CN1355393A

CN1355393A - Automatic water tap

Info

Publication number: CN1355393A
Application number: CN 00134479
Authority: CN
Inventors: 小平真; 金子贡也
Original assignee: URO Electronics Ind Co Ltd
Current assignee: URO Electronics Ind Co Ltd
Priority date: 2000-11-30
Filing date: 2000-11-30
Publication date: 2002-06-26
Anticipated expiration: 2020-11-30
Also published as: CN1183347C

Abstract

An automatic water tap with a reference value set up according to the state of water tank is composed of main tap, water tank, light generator for emitting infrared ray to the bottom of water tank, light receiver for receiving the infrared ray reflected from the bottom of water tank, water outlet unit for comparing the detected value with the reference one and discharging water if the detected value is higher than the reference one, tap controller, instruction unit, detector for maximal light intensity and reference valve corrector.

Description

Automatic water tap

The present invention relates to be contained in the automatic water tap in tank or the urinal etc., it is detecting the man-hour flushing, relates more specifically to control the automatic water tap of flushing by detecting infrared rays.

In toilet tanks or automatic toilet, launch infrared rays to the user, according to the existence that has how many infrared rays to be reflected to detect the user, wash by the control flush valve having detected man-hour.Under the situation of tank, sensor is contained near the bath hole, and the downward emission infrared rays as the bottom of flow direction tank makes that being placed near the hand of water tap can be detected easily.

When the light of this emission halfway by user's hand institute reflex time, the light quantity of emission increases.Utilize this effect,, and correspondingly wash by light quantity and the reference value appearance that relatively detects the user that will reflection.When the user withdrew hand, the light quantity of reflection was returned primary quantity, and this is detected and stops to wash.

Fig. 7 represents to carry out the structure of the common automatic water tap of aforesaid operations.Microcomputer 1 makes the health 4 emission infrared rays of infrared transmitter 3 towards the user according to the output of drive circuit 2.The light of reflection is detected by optical receiver 5, be exaggerated device 6 and amplify, and microcomputer 1 reads the comparative result of being carried out by comparator 7.Judge output according to the two-value of slave microcomputer 1 output then, driver 8 opens and closes solenoid valve 9.

The distance of sensor screw clamp bottom changes according to the size of tank, so the reference value that the light quantity of reflection compares with it also needs to change.This can finish by the variable resistor that adjusting is connected to the benchmark input end of comparator 7.This reference value is provided with greatlyyer than the light quantity of reflection, if therefore because the feasible light quantity from the tank reflection of environment change increases gradually, flushing can oneself not take place.

The intuition that reference value rule of thumb obtains is provided with, and therefore is difficult to suitably set.And shown in the symbol VR of Fig. 8, variable resistor is placed on the position of the workability difference that the user is not easy to reach, as the bottom of washbowl.

In addition, when placing a lid etc. in the bottom of tank, it may be mistakenly detected as hand, causes washing continuously.

For preventing this inconvenient part, some automatic water taps have a function, promptly, when the infrared rays that detects continues to surpass preset time, temporarily stop flushing, and till after the reflected light at prearranging quatity disappears, detecting this reflection for the second time, can not continue flushing.

Yet,,, require extractions such as lids so this function is very complicated owing to till lid etc. is removed, can not repeat flushing.

In addition, when automatic water tap being installed on the existing washbowl, washbowl may be very dirty, and reflectivity is very low.Be provided with for the washbowl under this state detection apart from the time, if washbowl is cleaned later on, it will increase ultrared reflectivity.Therefore occur even without hand, automatic water tap also can detect hand mistakenly and exist, and begins flushing.

On the other hand, also have a problem, that is, when the tank that fabulous reflectivity is arranged was provided with reference value, its detection range was very narrow.

Under the situation of urinal, the workman who regulates must avoid being operated in the user with in the detected position, causes the workability of difference.

Under any circumstance, because must manual operations, make inevitably and regulate inaccurately, and it be quite long to finish time of adjusting.

The problems referred to above have been considered in design of the present invention, and purpose provides a kind of automatic water tap, wherein can reference value automatically be set according to the state of tank, need not to regulate again.

For achieving the above object, automatic water tap of the present invention comprises a water tap, the tank of the water that reception is flowed out from water tap, the ultrared optical generator of bottom emission towards tank, a reception also detects the optical receiver of the light quantity that receives from the infrared rays of bottom of gullet reflection, detection output with optical receiver is compared with reference value and produce the bath output of bath output when the output that detects is surpassed predetermined value, control the faucet controller of opening and closing of water tap according to the output of bath output, described automatic faucet also comprises: be used to produce the command device of command signal with the correction reference value, be used to detect a detection device of the maximum amount that when command device provides a signal, has received and proofread and correct a reference value correcting device of the reference value of bath output based on maximum amount by optical receiver.

