Classifications

• • D—TEXTILES; PAPER
  • D06—TREATMENT OF TEXTILES OR THE LIKE; LAUNDERING; FLEXIBLE MATERIALS NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • D06F—LAUNDERING, DRYING, IRONING, PRESSING OR FOLDING TEXTILE ARTICLES
  • D06F75/00—Hand irons
  • D06F75/08—Hand irons internally heated by electricity
  • D06F75/26—Temperature control or indicating arrangements

Definitions

• the invention relates to a protective device for ironing devices according to the preamble of claim 1.
• Ironing devices of this type are mostly used as irons for ironing on clothing. Problems arise regularly as soon as there is a risk of overheating. This overheating can occur on the one hand as soon as the iron is forgotten by the operator while standing on the ironing surface, or as soon as an object such as a piece of clothing to be ironed is thrown over the ironing surface or accidentally falls on it.
• a protective device for ironing devices in which a contact switch is provided at the base of the iron, which maintains the power supply when the iron is placed upright. If the iron is guided with its ironing surface over an object, a further light-sensitive sensor detects that the iron rests on a surface to be ironed and basically cuts off the power supply to the heating surface. As a further condition, which is necessary in order to maintain the current supply to the heating surface when the light-sensitive sensor is applied to a surface, a device is provided in the handle which allows a leakage current by the user when the handle is actuated.
• the logic unit determines that a leakage current is flowing and the light-sensitive sensor is in parallel on a surface, further heating of the heating surface is permitted. So it is not determined whether the iron is moving or not, but only whether the iron is operated by a person. Another problem is that when Upright places of the iron, the heating surface is constantly heated, so that in this case it can not be ensured that there may be a fire if a piece of clothing accidentally falls in front of the ironing surface while the user is just on the phone, for example.
• a contact switch which contains a rolling element which obeys gravity and which maintains the current supply as long as the iron is moved in its use position in a horizontal position. If the iron is placed upright, e.g. to put it on its side while laundry is to be folded, the contact element rolls into a permanent contact position.
• an undesirable side effect is that an object can come too close to the heating surface in the upright position, since it is not checked whether an object is in front of the heating surface.
• a textile type sensor is known from DE 692 06 207 T2 and in the associated European patent 0 523793 B1, which is intended to enable automatic adjustment of the iron to different types of textile.
• a measurement arrangement for detecting the reflection behavior of the textile located under the substrate is provided by a heatable substrate.
• the measuring arrangement is a conventional arrangement consisting of a light-emitting light-emitting diode and a light-sensitive photo transistor. It is not intended to design the measuring section with a light-emitting diode as a receiver, although this has considerable cost advantages.
• the present invention seeks to develop an iron of the type mentioned in such a way that an inexpensive, easy-to-integrate protection is created, which determines at any time whether there is a risk of overheating objects on the ironing surface and then turns off the iron.
• This object is achieved by a protective device with the features of claim 1.
• the protection device registers the position of the iron and also whether there is actually an object in front of the ironing surface. Two conditions are regularly queried via a logic unit, namely:
• Movement and object detection are recorded via the same transmitter and receiver and via the same measuring sections (detector).
• the transmitters emit the light that is reflected by the surfaces to be ironed or an object lying over the ironing surface. If it is determined that the reflection does not change over a certain period of time, both the presence of the object and the lack of movement are determined, which leads to the interruption of the power supply for the heating device.
• Fig. 2 is a schematic circuit diagram of the device for
• Fig. 3 shows the signal curve of the signal B over time
• Fig. 5 is a schematic representation of the logic unit.
• Fig. 1 shows an ironing device 10 with a protective device for protection against overheating or against fire as a result of carelessness or accidentally on the ironing surface 10a objects without being ironed at the same time.
• the ironing device 10 usually an iron, has a thermostat-controlled heating device for heating the ironing surface 10a.
• a device 13 for detecting the rest position of the ironing device, more precisely the movement of the ironing device 10, the circuit diagram of this device being shown in FIG. 2, upper part.
• a logic unit interrupts the power supply to the heating device 11 depending on the detected position of the ironing device 10 by influencing the heating control 15 in FIG. 5.
• the device 13 for detecting the rest position of the ironing device 11 can detect the movement of the ironing device 10 by means of the circuit diagram in FIG. 2.
• a detection device 14 is provided for detecting whether or not there is an object on the ironing surface 10a.
• the power supply to the heating device 11 is interrupted. This interruption takes place when both the device 13 for detecting the rest position of the ironing device 10 determines that the ironing device 10 is not moving and, in addition, the detection device 14 detects an object on the ironing surface 10a.
• the logic unit 12 thus maintains the current supply to the ironing surface 10a when there is no object on the ironing surface 10a or when something is resting on the ironing surface 10a, but this is still moving relative to the ironing surface.
• the interruption can also be time-dependent with a certain time delay.
