operation) In addition to displaying the time, the time display displays the control contents of the three steps of washing, rinsing, and dehydration at predetermined times by allocating to the predetermined digits of the numerical display element of the time display. It In this case, it is possible to determine which process the control content is based on the order of the digit, and the control content of the process can be recognized by the display content of the numeric display element of the digit. Therefore, it is not necessary to provide a control content indicator for each stroke. Moreover, it is possible to display three strokes at the same time, which is convenient, and the remaining time can be displayed.

(Embodiment) A first embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 3.

First, in FIG. 2, 1 is a main body of a washing machine, 2 is an outer box thereof, 3 is an upper cover, and 4 is an operation panel. In FIG. 1, reference numeral 5 denotes a control circuit which is provided on the back side of the operation panel 4 and includes a microcomputer, which has a clock function and can perform the steps of washing, rinsing and dehydrating continuously or independently. In addition to performing stroke control, such as controlling the stroke, the contents of control for each stroke, for example, the execution time value of each stroke is changed and set, and the time as a clock, the stroke execution time value, the remaining time, etc. are displayed on the display element described later. It is to be displayed. Reference numeral 6 denotes a time display provided on the operation panel 4, which is a numerical display device in which the numeral display elements 7, 8, 9, 10 are arranged in a plurality of digits in order from left to right as shown in FIGS. 1 and 3. The numerical display elements 10 and 12 of smaller size are arranged on the upper right side of the numerical display element 10. A "colon" shaped display element 13 is provided between the numeral display elements 8 and 9. Each of these display elements 7 to 13 is composed of a light emitting diode. Around the time display 6, a character display element composed of a fluorescent display element is provided, that is, to the left of the number display element 7, a character display element 1 representing "AM" or "PM" is provided.
4, 15 are arranged vertically, a character display element 16 representing "remaining" is arranged above the character display element 14, and a character display element representing "reservation" is arranged below the character display element 15.
17 are provided. Further, on the right side of the character display element 16, character display elements 18, 19 and 20 respectively representing "wash", "rinse" and "dehydration" are arranged, and the character display element "wash" is displayed. Is located above the numerical display elements 7 and 8 of the first and second digits, the "rinse" character display element 19 is located above the numerical display element 9 of the upper third digit, and The character display element 10 called "dehydrated" is located above the lowest three-digit number display element 10 and the smaller size number display elements 11 and 12. Further, a character display element 21 representing "minute" is arranged below the numeral display elements 7 and 8, and a character display element 22 representing "times" is arranged below the numeral display element 9 to display a numeral. A character display element 23 representing "minute" is arranged below the element 10, and the numeral display elements 11 and 12 are arranged.
A character display element 24 representing "second" is disposed below the. 25 is a group of switches for time adjustment for correcting the time when the time display 6 is used as a clock (when used for time display) or for presetting the operation start time of the washing machine. Is. 26 is a wash switch,
27 is a rinse switch, 28 is a dehydration switch, 29 is a start switch that also serves as a temporary stop switch, and these switches 26 to 29 give a control command signal to the control circuit 5 by their operation. Is configured to set and execute the control contents of each stroke based on the control command signal. Then, the wash switch 26
Indicates the control content of the washing process, for example, the process execution time value, according to the number of operations, “15 minutes”, “14 minutes”, ...
Set to minutes. The rinsing switch 27 sets the control content of the rinsing stroke, for example, the number of times of stroke execution to "2 times", "1 time", or "0 times" according to the number of times of operation. The dehydration switch 28 controls the contents of the dehydration process, for example, the process execution time value, according to the number of operations, “5 minutes”, “4 minutes”,
Set to "3 minutes", "2 minutes", "1 minute", "20 seconds", "0 seconds". Incidentally, 30 is a select switch.

Then, the control circuit 5 drives and controls the time display 6 and the other display elements 14 to 24 based on the operation of the switches 26 to 29 as follows.

First, when the washing machine is not used, the time display 6 displays the clock time. That is, the control circuit 5 causes the display element 14 of "AM" and 15 of "PM" to emit light according to the clock function, and the "hour" value of the clock time is displayed on the numeric display elements 7 and 8. Emit and display the "minute" value on the numeric display elements 9 and 10 and the "second" value on the numeric display elements 11 and 12, and also separate the "hour" and "minute" values. The display element 13 indicating is also made to emit light. Then, the time such as the clock time is displayed.

Here, a case will be described in which the user individually sets the execution time value, which is the control content, for each of the steps of washing, rinsing, and dehydration prior to the operation of the washing machine.

