JPH0356079B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

(a) Industrial Application Field The present invention relates to a dehydrating washing machine. (b) Prior Art As a conventional example, a washing machine that determines the amount of laundry and automatically determines the optimal water level, amount of water, or process time according to the amount of laundry is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1983-
It is shown in Publication No. 213095 (D06F 33/02). (c) Problems to be solved by the invention The conventional example described above is effective in that laundry can be done according to the amount of laundry rather than the eye amount, but it cannot be used only in the washing process. The amount of water varies depending on the quality of the detergent used (if the detergent is of good quality, the amount of detergent or water can be saved), and the optimal operating state may not be determined based on the amount of laundry alone. In particular, in order to give the user a sense of security and satisfaction that the laundry has been done, it is often better to rely on the user's intuition and experience in the washing process that uses detergent. In view of these problems, the present invention aims to enable a dehydrating washing machine to properly wash the laundry according to the amount of laundry, and to improve operability. (d) Means for Solving the Problems The dehydrating washing machine of the present invention has an outer tub, a dehydrating/washing tub installed inside the outer tub, and the operating conditions of the washing machine such as water level and water flow are set. a control means for controlling the operation of the load in accordance with the operation state; and a control means for controlling the amount of laundry in the washing tub. load detection means for detecting the load, and the control means corrects the set operating state according to the amount of laundry detected by the load detection means, and this correction operation is performed at least after the washing process, After the operation is completed, the operation state before correction is stored. (E) Effect: In other words, the washing process, which depends on the amount and quality of detergent regularly used by the user, cannot be controlled to an appropriate state just by detecting the amount of laundry.
This depends on the user, and the subsequent steps are controlled according to the amount of laundry. In addition, after the washing operation is completed, the operating conditions such as the water level and water flow set by the user during the washing process are corrected, so the operating state before correction is memorized, making it easier to repeat the washing operation. . (f) Embodiments Examples of the present invention will be described based on the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a fully automatic washing machine, where 1 is a machine frame, and 2 is a top plate placed on the upper end of the machine frame 1. This top plate 2 is a frame part that forms a clothes slot 3. 4
and an operation unit 5 that houses electrical components such as a control board.
and a water supply section 7 in which a water supply device and a power switch 6 are installed. 8 is an upper lid pivotally supported on the rear edge of the frame portion 4 to cover the clothing input port 3;
9 is a drainage hose. FIG. 2 shows various operation keys arranged on the operation panel 5a on the front side of the operation unit 5, 10 is a selection setting key for washing water level (high, medium, low, small amount),
Light emitting diodes 19 (hereinafter referred to as LEDs) are arranged corresponding to each water level, and each time the pressure is pressed, the water level changes and the corresponding LED lights up at the same time.
11 is a selection setting key for water flow strength (strong, standard, soft, silk/wool), and LED20... is arranged corresponding to each water flow, and each time the key is pressed, the water flow changes, and at the same time the corresponding LED is displayed. Light.
In addition, each water flow is based on the standard, the strong water flow has a long rotation time per unit time, the soft water flow has a short rotation time, and the silk/wool water flow will be described later, but the rotation speed of the rotor is reduced. , the water flow is even weaker than the soft water flow. 12 is the washing process time (12 minutes, 6
This is a setting key for minutes, 3 minutes), and LED21... is arranged corresponding to each time, and each time the key is pressed, the time changes as follows: 12 minutes → 6 minutes → 3 minutes → 0 minutes → 12 minutes →... , the corresponding LED lights up at the same time (all lights go out at 0 minutes). 13 is rinsed (carefully,
This is a setting key (Standard, Saving), and LED22... is arranged corresponding to each state, and each time it is pressed, the rinsing state is set to Careful → Standard → Saving → None → Careful →...
and the corresponding LED will light up at the same time (all lights will be off when there is none). Note that ``deep'' rinsing means rinsing with water twice, ``standard'' rinsing and rinsing twice, and ``economy''.
