JPH0824634B2 - Shower equipment - Google Patents

Description

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a shower device, and more particularly to a shower device having a function of intermittently repeating hot water supply and stopping.

<Prior Art> In recent years, shower devices have various functions not only for cleaning the human body or for the purpose of heating, but also for other purposes such as massage effect. Things are receiving attention.

In order to obtain a so-called intermittent shower in which hot water is repeatedly discharged and stopped as one of such functional showers, conventionally, for example, a rotating plate is provided in the shower head of a hand shower, and the rotating plate is rotated by water pressure to generate a pulse. There is one that realizes a typical shower (for example, Shoukai 61-71261).

It is also possible to provide an electromagnetic opening / closing valve on the hot water supply pipe leading to the shower nozzle and realize an intermittent shower by this opening / closing operation.

<Problems to be Solved by the Invention> By the way, among the conventional intermittent showers as described above, in the case where the intermittent shower is obtained by the structure in the shower head, the intermittent cycle is set to a substantially constant minute time. However, it is impossible to obtain an intermittent shower with a relatively long cycle of, for example, several seconds.

In addition, the method of providing the electromagnetic opening / closing valve on the hot water supply pipe has a drawback that a water hammer is generated at the time of opening / closing because the electromagnetic opening / closing valve is instantaneously opened / closed, which adversely affects the hot water supply piping system. Furthermore, the solenoid on-off valve has only two states, open and closed, and the flow rate cannot be adjusted when tapping hot water.

An object of the present invention is to provide a shower device that can realize an intermittent shower with an arbitrary period and an arbitrary strength without causing a water hammer or the like.

<Means for Solving the Problems> According to the present invention, in a device including a hot water supply pipe that guides hot water supplied from a hot water supply device to at least one shower nozzle, a drive signal input to the hot water supply pipe is provided. An electric two-way valve in which the valve opening changes according to the size of and the amount of water passing through changes continuously is provided, and time setting means for setting the hot water supply time and the stop time of the shower,
Flow rate setting means for setting the flow rate at the time of tapping, and the valve opening degree by a potentiometer adapted to rotate corresponding to the time setting content and the flow rate setting content and the rotational position of the electric motor for driving the valve of the electric two-way valve. Based on the output signal of the above, there is provided control means for supplying the electric two-way valve with a drive signal that repeats hot water discharge and stop at the valve opening degree according to the flow rate at each time.

<Operation> Although the valve opening of the electric two-way valve changes according to the rotation of the electric motor, the electric motor is rotated according to the magnitude of the input signal.

The flow rate setting means and the time setting means set the flow rate (shower strength) M at the time of tapping, and the tapping time x and the stop time y, for example, as shown in FIG.
If the electric two-way valve is opened and closed at a speed that does not cause water hammer, an intermittent shower can be realized with an arbitrary intermittent cycle time and an arbitrary shower strength.

<Embodiment> FIG. 1 is an overall configuration diagram of an embodiment of the present invention. In addition to a hand shower, the present invention is applied to a body shower unit having a plurality of shower nozzles for injecting showers into respective portions of the body. An example of the case is shown.

The electric mixing valve 1 mixes the water supply pipe 11 and the water from the hot water supply pipe 12 communicating with a hot water supply device such as a water heater at a predetermined ratio. The hot water adjusted to an appropriate temperature by the electric mixing valve 1 is supplied to each shower nozzle 4a ... 4d by the electric pump 2 through the hot water supply pipe 3.

That is, the hot water supply pipe 3 is branched on the upstream side of the shower nozzles 4a ... 4d to form four hot water supply tributary pipes 31a ... 31d, and the shower nozzles 4a ... 4d are attached to the tips of the tributaries 31a ... 31d.

Hot water supply branch pipes 31a ... 31d leading to each shower nozzle 4a ... 4d
The motor-operated two-way valves 5a ...

The electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d have a well-known ball valve structure in which the valve shaft is rotated by an electric motor such as a servomotor, and the electric configuration thereof is illustrated in FIG. A potentiometer 52 that rotates corresponding to the rotational position of the valve shaft rotating electric motor 51 is provided, and a signal corresponding to the valve opening can be output.

The electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d, the electric mixing valve 1 and the electric pump 2 are controlled by the control circuit 6.

To the control circuit 6, for example, an operation panel 7 for remote control arranged in the shower room is connected, and a temperature measurement signal from a thermistor 8 for measuring the temperature of hot water in the hot water supply pipe 3 is input. ing.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing a specific configuration example of the control circuit 6.

In this example, the control circuit 6 is mainly composed of a microcomputer including a CPU 61, a ROM 62, a RAM 63, and an input / output interface 64, and the input / output interface 64 is provided with respect to each of the electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d described above. A driver for supplying a drive signal, an AD converter for digitizing the output signal of the potentiometer 52 of each electric two-way valve 5a ... 5d
65, the operation panel 7, the thermistor 8, etc. are connected.

The driver 60 opens or closes the motor 51 of each electric two-way valve 5a ... 5d at a preset speed based on a drive command sent via the input / output interface 64 of the microcomputer. It is a drive circuit that supplies a signal.

