JPH0126719B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a method of operating a washing machine, for example, in a washing machine that automatically performs washing, rinsing, and dehydration, the amount of laundry to be washed is automatically measured,
A method for operating a washing machine and a method for accurately measuring the amount of laundry to be washed, which is necessary to automatically set the washing process to proceed under optimal conditions based on the obtained information. It is.

In conventional washing, the customer judges the amount of items to be washed and manually sets the water level.
It was troublesome to readjust the water level every time I washed it. Therefore, except in special cases, 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. .

Regarding this point, we first experimentally proposed a method in which the items to be washed are placed in the washing tank and the height of the cloth surface is measured by directly applying ultrasonic waves to the cloth surface of the items to be washed. I tried that, but in that case, depending on how the cloth was pressed, even the same amount of cloth would have different bulges, and on a dry cloth surface, the ultrasonic waves would be absorbed or reflected diffusely.
The frequency of failure to measure was high.

The present invention eliminates the above-mentioned waste of washing, eliminates the disadvantages of the conventional method, and provides an efficient and easy-to-use washing machine. The object of the present invention is to provide a method for operating a washing machine that allows accurate measurement by a detector and automatically sets a washing program based on this information.

The method of operating the washing machine of the present invention is to automatically operate washing, rinsing, and dehydration by an instruction control unit based on a predetermined sequence, and use a cloth amount measuring device installed in the washing machine to calculate the measured value. In the apparatus, a specified amount of water is supplied to the washing items placed in the washing tank, a first cloth amount measurement is performed using the cloth amount measuring device, and based on this value, , the amount of cloth is sorted and determined, a specified amount of water is supplied, a second amount of cloth is measured using the cloth amount measuring device, the amount of cloth is determined, and an additional amount of water to be supplied for the shortage is determined. It is something.

The details are as follows.

In other words, a technology is used in which an ultrasonic transmitter and 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 measured from the round trip time of the ultrasonic waves. This relates to an operating method that makes effective use of a new principle that can improve the accuracy of the system to a practical level.

To put this concretely, in order to measure the amount of clothes to be washed, the water level is set in multiple steps starting from the lowest water level, and at each set water level, the items to be washed are stirred, and the amount of clothes to be washed is adjusted as the water level changes. It is determined as a quantity based on the amount of change.

To explain this point in more detail, in order to speed up the determination at each step, we will roughly determine the amount of water before it reaches the set water level, sort it, and then make agitation determinations for the sorted categories. Generally speaking, this method uses a method that roughly determines the amount of cloth by sprinkling water on the items to be washed, and then determines the amount while stirring according to the determined set water level. The amount of laundry to be washed can be detected accurately and within a short period of time.

Next, an embodiment of the method for operating a washing machine according to the present invention will be described in detail, along with a washing machine that is directly used for carrying out the method.

First, FIG. 1 is an exploded 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.
This is an ultrasonic transmitter provided on the inside of the tank 8, and a receiver 20 is fixed close to this to measure the items to be washed in the tank.
0 is located at the back perpendicular to the plane of the figure.

It is preferable that the transmitting and receiving elements 19 and 20 of the cloth amount measuring device 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 in the air in a series v and returns after 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 calculated by the following formula. .

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, the reflected wave is received by the receiver 20, processed by the amplification and detection circuit, and then sent to the comparator. , the timing is determined by a multivibrator circuit, and the smoothing circuit R,
When the level of the received signal exceeds the level of the smoothing circuit by comparing it with the signal processed by C, a signal is sent to the flip-flop circuit.

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, the water spray measurement according to the present invention with the above configuration will be explained. This is to measure the object to be washed, which has absorbed water through water sprinkling.

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.

The present invention uses the water spray measurement method based on this new knowledge as a determination method related to the first cloth amount detection.

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

Therefore, the water spray measurement described above is utilized as a rough load amount determination.

Since this load amount determination is not precise, it is not possible to obtain the optimum water amount convenient for washing operation.

Therefore, the optimal amount of water is determined by determining the load amount with high accuracy by measuring the amount of water that accompanies stirring.

Next, stirring measurement according to the present invention will be explained.