This means rinsing and rinsing once.
14 is a setting key for the dehydration process time (6 minutes, 3 minutes, 1/2 minute), and the LED 23 is turned on corresponding to each time.
... is arranged, and each time you press it, it takes 6 minutes →
The time changes as follows: 3 minutes → 1/2 minute → 0 minutes → 6 minutes... and the corresponding LED lights up at the same time (all lights go off at 0 minutes). Numeral 15 is a start key for a course arbitrarily programmed using the operation keys 10 to 14, and 16 and 17 are setting and start keys for A course and B course, which are constructed by combining washing, rinsing, and dehydrating steps. Incidentally, the A course is a standard washing program, and the B course is a program that shortens the entire program and executes in about 18 minutes, and the B course is automatically executed immediately after the power switch 9 is turned on. is set. 24 is a temporary stop key for each process and program, which is released by re-operating each start key. Figure 3 shows the internal mechanism of a fully automatic washing machine, with 24
is an outer tank, which is elastically supported within the machine frame 1. Reference numeral 25 denotes a dewatering/washing tub rotatably supported within the outer tub 24, and has a large number of dehydrating holes 26 around the periphery and a balance ring 27 at the upper end.
is installed. At the bottom of the washing tub 25,
A rotary blade 28 is provided, and the rotary blade 28 and the washing tub 25 are connected to a drive motor 30 via a power transmission mechanism 29. The rotary blade 28
A pump chamber 32 using the back blade 31 of the rotor blade 28 is formed on the back side of the pump chamber 3.
Washing water is pumped from 2 to the upper part of the washing tub 25 via a water supply channel 33. 34 is the water supply channel 33
The balance ring 2 faces the discharge port 33a of the
This is a lint filter attached to 7. Such a fully automatic washing machine is controlled by a microcomputer, hereinafter referred to as this microcomputer 3.
5 (hereinafter referred to as microcomputer) will be explained based on FIG. The microcomputer 35 includes a CPU 36, a RAM 37,
It is composed of a ROM 38, a timer 39, a system bus 40, and input/output ports 41-46. Said
The CPU 36 is composed of a control section 47 and a calculation section 48. The control section 47 takes out and executes instructions, and the calculation section 48 receives control signals from the control section 47 during the instruction execution stage. Performs arithmetic processing such as binary addition, logical addition, increase/decrease, and comparison on data provided from input devices and memory. The RAM 37 is for storing data regarding the washing machine, and the ROM 38 is for storing data related to the washing machine.
The means for operating the washing machine, the setting of conditions for judgment, the rules for processing various information, etc. are loaded in advance. The input ports 41 to 43 receive signals from an input key circuit 49 made up of the various operation keys, a detection circuit 50 such as a water level detector and a top cover safety switch linked to opening and closing of the top cover, and a load detection device 51 to be described later. is input, and based on this information, an LED drive circuit 52 consisting of the LED group, a buzzer circuit 53 for process end notification or abnormality notification, a bidirectional thyristor, etc. is input from the output ports 44 to 46. A control signal is sent to the load drive circuit 54 and the like. The load drive circuit 54 controls the operations of the left and right rotation circuits 55 and 56 of the rotary blade drive motor 30, the water supply solenoid valve drive circuit 57, and the drainage solenoid valve drive circuit 58 in accordance with control signals from the microcomputer 35. . 59 is a power supply circuit for supplying voltage to the microcomputer 35, and 60 is a reset signal generating circuit. Next, the load detection device 51 will be explained. In FIG. 5, 61 and 62 are bidirectional thyristors connected to the motor 30, which are turned on and off by signals from the microcomputer 35. To apply braking to the motor 30, the one bidirectional thyristor 61 is phase-controlled, a rectified voltage is applied to the motor 30, and so-called DC braking is applied. Reference numeral 63 denotes a current transformer, in which a voltage proportional to the current flowing through the motor 30 appears on the secondary side, and this is converted into a DC voltage V _CT through a rectifier circuit 64 and a smoothing circuit 65. Generally, when the motor 30 is driven during dewatering,
A large current flows during startup, and as the motor 30 reaches steady rotation, the motor current gradually decreases to a steady current. That is, the V _CT has a characteristic as shown in FIG. Here, the reference voltage V _REF is determined in advance, and this
A comparator 66 compares V _REF and the V _CT to obtain an output V _OUT . FIG. 7 is a _time chart of this V _{OUT .} To explain based on the solid _line in _FIG . It becomes LOW level (V _L ). Then V _CT decreases and V _REF again
When V OUT becomes smaller than , V _OUT again shows the HIGH level. Therefore, the microcomputer 35
The time T from the time of 0 startup until the aforementioned V _OUT becomes HIGH level again is counted. In reality, an abnormal current may flow immediately after startup, so counting is started after a predetermined time delay (about 1 second). The time T naturally varies depending on the amount of load, and the larger the amount of load, the longer the time T becomes.
