JPH0675628B2 - Washing and drying machine - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a washing / drying machine that performs washing and drying in the same device as a household washing machine or a commercial washing machine.

(Prior Art) Conventionally, as a domestic washing machine, there are a two-tub type in which a washing tub and a dewatering tub are independent, and a one-tub type in which washing and dewatering are performed in the same tub. A schematic external view is shown in the figure. In addition, recently, a washing machine with a dryer equipped with a dryer is also commercially available, but its schematic external view has a tub for exclusive use for drying, independent of the washing tub as shown in FIG. Of course, a dryer alone without a washing tub is also commercially available.

Fig. 5 is a schematic external view of a washer / dewaterer and dryer commonly used in Western households. A horizontal support drum (rotation axis is horizontal) is used in contrast to a domestic vertical support drum (rotation axis is vertical). It is characterized by doing.

As mentioned above, there are differences in the drum support direction between Japan and Europe and the United States, but in both of them, the washing / dehydrating tub and the drying tub are made up of separate independent tubs, and after washing / dehydrating, by the hand of man. It is common in that it needs to be transferred to a drying tank.

However, a commercial washing machine or a built-in type domestic washing machine in Western Europe is also commercially available as a washing / dewatering / drying machine that continuously performs washing and drying by a horizontal support drum type.

(Problems to be Solved by the Invention) That is, in a domestic washing machine, clothes that have been washed and dehydrated, regardless of the east or west of the western world, are either manually transferred to a dryer, or It needs to be dried in the sun.

On the other hand, recently, the number of single-workers, single-employed workers, and couples who can not wash during the day is increasing, and it is a valuable time for them to wash at night.

However, current washing machines are designed for normal daytime use, so during nighttime washing, noise during washing, vibration during dehydration, valve switching noise, noise from dryers, etc. As a matter of course, not only families involved in laundry but also recent housing conditions often cause troubles such as disturbing the sleep of nearby residents. Further, at midnight, even a person who is doing laundry has troubles such as being unable to sleep calmly because of the work such as transferring clothes to a dryer after washing and dehydration are completed.

From the above situation, in the present invention, a new type of home washing machine that aims at low noise and low vibration, and at the same time, at night, performs a series of steps from washing to drying quietly and automatically in an unmanned manner It is the one we are trying to provide.

Further, with respect to the operation of putting in and out of clothes, the conventional vertical support drum or horizontal support drum has a problem that the waist of the laundry is overloaded by bending the waist or bending over, but in the present invention, this also occurs. The purpose is to solve them at the same time.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to achieve this object, in the present invention, in the washing / drying machine which continuously performs a series of steps of washing, rinsing, dehydration and drying in a single rotating drum, The rotary shaft of the drum is arranged in the casing with an inclination of 0 ° to 60 ° with respect to the horizontal, and the compressor / refrigerator is built into the casing, and the evaporator / condenser of the compressor / refrigerator, An air circulation path for circulating air is formed in the order of the rotary drum and the evaporator, which is a means for solving the above-mentioned problems.

Furthermore, in the present invention, at the time of dehydration at night, it is possible to select the rotation speed so that the rotation speed of the rotary drum can be made smaller than that at daytime, and the water replacement valve etc. is not a conventional instantaneous switching valve, but slowly. A special valve that operates is used for silence. Also, in order to prevent vibration and sound of the entire device at night, the device support structure is an elastic support structure during the day,
At night, it can be switched to a rigid support structure.

(Function) During washing, a specified amount of water is injected, as in a conventional washing machine, the rotating drum rotates continuously or intermittently, and the laundry in the drum repeatedly rises and falls as the drum rotates. Cleaning is done. After the washing is completed, the water is drained, and then the rotary drum is rotated to be dehydrated.

After that, a series of steps such as rinsing and dehydration are performed as in the conventional case, and when the washing is completed, the rotating drum rotates,
The refrigerator is started, and the circulating air is forcibly circulated through the circulation path in the order of rotating drum → evaporator → condenser → rotating drum.