Figures 5 to 7 are diagrams explaining the principle of the stirring measurement method, and Figure 8 is a characteristic diagram of the relationship between water height (height to the water surface at the center of the vortex) and cloth amount (weight) based on the same measurement method. It is.

In other words, when different amounts of washing items are added to a constant amount of water and the pulsator 12 is stirred, the fifth
As shown in Figures 7 to 7, the formation of the swirling water surface is different. In addition, the broken line in the figure shows the water surface of a constant amount of water when stirring is not performed.

FIG. 5 shows when the amount of cloth is small. When there is less cloth, the cloth moves better and creates a strong swirl. The water surface near the center of the vortex drops deeply.

On the other hand, if there is too much cloth, the cloth will not move easily, as shown in Figure 6. The vortex is not very strong, and the water level near the center drops only a little.

If the amount of cloth increases further, it will become as shown in Figure 7.
Cloths press against each other in the washing tank, causing the surface of the cloth to stick out from the water surface. Measure the height of the cloth above the water surface and the water surface.

In this way, the height near the center of the vortex varies depending on the amount of items to be washed under a constant amount of water. FIG. 8 summarizes this relationship. When the amount of cloth is 1.4 kg, the height near the center of the vortex is h ₁ . Amount of cloth
When the weight is 2.8Kg, the height near the center of the vortex is h ₃ .
The relationship between the height near the center of this vortex and the amount of items to be washed has excellent reproducibility and accuracy, and can be guaranteed to be about ±5% within the range of the amount of items to be washed.

In the present invention, this stirring measurement method is used as the second method for determining the amount of cloth.
This is used as a determination method.

The above stirring measurement method measures the amount of cloth with high accuracy,
It washes clothes using the appropriate amount of water depending on the amount of cloth.

FIG. 9 is a curve showing the relationship between the amount (weight) of clothes to be washed and the optimum amount of water for washing. The optimum amount of water for washing is determined depending on the amount of cloth, taking into account cleaning performance, cloth damage, uneven washing, etc.

Next, the process from determining the amount of cloth to supplying the optimum amount of water will be explained with reference to FIGS. 10 and 11.

First, put 10 in the basket 7 containing the laundry items.
Take the sprinkling water supply. The height h to the top of the item to be washed is measured in a stationary state to determine the amount of load. If this static load amount judgment determines that the amount of cloth is less than medium (equivalent to 1.5 kg or less in terms of weight), 12 additional water is supplied. Stirring measurements are taken at the water level 22 at which this additional water supply has risen. This is the first step shown in Figure 10, and if
Suppose that the water surface height near the center of the vortex is determined to be 90 mm. The amount of laundry to be washed at this time is equivalent to 1 kg,
The optimal amount of water for washing requires 25. To achieve this amount of water, add water to compensate for the shortage of ΔQ (3) to reach the optimal amount of water for washing.

If it is determined that the amount of cloth exceeds the medium level in the previous static load amount judgment, 20 additional water will be supplied. After this additional water supply has cooled down, a stirring measurement is carried out at 30 minutes. This is the second step, in which highly accurate load amount judgment is performed and unadded water supply processing is performed in the same way as above.

If it is determined that the load amount is within the range of the second step in the load amount determination in the first step, 8 additional water injections are performed. This additional water supply is used to stir the mixture again with the amount of water added. In this second step, the load amount is determined to determine the optimal amount of water, and additional water is supplied to proceed with the washing process.

In addition, if it is determined that the water is insufficient even at 30, water is supplied for the shortage 8 up to 38, and the third step
This is to judge the amount of.

If it is determined that the amount of laundry to be washed is too large, a warning will be issued and the operation will be stopped.

In this way, by first sorting by static measurement and then stirring, it is possible to accurately measure the amount of cloth.

Also in this case, since measurements are taken from a low water level, there is no need to overfill the water, and there is no wastage of water, which is efficient.

Therefore, 22 is the minimum amount of water required for washing, and 38 is the maximum amount of water.

38, it is possible to measure stirring from the minimum load to the maximum load, but it is meaningless to determine after measurement that a small amount of water is required. Care is taken not to damage the items being washed. In this embodiment, it is possible to discriminate from 0.3 kg to 2.8 kg by dividing it into 3 steps.

