GB2156310A

GB2156310A - Application of instructional data to a household appliance

Info

Publication number: GB2156310A
Application number: GB08502414A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Herbert Danne
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 1984-03-27
Filing date: 1985-01-31
Publication date: 1985-10-09
Also published as: GB2156310B; GB8502414D0; IT8520064A0; IT8521230V0; FR2562300A1; DE3411293A1; IT1208518B

Abstract

To reduce the cost in manufacture of a household appliance with respect to the need for multi-lingual instructional data on a legend carrier (6) at a control panel of the appliance a text field (13) of the carrier is printed only with first register marks (14,15) or not at all and a transparent adhesive film (16) is provided, which is printed with just an instructional text or with both the text and second register marks (17, 18) congruent with the first marks. <IMAGE>

Description

SPECIFICATION Application of instructional data to a household appliance The present invention relates to a household appliance, especially an electric program-controlled appliance such as a laundry washing machine, dishwashing machine, cooker or the like, in combination with a transparent data sheet to be applied to the appliance, especially to a data panel of the appliance so that the appliance will be furnished with, for example, data which concerns operations to be carried out in order according to programme and is in the form of letters, symbols and/ or numerical statements as well as text.

In a household appliance of the kind described above (DE-OS 32 13 624), a legend carrier with its inscription in the home language of the manufacturer is fastened to the operating panel. Several legend carriers, printed with other languages and mounted on a substrate or in a frame, are included in an accessory pack for the household appliance and can be exchanged by the buyer or installer of the appliance against the carrier printed with the home language. This favours the choice of an appliance so equipped by a buyer of the countries concerned without the appliance having to be specially prepared, during the production stage, for eventual purchase by a foreigner of certain language. Any such special preparation would presuppose costly measures to be undertaken during assembly of the appliance.However, the substrate with several legend carriers is still too expensive because only one of the four pro vided legend carriers is detached from the substrate or the frame for exchange purposes and the others, together with the substrate or frame are discarded. The number of superfluous legend carriers is thus very high.

There is thus scope for reduction of the effort in the manufacture of an appliance especially in the case of multilingual data to be carried by the appliance.

According to the present invention there is provided a household appliance in combination with a transparent data sheet to be applied to the appliance, the appliance being provided with a data panel carrying a first set of instructional data and having an area for a second set of instructional data associated with the first set, and the data sheet being printed with the second set of data and securable to the panel to dispose the data in said area.

Preferably, the text field of the data panel, for example legend carrier, is printed on only with first register marks or not at all and the data sheet is a transparent film printed on with second register marks, which are congruent with the first marks, and/or only with the clear text. Consequently, the get-up of the appliances can be uniform in manufacture. Cheap self-adhesive or adhesive film, which contains several text blocks printed in different languages, can, for example, be added to an auxiliary pack. Register marks on the text fields and alongside the text blocks make the alignment of the film during sticking onto the legend carrier easy for the user and can also, by virtue of their geometry, help to avoid confusion in case several text fields are to receive text blocks. The mounting of the film can thus be left to the installer of the appliance.

According to the number of text fields and kind of printing, the register marks can comprise lines which bound programme lines or columns or of at least two geometric shapes. Two geometric shapes fix the position of the text block in the text field quite specifically and also permit possibilities for differentiation between several text fields. For example, one text field and the associated text block can be provided with round register marks and a second text field and the associated text block can be provided with triangular register marks.

The film can correspond in area dimension with the text field or, at least approximately, with the legend carrier itself, or at least one areal dimension of the film can be greater than the associated dimension of the legend carrier, so that overhanging edges of the film are provided for folding over behind the associated edges of the legend carrier.

If the legend carrier itself is, for example, a table with self-adhesive back, then it is convenient to provide for simple sticking or stapling of the text block films to the legend carrier. In the case of a removable legend carrier member, the text block film can be laid rearwardly around the rim or rims of the table. This has the result that the edges of the film are better protected against mechanical damages. After the mounting of such a film and folding over of its edge portions, the legend carrier member can be refitted to the control panel surface.