In Fig. 6, t _A and t _B are reference values determined using ideal heavy and light loads, respectively (t _A > t _B ),
The microcomputer 35 compares the time T with the reference values t _A and t _B to set the load amount in three stages: heavy load (t _A ≦T), medium load (t _B ≦ T <
t _A ) and a light load (T<t _B ). The operations based on this configuration are shown in FIGS. 8 to 10.
This will be explained according to the flowchart shown in the figure. FIG. 8 shows the control performed in the washing step and the rinsing step when the silk/wool water flow is selected using the water flow setting key 11 before starting the program. Here, in order to reduce the rotational speed of the rotary blade 28, a conventionally well-known method is used, that is, bidirectional thyristors 61 and 62 for energizing the drive motor 30 are used for half a cycle of the AC power supply voltage. A method is used in which the on/off control is performed appropriately in units of units. Specifically, the half cycle is energized once every three times, and the number of revolutions is reduced to about 1/3 compared to when the motor is continuously energized and rotated normally. Below, the former is pulse-cut operation, and the latter is continuous energization at full speed (approximately 180 rpm at full speed)
It is called. In the figure, the microcomputer 35 reverses the drive motor 30 left and right after a 3 second pause. First, in clockwise rotation, when the motor 30 is started, time measurement of the clockwise rotation time (8 seconds) of the motor is started (S-1), and pulse cut water flow control (S-2) is executed. Pulse cut water flow control will be explained using FIG. When the water flow time has elapsed, flag A is reversed (S-4), and the full speed operation mode is entered, and the water flow time for full speed operation is set again. The above operation is repeated within the clockwise rotation time (8 seconds), and after a 3 second pause (S-5), the same pulse-cut water flow control is performed during the counterclockwise rotation. That is, each time the motor 30 rotates, the pulse cut operation and full speed operation are alternately repeated at predetermined intervals. Specifically, the predetermined time is 1.8
seconds (1) - 0.2 seconds (2) - 1.9 seconds (1) - 0.1 seconds (2) -
1.9 seconds (1) - 0.1 seconds (2) - 2 seconds (1) ((1): pulse cut operation, (2): full speed operation). As is clear from this, the time for the pulse cut operation is about 20 times the time for full speed operation. In other words, to wash delicate items such as silk and wool, full-speed operation is sufficient for this length of time, and during pulse cut operation, full-speed operation occasionally applies a strong impact of water to the laundry. Encourage vertical interchange. Also, only the first full-speed operation (0.2 seconds) is longer than the others, but this is because the rotation of the laundry is still slow immediately after starting, and in order to facilitate the upper and lower rotation, it is necessary to This is because it is necessary to strengthen the Figures 11 and 12 show the silk/
After the wool products (solid line in Figure 11) and silk products (solid line in Figure 12) are removed by the wool water stream, and the rotor is rotated at full speed for a predetermined period of time, which can be said to be the conventional example,
These are the results of an experiment to compare the results obtained by inverting the pulse cut operation for a predetermined period of time (dotted lines in each figure). As shown in the figure, in the past, full-speed operation was the main mode, and the rotation of the rotor blades changed the speed of the water flow to facilitate the changing of the laundry, so the intense impact caused by the reversal of the blades was applied to the fabric. The effect was strong, resulting in a high shrinkage rate (shrinkage) of the laundry. On the other hand, the silk/wool water stream of this embodiment forms an extremely gentle water stream and facilitates changing of laundry by running at full speed for a short period of time.