Fig. 1 is the skeleton diagram of the circuit structure of first embodiment of the invention;

Fig. 2 is the method that the reference value of flush operation of the present invention is set in explanation;

Fig. 3 is the basic skills that reference value of the present invention is set in explanation;

Fig. 4 is the operation that reference value of the present invention is proofreaied and correct in explanation;

Fig. 5 is the flow chart of the flush operation of explanation automatic faucet;

Fig. 6 is the flow chart that reference value of the present invention is proofreaied and correct in explanation;

Fig. 7 is the skeleton diagram of common bath control circuit;

Fig. 8 is the figure of the position relation of common tank of explanation and reference value correcting element.

Fig. 1 is the skeleton diagram of the circuit structure of first embodiment of the invention.As shown in Figure 1, replace the comparator 7 of Fig. 7, an A/D converter 10 is provided.This A/D converter is converted to one four bit output with the detection output of amplifier 6, offers microcomputer 1.Microcomputer 1 is carried out and known automatic water tap identical operations, and the peculiar reference value correct operation of the present invention.Other element is known element, but owing to do not describe the routine techniques of Fig. 7 in detail, will describe them below.

Microcomputer 1 is battery powered, will use the microcomputer of little electric current and low voltage for this reason.Use battery to be because be not easy to obtain commercial power in places such as public lavatories and for the security consideration of using in the place that water is arranged as power supply.Therefore designed energy-conservation as far as possible circuit.

The light of microcomputer 1 control infrared transmitter 3 takes place, control is to the power supply of all elements, detect supply voltage, produce the symbol of changing battery, receive the signal of A/D converter 10, use driver 8 to drive solenoid valve 9, the pulse width that is used to drive solenoid valve 9 is switched in change according to cell voltage, after changing power supply, carry out and reset to prevent misoperation, indication is undesired when detecting infrared rays over a long time, with when reusing the lavatory, economizing on water under the situation in lavatory and carrying out other control operation.

Drive circuit 2 is according to the outer transmitter 3 of the output point azarin of microcomputer 1.The infrared rays of infrared transmitter 3 is by the reflection of the part of user's health, and for example his hand arrives infrared receiver 5.Transmitter 3 and optical receiver 5 have at least one lens at the front surface of their element, to improve their luminous and light receiving efficiency.

Infrared light receiver 5 has incorporated the feature of the photodiode and the big optotransistor of exporting of high service speed.The testing signal of infrared light receiver 5 arrives A/D converter 10 by amplifier 6.A/D converter 10 can be replaced with the multivoltage comparator.Because the signal level fluctuation of infrared light receiver 5 is very big, can use amplifier such as logarithm to replace amplifier 6, so that it is saturated to obtain the signal and the surface of suitable size.

Fig. 2 to 4 is the position relations between explanation tank and the water tap and according to them the figure of the method for reference value is set.Fig. 2 represents how to obtain reference value, and Fig. 3 is an example of correction reference value how, and Fig. 4 is another example of correction reference value how.

At first, as shown in Figure 2, reference value is divided into 16 grades according to the distance of water tap and bottom of gullet.This is because A/D converter has the output of four bits.From the maximum value of the light of bottom of gullet reflection is 16 grades, and minimum is 1 grade.That is, be maximum value " 16 " when user's brothers enough approach to the light that reflects when contacting water tap, be " 3 " and be positioned at when being distal to bottom of gullet slightly from the maximum value of the light of bottom of gullet reflection at user's hand, catoptrical maximum value is " 1 ".Be set to reference value according to the condition of tank with one in these 16 grades.

That is, as shown in Figure 3, when the catoptrical maximum value of bottom of gullet is " 3 ", add that tolerance " 2 " is made as reference value " 5 ", so that can detect than the bottom more near the position of water tap.This has provided the detection range from a little higher than bottom of gullet to the water tap position.

In addition, as shown in Figure 4, when in tank reflecting object being arranged, reference value is provided with higherly slightly.For example, if reflecting object is positioned at level " 8 ", add that tolerance " 1 " obtains new reference value " 9 ".

Fig. 5 is the flow chart of automatic faucet flush operation.Shown in step S1, automatic faucet is by monitoring flume surface constantly to flume surface emission infrared rays.Then, when the reflected light X by objects such as the hand reflection of inserting was detected, it judged whether level of reflected light X surpasses reference value Th (step S2).When it did not surpass reference value Th, operation turned back to detection of reflected light (step S1).

When level of reflected light X surpassed reference value Th, it judged whether this reflection continues the scheduled time (step S3).When this was identified, operation advanced to step S4.If should reflection not continue the scheduled time, then water tap returns monitoring mode (step S1).