For example, when the stroke execution time value, which is the control content of the washing process, is set, when the washing switch 26 is turned on, the first turning-on operation causes each of the display elements 7 to 7 to operate.
After all 24 are stopped emitting light, the character display element 16 of "wash" and the character display element 21 of "minute" are illuminated and the numeral display element 7 and the second digit, which are the first digit, are displayed. And the numeral display element 8 is light-emitted. The displayed number at this time is "15". Therefore, when the washing switch 26 is turned on for the first time, the execution time value to be set is displayed as "15 minutes", and the numeral display elements 7 to 12 of the time display 6 are displayed numerically. Since the numerical display elements are the numerical display elements 7 and 8 which are the first and second highest digits, the execution time value for the washing step of each of the washing, rinsing and dehydration steps is displayed with this digit order. Can be determined. The numbers displayed on the number display elements 7 and 8 are changed to "14", "13", ... "0" according to the number of times the washing switch 26 is operated. If the other switches are turned on with an appropriate number of operations, the execution time value to be set is fixed to the numerical value displayed at that time.

Next, when setting the number of times of execution, which is the control content for the rinsing process, it is sufficient to turn on the rinsing switch 27, and in this case, the character display element 19 for "rinsing" and the character display for "turning" by the first operation. The element 22 and the element 22 emit light, and the numeral display element 9 displays the numeral "2". Also in this case, the numbers displayed on the number display element 9 are changed from "2" to "1" and "0" according to the number of times the rinse switch 27 is operated. When setting the number of times of execution of such a rinsing process, since the numeral display element for displaying the numeral is the numeral display element 9 in the upper third digit rank, the control content is set with the digit rank. It is determined that the corresponding process is the rinsing process, and the control content (the number of process executions) can be recognized by the number displayed on the number display element 9.

Further, when setting the stroke execution time value which is the control content of the dehydration process, the dehydration switch 28 is turned on. By this first turning-on operation, the character display element 20 of "dehydration" and the character display element 23 of "minutes" are illuminated and displayed, and the number display element 10 emits light to display the number "5". Therefore, by the first operation of the dehydration switch 28, the display content on the time display 6 is changed and designated as the stroke execution time value for the dehydration stroke, and the stroke execution time value of "5 minutes" is uniquely displayed first. To be done. Also in this case, the number display element 10 is changed according to the number of times the dehydration switch 28 is operated.
The displayed numbers in the above are "5" to "4", "3",
It is changed to "2" and "1". Then, in the operation after the numeral "1" is displayed, the numeral display element 10 and the character display element 23 "minute" are turned off, and instead of this, the character display elements 11, 12 and the character display "second" are displayed. The element 24 is illuminated. In this case, the numeral display elements 11 and 12 display "2
The number "0" and the number "0" are sequentially displayed according to the number of operations. At the time of setting the stroke execution time value of such a dehydration step, the numeral display element 10 or 1 in which the numeral display element for displaying a numeral among the numeral display elements 7 to 12 is the lower three digits
Since it is 1,12, it is determined that the displayed control content corresponds to the dehydration process based on the digit order, and the control content of the process is recognized by the number displayed on the numerical display element 10, 11, 12. To be done.

Next, when the start switch 29 is turned on, the "remaining" character display element 16 and the "minute" character display element 23 are illuminated, and the "wash" character display element 18 blinks, and the numbers are displayed. The remaining time until the end of the operation is displayed on the display elements 9 and 10 by light emission, and the display time decreases with the progress of the operation.

As described above, according to the present embodiment, the time indicator 6 for displaying the time such as the remaining required time of operation and the current time.
At the specified time (wash switch 26, rinse switch 2
7. When the dehydration switch 28 is operated), the control contents of the steps such as washing, rinsing and dehydration are displayed corresponding to the predetermined digits of the numerical display elements 7 to 12, so the control content for each step is displayed. Regarding the display of the stroke, the type of the stroke can be identified by the digit order of the numerical display element, and the control content of the corresponding stroke can be recognized by the display digit of each digit, so that the control content for each stroke can be displayed individually. The existing time display 6 can also be used as a control content display for this purpose, so that the control content for each stroke can be displayed without increasing the number of parts. Furthermore, the time display on the operation panel and other There is no need to worry about the arrangement of electrical components, and overall productivity can be improved. Moreover, since the three steps such as washing, rinsing, and dehydration are allocated and displayed for each digit of the numeral display element, the three steps can be displayed simultaneously, which is convenient.