12 and 13 are a circuit block diagram and a sampling example diagram for realizing the step discrimination method according to the present invention.

In Fig. 12, compared to the previous Fig. 2, the temperature is corrected with a thermistor, and the instruction control unit 21 (MPU)
This is intended to increase the accuracy of the counter value transmitted to the system.

In addition, Fig. 13 illustrates and explains how to sample. For example, after stirring for 10 seconds, sampling is performed 4 times every 2 seconds, and the values of these counters are averaged to detect the amount of cloth. It becomes possible.

According to the present invention according to the embodiments described above, by combining the sorting determination based on water spray measurement and the amount determination based on stirring determination, the following effects can be expected in summary.

(1) Unnecessary fabric damage can be avoided.

Also, there is no imbalance between water level and load.

(2) When used in combination with water spray measurement, sorting can be done in a short time. Therefore, the measurement time is shortened and the original washing process can proceed smoothly.

(3) No water is wasted as there is no need for dedicated water for measurement.

With the various effects mentioned above, just by throwing in the items to be washed and turning on the switch, the optimal amount of water for washing is determined and supplied.

This eliminates the need for setting the water level, which was done in the past, except in special cases, such as when you want to slowly wash a small amount of about 500g by pouring water from a bath, etc. This provides sufficient performance.

Next, FIGS. 14 and 15 are a sectional view and a perspective view of a main part of another fully automatic washing machine in which the transmitting and receiving elements 19 and 20 are arranged as described above.

That is, the one shown in FIG. 14 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 14 shows what is behind the water inlet.

Moreover, the one shown in FIG. 15 is attached to the back side of the lid.

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

In view of the above, according to the present invention, the amount of laundry put into the washing tank is accurately measured by a detector,
Furthermore, it is possible to provide a method for operating a washing machine in which a washing program is automatically set based on this information, and this invention can be said to have excellent effects.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

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 a block diagram of an ultrasonic transmitting and receiving circuit that also shows the principle of distance measurement.
Figure 3 is a diagram explaining the principle of the water spray measurement method, and Figure 4 is:
Characteristic diagram of the relationship between watering amount and cloth amount, Figures 5 to 7
The figure is a diagram explaining the principle of the stirring measurement method, Figure 8 is a characteristic diagram of the relationship between height and weight, Figure 9 is a diagram of the optimum water flow curve, and Figure 10 is a characteristic diagram of the relationship between fabric height and optimal water volume. , FIG. 11 is a flowchart of an operating method according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 12 is a circuit block diagram used for its implementation, FIG. 13 is a sampling explanatory diagram, and FIG. , Cross-sectional view of main parts of another fully automatic washing machine related to the arrangement of transmitting and receiving elements, No. 15
The figure is a perspective view of the main parts of yet another fully automatic washing machine. 2...Top cover, 7...Basket, 12
... Pulsator, 18 ... Water inlet, 19 ... Transmitter, 20 ... Receiver, 21 ... Instruction control section.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1 Washing, rinsing, and dehydration are automatically operated by an instruction control unit based on a predetermined sequence, and using a cloth amount measuring device disposed in the washing machine, the measured value is used for the instruction control. In the washing tank, a specified amount of water is supplied to the washing items placed in the washing tank, and a first measurement of the amount of cloth is performed using the cloth amount measuring device, and based on this value, the amount of cloth is The amount of water is sorted and determined, a specified amount of water is supplied, a second amount of cloth is measured using the cloth amount measuring device, the amount of cloth is determined, and an additional amount of water to be supplied for the shortage is determined. Features How to operate a washing machine. 2. In what is stated in claim 1,
As a cloth amount measuring device, an ultrasonic transmitter and an ultrasonic receiver are placed at the top facing the washing tank, and the ultrasonic wave is transmitted to the target object according to instructions from the instruction control unit, and the reflected waves are received to measure the distance to the target object. The time is calculated by the instruction control unit, and in the first cloth amount measurement, a water sprinkling measurement method is used in which the object to be washed is measured using water that has been absorbed by water sprinkling, and in the second cloth amount measurement, a specified amount of water is measured. A method for operating a washing machine characterized by using an agitation measurement method in which water containing items to be washed after adding water is stirred by rotating a pulsator, and the vortex shape at that time is measured as an object.