That is, the air heated by the condenser enters the rotating drum,
The water content of the clothing is evaporated, and the water content is cooled together with water vapor through an evaporator and condensed to dehumidify. The dehumidified air is sent to the condenser portion again and heated to contact the clothes in the rotating drum to evaporate the moisture. In this way, a series of processes are automatically performed in one rotating drum.

During the above operation, the rotation speed of the rotary drum can be switched between daytime and nighttime, and the nighttime rotation speed is set lower than that during nighttime. Therefore, at night, the number of rotations of the drum is reduced to reduce noise and vibration associated with the rotation.

Further, since the rotating shaft of the drum is appropriately inclined with respect to the horizontal, the mechanical force applied to the clothes is weakened, the clothes are less damaged even if washed or dried for a long time, and the clothes are easily taken in and out.

Furthermore, since the heat pump system can obtain mild warm air of 50 to 60 ° C, it is possible to dry urethane coatings and acrylic fibers, which are sensitive to temperature, without any trouble.

(Example) Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a side sectional view of a washer / dryer as a typical embodiment of the present invention.

First, the configuration will be described.

When viewed from the side, the washer / dryer has a casing 2 having a partially inclined surface on the front side, and a door 2'for attaching / detaching clothes 6 is attached to the center of the inclined portion of the casing 2 and is provided inside. A rotary drum 3 supported by a shaft 11 installed at an angle θ with respect to the horizontal by a support bracket 14 is housed. A punching hole 4 through which a beater 5 for lifting and dropping the clothes 6 with the rotation of the drum 3, washing water 7, and circulating air 9 for drying in and out is opened at a predetermined portion of the rotary drum 3.

The shaft 11 of the rotating drum 3 is a bearing unit 1
A V-pulley 13 driven by a V-belt is attached to its free end, which is supported at two points by 2,12 '.
Power for rotation is received from a drive motor (not shown).

The rear surface of the rotary drum 3 in the casing 2 is partitioned by a partition wall 22 except for the air inlet 24 and the air outlet 23, and ducts 10 and 10 'through which the circulating air 9 passes are formed.
The lower part of the front surface of the partition wall 22 constitutes a washing tub 100.
The lower part of the rotary drum 3 faces the 00 part.

Each of the air ducts 10 and 10 'contains a compressor 19, a condenser (condenser) 18, a fan 17, an expansion valve 20, an evaporator (evaporator) 15 and the like, forming a so-called heat pump cycle. In addition, a part of the capacitor 18 is extended to the outer back surface of the casing to form the radiator 16.

21 is a drain drainage pipe, and 8 is a laundry drainage pipe. Also
Reference numeral 25 denotes a wash button for nighttime program and daytime program, which is mainly adapted to switch the rotating, washing, spin-drying and drying speeds of the rotary drum 3 between nighttime and daytime.

Incidentally, 26 is an elastic support leg portion, 27 is a rigid support leg portion, the rigid support leg portion 27 at night, the elastic support leg portion 26 during the day, has a structure to support the entire device, respectively. Although not shown, the switching of the supporting legs is made possible, for example, by using a link mechanism and easily switching by a lever operation.

Next, each step and action will be described.

(1) Washing and rinsing process When the door 2 is opened, the clothes 6 and an appropriate amount of detergent are put in, the door 2 is closed, and the nighttime program button 25 is pressed to automatically execute the following processes.

A specified amount of water 7 is supplied to the washing tub 100 from a water supply valve (not shown). The float switch method, the pressure method (using the head of water), etc. are used to detect the specified amount of water.

Rotating drum programmed speed (10 at night
Slowly rotate at 20 rpm) continuously or intermittently for washing. The continuous or intermittent selection is selected in advance by a program on a control panel (not shown). During this time, the garment 6 is lifted by the beater 5 and falls, but the shaft 11 of the rotary drum 3 is inclined by θ with respect to the horizontal, so the mechanical force becomes softer.

After the washing is completed, the water is drained from the laundry drainage pipe 8 of the washing tub.

Subsequently, the rinsing step is performed in the same steps as. The number of rinses is input in advance.