In particular, according to the present embodiment, the character display element 18 "wash" is provided in the vicinity of the numerical display elements 7 and 8 for displaying the control content for the washing process, and the numerical display element 9 for displaying the control content for the rinsing process is provided. A character display element 19 of "rinse" is provided in the vicinity of, and a character display element 20 of "dehydration" is provided and displayed in the vicinity of the numerical display elements 10, 11 and 12 for displaying the control content of the dehydration process. Since the power stroke can be discriminated by the character display, the discrimination of the stroke can be further clarified.

In the above embodiment, the control contents to be displayed include the execution time value and the number of executions set for each stroke, but the contents to be displayed are the operation in each single stroke of washing, rinsing and dehydration. It may be the remaining time value. Further, in the above embodiment, the character display elements 14 to 24 are composed of fluorescent display elements, but these character display elements 14 to 24 may be replaced by light emitting diodes, and further, a numeral display element for displaying the "second" value. 11,12 is not always necessary.
An example thereof is shown in FIG. 4, which is the second embodiment of the present invention.
In FIG. 4, the light emitting diodes 31 corresponding to the letters “AM”, “PM”, “remaining”, “reservation”, “washing”, “rinsing”, and “dehydration” attached to the operation panel 4 are respectively shown. To 37, and the numeral display elements 11 and 12 in the first embodiment are eliminated.

Here, FIG. 5 to FIG. 9 show a third embodiment of the present invention, and in this embodiment, a point having a plurality of operation courses for a laundry operation and a display control method will be mainly described. In FIGS. 5 to 9, the same parts as those in the first embodiment are designated by the same reference numerals. First, the 7th
In the figure, 40 is a control circuit composed of a microcomputer, 41 is a power switch ON / OFF detection circuit which detects ON / OFF of a power switch 63 (see FIG. 6) and gives a detection signal to the control circuit 40, and 42 is a control circuit 5 In response to the output signal from the motor 43, the drain valve 44, the water supply valve 45, and the finish valve, etc.
A drive circuit that drives and controls 46, and 47 is a display device that includes a time display 48 described below. As shown in FIG. 5, the display device 47 is configured to have a course type display section 49, a water flow type display section 50, etc. in addition to the time display 48.
In the time display unit 48, each display element 7,8,9,10,13,51,52 is composed of a fluorescent display element, and the time display section 48 is the same as the first embodiment (third embodiment).
The numeral display elements 51 and 52 are different in segment configuration from the time display 6 of FIG. That is, although the numeral display elements 11 and 12 in the time display 6 of the first embodiment are so-called 7-segment type, the numeral display elements 51 and 5 in this time display 48 are shown.
2 has a segment structure in which the numbers "2" and "0" are fixedly displayed, respectively. This is a segment for setting the weak dehydration process, and the fixed display for 20 seconds is the minimum required setting in consideration of the saving of the number of terminals of the fluorescent display element and the fact that a finer display than necessary is complicated on the contrary. This is because the contents are displayed only. In FIG. 6, reference numeral 53 is an "auto" course setting switch for automatically detecting the amount of laundry and the degree of dirt as a driving course and controlling the washing, rinsing and dehydration processes according to the detection results. It is for setting the "auto" course of. 54
Is a course switching switch for switching the driving course to a course other than the "auto" course, and the main course of the driving course set by the course switching switch 54 is suitable for washing a small amount of laundry and driving. There are a "speed" course that takes a short time, a "weak wash" course that is suitable for washing laundry with a low degree of dirt, and a "hand wash" course that is suitable for washing laundry that is easily scratched. Each process of rinsing and dehydration is performed at a predetermined execution time or the number of executions according to the course. 55, 56 and 57 are a washing time setting switch, a rinsing frequency setting switch and a dehydration time setting switch, which are similar to the washing switch 26, the rinsing switch 27 and the dehydrating switch 28, respectively. Reference numeral 58 is a water level changeover switch for appropriately setting the supply water level, 59 is a water flow changeover switch for appropriately setting the water flow, 60 is a switch for changing the rinsing form from the normal `` rinsing rinse '' to `` water rinsing '', 61 Is a keep-on setting switch for soaking the laundry in water for a certain time after supplying water in the washing process. Each of these switches 55
The contents set by to 61 are newly stored in the control circuit 40 by the memory switch 62 as a "memory" course. This "memory" course may be set to perform all or multiple strokes of washing, rinsing and dehydration sequentially, or it may be set to perform a single stroke. The stored "memory" course is set as a driving course to be executed by turning on the memory switch 62 without operating the switches 55 to 61. The "auto" course is uniquely set when the power switch 63 is turned on.
Therefore, the "auto" course setting switch 53 is for returning to the "auto" course when the driving course is set to other than the "auto" course.