Can wash wool and silk products evenly without shrinking them. Next, FIG. 9 shows control operations based on signals from the load detection device 51. In this embodiment, washing, rinsing, and dewatering steps are sequentially executed according to a program under the control of the microcomputer 35. However, when transitioning from washing to rinsing and when repeating rinsing, a short intermediate dehydration operation is performed. Incidentally, if a given process time is set to zero using each of the operation keys 12 to 14, that process is omitted. Note that each LED lights up at the same time as the program is set, but turns off sequentially as the process progresses. Then, when the power switch 6 is turned on,
The microcomputer 35 is initially reset, and at the same time the water level is set to a high level (S-10), and the corresponding LED
19 lights up (S-11). In this state,
The user changes the water level, water flow, and each process time to desired ones, or selects a predetermined course (A course, B course) (S-12). At this time, the microcomputer 35 turns on the corresponding LED as shown in FIG.
7 at a predetermined address (S-
13) (S-14). Thereafter, each step is performed according to the program (S-15) to (S-18). Now, in the intermediate dehydration process after the washing process is completed and before proceeding to the rinsing process, the load detection device 51
Control as shown in FIG. 9B is carried out by signals from . That is, the drain electromagnetic valve is opened to discharge the detergent liquid (S-19), and when the water level in the tank drops to a predetermined water level, the drive motor 30 is energized and the washing tub 25 rotates at high speed. Start (S-
20). At this time, the microcomputer 35 starts measuring the time T after a one second delay in order to detect the amount of laundry (S-21). In this embodiment, the reference time t _A is set to 16 seconds, t _B is set to 8 seconds, and T≧16
If so, large load (3.0Kg or more) (S-12), 8≦T
If <16, medium load (1.0-3.0Kg) (S-23), T
If <8, it is judged as a light load (1.0Kg or less) (S-24), and as shown in the table below, the optimum water level, intermediate dewatering time, rinsing process time per one time, and At the time of the final dehydration process, the subsequent program is corrected (S-25), and at the same time, the lighting of the LED is changed to the corresponding one. Incidentally, if the process time is set to zero in advance, such correction is not performed.

[Table] When the upper lid 8 is opened or the temporary stop key 18 is operated during the dewatering operation, the power to the drive motor 30 is cut off, the DC braking is applied, and the drain solenoid valve is closed. However, if such an operation is performed during the aforementioned load amount judgment (during time T measurement), the load amount measurement is immediately stopped (S-26) as shown in Fig. 9 (c), and the subsequent program is executed. Perform control based on large loads (S-27) (S-
28). In other words, if the rotation of the drive motor 30 is stopped, it becomes impossible to measure the time T, so as a safety measure, washing is performed with the largest amount of water (high water level) (if the amount of water is small, if the load is large, (Causes damage to the fabric.) Therefore, in this case, only the water level may be changed. When all programs are finished, the microcomputer 35 turns on the buzzer for 0.5 seconds as shown in Figure 9.