Fig. 6 be expression be provided with and the step S2 of reset diagram 5 in the method flow diagram of the reference value Th that uses.Under four kinds of situations reference value is set below: when electric power starting, when water tap resets, through predetermined period the time and when the reflection that detects continues to surpass predetermined a period of time.State according to tank or power supply when power-on is provided with reference value, for example when automatic faucet is installed and behind the power failure during power-on etc.Reference value resets after maintenance test.After through one period scheduled time reference value is set, for example when proofreading and correct a reference value in per 14 hours according to the change of state of tank or power supply etc., reference value is proofreaied and correct by the time signal that timer provides.For allowing contingent various states in a day, the time cycle is wanted to be delivered to the next 14-hour time cycle reliably.Therefore, shorter or longer than this time time cycle also is an acceptable.

At last, continue to surpass preset time during the cycle detecting reflection, reference value is set, for example under the situation below, for example a plate etc. is placed in the tank, and the reflected light that surpasses prearranging quatity was continued reflection above 30 seconds.At this moment, at first cut off the water, if be not removed at 10 seconds inner panels subsequently, then reference value is corrected.

When electric power starting and water tap when being reset, operate identically, but be that in difference reflected light is provided with more longerly a little detection time through the operation under the situation after one section preset time.In addition, continue to surpass in the operation of carrying out under the situation of one section preset time in reflection, reflected light is provided with shortlyer a little detection time.Because the level operations under above four kinds of situations much at one, and they are described together.

At first, at step S1, judge and whether carry out setting operation owing to power supply inserts or resets.When not being last two kinds of situations, operation stops, if but during corresponding to one of above-mentioned situation, transition of operation is to step S12.At step S12, judge and whether washing by water, and when being confirmed to be in bath, program waited for that before advancing to step S13 bath finishes.At step S13, the size of detection of reflected light X, and by the lasting one section preset time of detection of reflected light of the feedback operation of step S14, for example 30 seconds.

For example when launching infrared rays, can come detection of reflected light, and obtain maximum value B at step S15 by measuring catoptrical size with the interval of 200ms.Then, move on to step S16, predetermined tolerance A is provided with mutually with maximum value B or the reference value Th that resets.

Step S21 to S26 represents the reference value correct operation, carries out once in per 14 hours.At step S21, whether it judges and passed through 14 hours, if then begin correct operation corresponding to step S11.At step S24, it is corresponding to step S14, judges whether whether 10 inputs and detection of reflected light 10 times have been arranged.

Step S31 is illustrated in reflected light to step S36 and is continued the reference value correct operation of detection in the time of 30 seconds.At step S31, it judges that corresponding to step S11 the reflected light that whether surpasses reference value is continued to detect above 30 seconds, if then begin correct operation.Then, at step S34, it is judged and whether passed through 10 seconds and whether detected 10 seconds reflected light corresponding to step S14.

The flush operation that Fig. 5 explains is carried out based on the reference value that is provided with according to this.Because reference value is proofreaied and correct in less than one day time cycle regularly, automatic correction reference value after this end cycle is even tank is dirty gradually or it has been cleaned suddenly.In addition, also open it once more by hand reset or by power cutoff, at any time the correction reference value.

As mentioned above, come the correction reference value according to the present invention is based on when applying command signal catoptrical amount.Therefore, even the state of power supply changes, tank etc. also can be washed on demand automatically, have eliminated the complex operations of regulating reference value.

Claims

1, a kind of automatic water tap, comprise: a water tap, the tank of the water that reception is flowed out from water tap, the ultrared optical generator of bottom emission towards tank, a reception also detects the optical receiver of the light quantity that receives from the infrared rays of bottom of gullet reflection, detection output with optical receiver is compared with reference value and produce the bath output of bath output when described detection output is surpassed predetermined value, control the faucet controller of opening and closing of water tap according to the output of described bath output, described automatic faucet also comprises:

Be used to produce the command device of command signal with the correction reference value,

Be used for when described command device provides a signal detecting the maximum amount that receives by optical receiver detection device and

Proofread and correct a reference value correcting device of the reference value of described bath output based on this maximum amount.

2, according to the automatic water tap of claim 1, wherein said command device produces described command signal when electric power starting.

3, according to the automatic water tap of claim 1, wherein said command device produces described command signal when carrying out reset operation.

4, according to the automatic water tap of claim 1, wherein said command device produces described command signal at every turn when having passed through one section preset time.

5, according to the automatic water tap of claim 1, wherein said detection device detects the maximum value in the part of one section preset time.

6, according to the automatic water tap of claim 1, wherein said reference value correcting device is by selecting to carry out correction from one group of predetermined adjusting level.