The control circuit 40 has a control program for the time display 48, and its flowchart is shown in FIG. This flowchart starts by connecting an unillustrated power outlet to a commercial power source. First, in step S ₁ , it is determined whether or not the power switch 63 is turned on (whether or not an on detection signal is input from the power switch on / off detection circuit 41), and if the power switch 63 is off, According to “NO” in this step S ₁ , step S ₂
In this case, the time display 48 displays the present time. An example of this time display form is shown in FIG. 9 (a).
On the other hand, if it is determined in step S ₁ that the power switch 63 is turned on, the process proceeds to step S ₃ in accordance with the “YES”, and it is determined whether or not the operation is stopped at the present time. . At this point, the process proceeds to step S ₄ in accordance with "YES" in the step S ₃ if there in the operating state, determines whether is in time setting by the switch group 25 for time setting is made. Here, if a in time setting, the process proceeds to step S ₂ described above, to display the time in this case set to a time display 48. If the time is not being set, the process proceeds to step S ₅ according to “NO” in step S ₄ . In this step S ₅ , the execution time value, the number of executions, etc. of the stroke in the currently set driving course are displayed. That is, if the "auto" course is set, the execution time of the washing process, the number of executions of the dehydration process and the execution time of the dehydration process in the course are determined by the predetermined digits of the numerical display elements 7 to 10 of the time display 48. , Respectively, and again
At the time of setting the control content of each process by the washing time setting switch 55, the rinse number setting switch 56, and the dehydration time setting switch 57, the set execution time and execution number are displayed. An example of this is shown in FIG. 9 (b).

Now, in the step S _3, if it is an operation state is determined, the process proceeds to step S ₆ in accordance with the "NO" in the step S _3. In step S _6, the remaining time required from the moment the operating programs currently being executed until the end is displayed. An example of this is shown in FIG. 9 (c). In the case of the third embodiment, the execution contents (display contents) in step S ₆ of the flowchart shown in FIG. 8 are displayed so that the remaining required time value up to the end of each process is displayed. By changing to, it is possible to display the remaining operation time value in each single stroke of washing, rinsing and dehydration.

Others The present invention is not limited to the above-described embodiments, and various modifications can be made without departing from the scope of the invention.

[Effect of the Invention] As apparent from the above description, the present invention includes a control circuit including a microcomputer and a time display configured to include at least a 4-digit number display element, and the control circuit In order to control the three steps of washing, rinsing, and dehydration by means of driving, and to drive and control the time indicator, while displaying the time on the time indicator, the control contents of the three steps at the predetermined time are indicated by the numeral. It is characterized in that the display is switched to the remaining time after the start of operation in addition to allocating the display to a predetermined digit of the display element, which allows the time to be displayed on the existing time display. In addition to what can be done, the control contents of the three steps of washing, rinsing, and dehydration can be displayed without causing an increase in the number of parts. Furthermore, the time display and other It is possible to improve the manufacturability without having to worry about the arrangement of electrical components. Moreover, the control contents of the three strokes can be displayed individually and at the same time, which is convenient and even until the end of operation. The remaining time can also be displayed, and the time display device can be made highly multifunctional, which is an excellent effect that it can greatly contribute to cost reduction.

[Brief description of drawings]

1 to 3 show a first embodiment of the present invention.
The figure is a plan view of the operation panel, FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the upper portion of the washing machine, and FIG. 3 is an enlarged front view of the main part. FIG. 4 is a view corresponding to FIG. 3 showing a second embodiment of the present invention. 5 to 9 show a third embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 5 is a front view of a display device, FIG. 6 is a front view of an operation panel, FIG. 7 is a block diagram, and FIG. Flowcharts and FIGS. 9A to 9C are front views of the display device for showing different display forms. In the figure, 4 is an operation panel, 5 is a control circuit, 6 is a time display, 7 to 12 are numerical display elements, 40 is a control circuit, and 48 is a time display.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A control circuit comprising a microcomputer and a time indicator having at least a 4-digit numeral display element for controlling three steps of washing, rinsing and dehydration. At the same time, in the drive control of the time display, in addition to displaying the time on the time display and allocating the control contents of the three strokes to predetermined digits of the numeric display element at a predetermined time, The fully automatic washing machine is characterized in that the display is switched to the remaining time after the start of operation.