On the operation panel 7, as shown in the front view of the portion related to the present invention shown in FIG. 4, each shower nozzle 4a ... 4d.
ON / OFF switch group 71, function shower selection switch 72 such as intermittent shower, shower strength (flow rate) when tapping hot water
M setting switch 73, time setting switches 74 and 75 for setting the hot water discharge time x and the stop time y thereof, a shower temperature setting switch 76, and the like are provided.

The temperature detection signal from the thermistor 8 is supplied to the hot water supply pipe 3
It is used to detect whether the hot water inside has reached a separately set appropriate temperature, and from the control circuit 6, a drive signal for the electric mixing valve 1 based on the set value of the shower temperature setting switch 76 and the electric pump 2 The drive signals of the above are also supplied.

FIG. 5 shows the ROM 6 of the microcomputer in the control circuit 6.
Of the program written in 2, the part related to intermittent shower is extracted and shown in the flowchart below.
The operation of the embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG.

When it is determined that the shower hot water is commanded in ST1, it is determined in ST2 whether the intermittent shower is selected by the function shower selection switch 72, and if the intermittent shower is selected, the process proceeds to ST3 and thereafter. .

That is, if the opening degree of the electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d is in the state of the value M set by the switch 73, it is determined whether or not the state continues for the hot water discharge time x set by the switch 74. (ST3, ST4), the drive command is issued to the driver 60 and the electric two-way valve 5a ...
Is driven to the closed side (ST5). A valve drive speed is set in advance in the driver 60, and when this drive command is input, the electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d are closed at the set speed.

When it is determined in ST3 that the opening degree is not M, the process proceeds to ST6, and it is determined whether or not the electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d are in the fully closed state. If it is in the fully closed state, proceed to ST7, where switch 7 is in the fully closed state.
Only when the stop time y set in 5 continues, after reading M by the switch 73, a command is issued to the driver 60 to drive the electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d to the open side (ST8, ST9). When the driver 60 receives this drive command, the electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d are opened to the opening M, and the speed at this time is also the set speed described above.

In addition, in the above operation, the opening degree of the valve is
It is determined from the digital conversion data of the output of the potentiometer 52 of each electric two-way valve 5a ...

By the above operation, the valve opening degree of each of the electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d, and thus the shower strength, is repeated hot water for x hours and stopped for y hours as illustrated in FIG.

Here, the electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d are valves that open and close by rotation of the electric motor as described above, and if this rotation speed is set appropriately, it will be the same as when using an electromagnetic on-off valve. The hammer phenomenon does not occur.

In the above embodiment, a plurality of shower nozzles 4a ...
Although the electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d are provided one by one for 4d, one electric two-way valve may be provided upstream of the branch point of the hot water supply pipe 3.

Further, the valve opening / closing speeds of the electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d can be variable.

Furthermore, the present invention can be applied not only to the shower system using the water heater and the mixing valve as described above, but also to a shower system called a circulation type in the same manner. It goes without saying that the present invention can be applied to a normal shower device having one hand shower in the same manner as the body shower unit.

<Effects of the Invention> As described above, according to the present invention, the electric two-way valve is provided on the hot water supply pipe communicating with the shower nozzle,
Since the means for setting the hot water discharge time and the stop time and the means for setting the shower strength at the time of hot water discharge are provided, and the opening / closing control of the electric two-way valve is performed according to each setting content, it is possible to use the solenoid opening / closing valve. It has become possible to realize an intermittent shower of any cycle and with any strength, without the occurrence of a water hammer.

[Brief description of drawings]

1 is an overall configuration diagram of the embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is an explanatory diagram of an electrical configuration example of the electric two-way valves 5a ... 5d, and FIG. 3 is a configuration example of a control circuit 6 of the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing the same, FIG. 4 is a front view of the main part of the operation panel 7, FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the main part of the program written in the ROM 62 in the control circuit 6, and FIG. 6 is the operation of the embodiment of the present invention. FIG. 1 ... Electric mixing valve 2 ... Electric pump 3 ... Hot water supply pipe 31a ... 31d ... Hot water supply tributary pipe 4a ... 4d ... Shower nozzle 5a ... 5d ... Electric two-way valve 6 ... Control circuit 60 ... Driver 61 …… CPU 62 …… ROM 63 …… RAM 64 …… Input / output interface 65 …… AD converter 7 …… Operation panel 72 …… Function Shower selection switch 73 …… Shower intensity setting switch 74 …… Sand tap time setting Switch 75 …… Stop time setting switch 76 …… Shower temperature setting switch 11 …… Water supply pipe 12 …… Hot water supply pipe

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An apparatus having a hot water supply pipe for guiding hot water supplied from hot water supply means to at least one shower nozzle, wherein a valve is opened on the conduit of the hot water supply pipe according to the magnitude of an input drive signal. The electric two-way valve that changes the water flow rate and the passing water amount continuously changes is provided, and the time setting means for setting the hot water discharge time and the stop time of the shower, and the flow rate setting means for setting the flow rate at the time of hot water discharge. , The electric two-way valve based on an output signal of valve opening by a potentiometer adapted to rotate corresponding to the time setting content, the flow rate setting content, and the rotational position of the electric motor for driving the valve of the electric two-way valve. A shower device comprising: a control means for supplying a drive signal for repeating hot water discharge and stop at each valve opening degree according to the flow rate.