(2) Dehydration process The number of revolutions programmed by the rotating drum 3 (100 at night)
Rotating at ~ 200 rpm), the water content 7 in the clothing 6 is dehydrated to a water content of 100 to 200% based on the weight of the dried clothing. Rotating drum 3
The end face of the is to improve the dehydration effect of clothing, and the details are described in Japanese Patent Application No. 61-19516.
It is disclosed by Issue 4, so I will omit it here.

(3) Drying process The circulating air 9 in which the compressor 19, the fan 17 and the rotary drum 3 are operated circulates inside the ducts 10 and 10 'and the rotary drum 3.

The water vapor evaporated from the clothing 6 comes into contact with the evaporator 15 through the air outlet 23 and the duct 10 together with the circulating air 9, and is cooled to be condensed water to be dehumidified. The dehumidified circulating air 9 is sent to the condenser 18 by the fan 17, and is heated there to become hot air of 50 to 60 ° C., which flows into the rotary drum 3 through the duct 10 ′ and the air inlet 24, and then the clothes again. Evaporate water from 6.

During this period, the rotary drum 3 continuously or intermittently rotates at a preset rotation speed (20 to 30 rpm at night) as in the washing process. Further, since the shaft 11 of the rotary drum 3 is inclined by θ with respect to the horizontal, the landing distance of the clothes 6 is reduced, and therefore, the device is devised to prevent the clothes 3 from being damaged during the drying process.

Drying time is standard 4 hours, early 2.5 hours, slow 6 hours. The end of drying can be easily known by means of detecting the air temperature, humidity, etc. at the air outlet 23.

Note that the radiator 16 absorbs the heat of the evaporator 15 and the condenser 18
It is for correcting the imbalance of heat radiation of
When it is necessary to raise the hot air temperature in order to finish the clothing 6 softly, the radiator 16 may be temporarily stopped during or during the drying process.

At the same time, the number of rotations of the rotary drum 3 may be increased by about 20 to 50% to expand the clothing 6.

So far, we have mainly described the process of continuously performing washing to drying continuously at night and during sleep by the parties involved in the laundry.However, this washing / drying machine is no different from washing to drying even in the daytime. Can be performed. Moreover, since the washing machine, the washing machine, and the dehydrating machine can be executed at different rotation speeds for the daytime, they can exhibit the same performance as the conventional washing machine (in the washing time) during the daytime. It is made possible.

Further, as a special application of the washing machine according to the present invention, even a delicate material such as a wool knit product, which has been hitherto pickled and washed, can be automatically operated by applying the night program.

Furthermore, in the daytime, general laundry is exposed in the sun, and women's underwear is dried in a washer / dryer as is.

In addition, in order to quietly wash and dry at night, it is needless to say that it is necessary to select a low noise noise for opening / closing the valve and turning the switch ON / OFF. Needless to say, the structure should take into account the vibration and soundproofing of the entire device, and the idea to switch the above-mentioned method of supporting the device legs to rigid support or elastic support at night and day is also based on this idea. is there.

(Effects of the Invention) As described in detail above, according to the present invention, since washing and drying are performed unattended and quiet at night, a new age washer / dryer suitable for recent housing situations and lifestyles can be provided. Can be provided. Further, since the present invention can effectively use low-cost midnight power, it can help to eliminate the imbalance in power reception during the day and night by the spread of the main washing / drying machine.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a side sectional view of a washing / drying machine according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an external view of a conventional two-tub washing machine, and FIG. 3 is a conventional one-tub washing / dehydrating machine. FIG. 4 is an external view of a conventional washing / dehydrating machine with a dryer, and FIG. 5 is an external view showing a combination of washing / dehydrating machines and dryers in Europe and the United States. Description of main parts of the figure 1 …… Washing / drying machine 2 …… Casing 3 …… Rotating drum 11 …… Shaft 15 …… Evaporator 18 …… Condenser 19… Compressor

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A washing / drying machine in which a series of washing, rinsing, dehydrating, and drying steps are continuously performed in a single rotating drum, and the rotating shaft of the rotating drum is 0 ° to horizontal.
The compressor is installed in the casing with an inclination of 60 °, and the compressor / refrigerator is built in the casing, and the air of the compressor / refrigerator, the condenser, the rotary drum, and the evaporator are circulated in this order. A washer / dryer characterized in that it forms an air circulation path.