It notifies the user of this by making it ring for 16 seconds at a cycle of seconds OFF, and when the notification operation is finished (S-29),
The water level corrected and set in the load detection operation described above is canceled, and the water level data before correction set by the user himself and stored in advance in the RAM 37 in (S-14) is automatically set ( S-30). As a result, when the user repeatedly performs the washing operation, the water level frequently used on a daily basis is preset, so that the setting operation becomes easy. Note that data other than the water level before correction may also be set at this time. In addition, the dehydrating washing machine of this embodiment employs an auto power-off mechanism that automatically shuts off the power circuit if no key input is made for 10 minutes after the end of the washing operation. When the LED is cut off, all the LEDs are turned off and the contents stored in the RAM 37 are also cancelled. Next, FIG. 10 shows control when the washing tub 25 vibrates abnormally due to unbalance of the dewatering load during the dewatering operation.As is conventionally known, when the dewatering unbalance is detected by displacement of the unbalance detection lever ( S-30), determines whether the program was started from the dehydration process (S-31), and if not, counts 1 in the counter (S-32) and corrects the imbalance. Processing is performed (S-33). In this unbalance correction process, the drain solenoid valve is closed, a small amount of water is supplied into the tank, and the rotor blade 28 is
is briefly reversed. In the same dehydration process, this unbalance correction process is performed twice (counter content is 2), and when dehydration imbalance is detected again, the dehydration is temporarily stopped without performing the unbalance correction process, and at the same time the buzzer sounds. The abnormality is notified to the user (S-33). At this time, the counter contents are left at 2 without being cleared. Since the abnormality notification operation can be canceled by pressing the temporary stop key 18, the user only has to restart the dehydration operation after canceling the abnormality notification operation. If dehydration imbalance is detected again during this restart operation, the counter content is already 2, so an abnormality is immediately notified. This is because, in most cases, dehydration imbalance occurs when dehydration is started, and if the abnormality alarm is canceled immediately after the abnormality alarm is canceled, there is no need to correct dehydration imbalance because the user is nearby, and the user can correct it by himself/herself. Because you can. Similarly, in (S-31), if the program was started from the dehydration process, the user is nearby, so the abnormality is immediately notified. (G) Effects of the Invention The present invention provides a washing process in a dehydrating washing machine that depends on the amount and quality of detergent regularly used by the user, but cannot be performed properly by simply detecting the amount of laundry. Since it is not possible to control the condition exactly, it depends on the user, and since the subsequent steps are controlled according to the amount of laundry, it is possible to bring about the optimum cleaning effect for the laundry. Moreover, after the washing operation is completed, the operating conditions such as the water level and water flow set by the user during the washing process have been corrected, and the operating conditions before correction are memorized, making it easy to operate when repeating the washing operation. It is.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a perspective view of the dehydrating washing machine of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a front view of the operation panel, Fig. 3 is a diagram of the internal mechanism, Fig. 4 is a block circuit diagram of the control mechanism, and Fig. 5 is the load. Detection circuit diagram, Figure 6 is a motor current characteristic diagram during dehydration, Figure 7 is an output characteristic diagram of the load detection device, Figure 8 A and B are flowcharts showing the operation during washing and rinsing, and Figure 9 I. ~F is a flowchart showing a series of operations of a dehydrating washing machine, FIG. 10 is a flowchart showing operations during dehydration, and FIGS. 11 and 12.
The figure is a cleaning characteristic diagram. 10-18...Operation key, 24...Outer tank, 25
...Dehydration/washing tub, 35...Microcomputer (control means), 37...RAM (storage unit), 51
...Load detection device (load detection means).

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An outer tank, a dewatering/washing tank installed inside the outer tank, operation keys for setting the operating state of the washing machine such as water level and water flow, and storing the operating states set by the operating keys. A control means having a storage section and controlling the operation of the load according to the operating state; and a load detection means detecting the amount of laundry in the washing tub, the control means controlling the load detection means. The set operating state is corrected according to the amount of laundry detected by the washing machine, and the correcting operation is performed at least after the washing process, and the operating state before the correction is stored after the washing process is completed. A dehydrating washing machine.