• Both the device 13 for detecting the rest position of the ironing device 10 and the detection device 14 are optoelectronic measuring devices with transmitter 17 and receiver 18.
• signals A and B are recorded via the same transmitter 17 and receiver, so that this is delayed once as shown in Fig. 2 above and once operated as shown in Fig. 2 below.
• the pulse generator 21 generates e.g. for 50 periods the signal that is detected by the device 13 and then subsequently for 50 oscillation periods the signal that is detected by the detection device 14.
• several transmitters 17 and at least one receiver 18 are provided for the formation of at least two measuring sections 19, 20 as required.
• the two transmitters 17 are alternately pulsed while they are used as a detection device 14 for object detection be pulsed at the same time.
• both light-emitting diodes 17 are acted upon with the same signal and thus simultaneously with the clock frequency of the pulse generator 21 clocked.
• the radiation from the transmitters 17 is detected by the light-emitting diode as the receiver 18 and amplified as an electrical signal in an operational amplifier 23.
• a signal corresponding to the clock of the pulse amplifier 21 is thus present on the line 24 on the signal line at the output of the operational amplifier 23.
• the signal is then fed to a comparator 25 via the switch S3.
• the comparator 25 has a reference voltage U ⁇ ⁇ as a counter value according to FIG. 4, so that a signal A results as soon as the reference voltage is exceeded.
• the detection device 14 determines the presence of an object.
• the object detection is operated over a certain number of cycles, for example over 50 periods of the frequency of the pulse generator 21, ie a few milliseconds to seconds.
• the device 13 for detecting the rest position or movement of the ironing device 10 is then switched over by moving the switches S1, S2 and S3 into the corresponding opposite position.
• Such a device is known in an analogous manner from W0-A 95/01561, although it is used there to detect the wetting of surfaces.
• the principle works in a similar way here.
• the upper transmitter 17 is controlled via the line 26 with the inverted signal, while the lower transmitter 17 is still controlled via the output signal of the pulse generator 21 via the line 27.
• a controllable resistor 28, 29 is provided in both lines, this circuit arrangement in connection with the associated regulation of these controllable resistors 28, 29 being known from W0-A 95/01561.
• a light signal is transmitted alternately from the transmitters 17 to the receiver 18.
• This signal is queried at the switch S4 with the same clock frequency over two signal lines and fed to a comparator 30, which determines a difference value from the two values obtained with a time delay, which is present on line 31.
• This signal is on passed a window discriminator 32, which determines the signal B therefrom. If the ironing device moves, signals according to FIG. 3 result here, if the ironing device does not move, then only the reference value U / 2 is present.
• the output signal is then forwarded for readjustment of the adjustable resistors 28, 29 once via line 33 and once inverted via line 34 to the adjustable resistors 29 and 28, so that the pending signals are guided towards zero with a time constant in the absence of movement of the ironing device 10 can be so that the measuring sections are free to record new signals.
• dynamic changes in movement can be reliably detected.
• the movement detection is facilitated by the fact that the area that the ironing device 10 usually irons is not an absolutely homogeneous area. However, due to the measuring arrangement, sensitive measurement is also possible on a white cloth.
• the signals A and B are fed to the logic unit 12 according to FIG. 5, which first waits for a long time via a timer 16 if both conditions exist for a power cut, namely the iron or ironing device 10 no longer moves and at the same time an object on the Ironing surface 10a abuts. However, if nothing changes during the timer run, the heating controller 15 is then instructed to interrupt the power supply to the heating device 11.
• the effect of the protective device can be improved by providing at least one further detection device 40 for detecting an object in the front area of the ironing device 10, preferably at the tip 10b or in the ironing surface 10a. Especially when the ironing device 10 is upright and switched on, the hottest and therefore most dangerous areas are located there, on which the most easily burnable parts or items of clothing can fall.
• the detection device 40 can either be arranged on or looking through the ironing surface 10a, but an arrangement at the tip 10b is also possible, e.g. aligned upwards. To evaluate the signals, the detection device 40 is preferably connected in parallel with the detection device 14.

Landscapes

• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Textile Engineering (AREA)
• Irons (AREA)
• Forging (AREA)
• Braking Arrangements (AREA)
• Coating With Molten Metal (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (3)

Publications (2)

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ID=7879387

Family Applications (1)

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Family Cites Families (21)

• 1998
  • 1998-09-01 DE DE19839730A patent/DE19839730C1/de not_active Expired - Fee Related
• 1999
  • 1999-08-03 DE DE59908760T patent/DE59908760D1/de not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 1999-08-03 US US09/763,830 patent/US6384379B1/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 1999-08-03 WO PCT/EP1999/005618 patent/WO2000012806A1/fr active IP Right Grant
  • 1999-08-03 AT AT99939447T patent/ATE261013T1/de active
  • 1999-08-03 EP EP99939447A patent/EP1109963B1/fr not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 1999-08-03 ES ES99939447T patent/ES2216550T3/es not_active Expired - Lifetime

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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