The data sheet can also be firmly shaped in Uform with additional, inwardly folded limbs and in its internal dimensions correspond to the external dimensions of the legend carrier. This sheet can, in the manner of a sleeve, be drawn over the legend carrier member and fastened together with the carrier to the control panel.

An embodiment of the present invention will now be more particularly described by way of example with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a perspective view of a laundry drier with a legend carrier arranged in a control panel thereof.

Figure 2 is a view of a known accessory pack table with printed legend carriers in four foreign languages; Figure 3 is a view of a legend carrier with text fields without printing, the carrier forming part of a laundry drier data sheet combination embodying the invention; Figure 4 is a view of the legend carrier of Fig. 3 with applied adhesive films printed with text; and Figure 5 is a view of an accessory pack card with a selection of adhesive films printed with foreign languages.

Referring now to the drawings, there is shown in Fig. 1 a laundry drier comprising a housing 1 with a front door 2 for closing a charging opening 3, the drier having a control panel with control knobs 5 arranged therein above the door 2. The knobs 5 are settable in correspondence with a set of programmes printed on a legend carrier 6 to select a programme to control the drier according to desire.

The carrier 6 can consist of, for example, a plastics material card, the rear side of which is coated with a self-adhesive layer. In known household appliances, a single legend card printed in the German language is fastened to the control panel by the manufacturer. Included in an accessory pack of the appliance is, for example, a legend carrier table 7 (Fig. 2) consisting of a substrate which is neutral to the adhesive layer at the rear side and on which the self-adhesive cards 9 for the legend carriers are held within a multi-part frame 8. The cards 9 are printed, in sequence from above to below, in Turkish, Yugoslav, Spanish and Greek. The printed matter corresponds in symbols for different kinds of washing, in letters for the individual program segments, in temperature ranges and in symbols for additional programs which can be included.

The form of legend carrier illustrated in Fig. 3, which is intended for a washing machine, represents a simplification of the arrangement shown in Figs. 1 and 2. The carrier can be firmly mounted on the machine control panel in the works of the manufacturer and no longer needs to be replaced by another legend carrier. It is printed with symbols 10, letters 11 and numbers 12 as well as free text fields 13 (outlined by dashed lines), which are the same in all foreign variants. The fields 13 are printed with register marks in the form of lines 14 for program rows and 15 for program columns.

The legend carrier illustrated in Fig. 4 is that of Fig. 3 but with adhesive films 16 adhered thereto, which films contain texts printed in Danish language. The print of the films also contains register marks in the form of lines 17 for program rows and 18 for program columns, which are to be brought into congruency with the corresponding lines 14 and 15 for alignment of the film before adhesion to the legend carrier.

Figure 5 shows an adhesive film card 19 which, similarly to the card 7 in Fig. 2, comprises a substrate which is neutral to the adhesive layer at the rear side and on which transparent adhesive films 20 to 25 are held at the front, protected by a frame 26. Here, too, can be seen register marks in the form of lines 17 and 18 for the program rows and program columns. The films 20 to 25 are separated by cutting lines 27 from the frame 26 and can therefore be easily detached from the frame and transferred to the legend carrier in Fig. 3. The films 20, 22 and 24 illustrated in Fig. 5 relate to the lefthand field 13 and the films 21, 23 and 25 to the righthand field of the legend carrier in Fig. 3.

The card 19 is without the films 16 in Danish language, these having been mounted on the legend carrier as shown in Fig. 4. The portion formerly holding these adhesive films is separated from the card 19.

In place of the lines illustrated as register marks, the fields 13 inthelegend carrier of Fig. 3 can have other types of register mark. For example, the reg ister marks could be in the form of printed frames corresponding to the separating lines 27 of the ad hesive films. On the other hand, geometric shapes would be suitable as register marks and could be arranged in the otherwise blank corners of the ad hesive film, for example top right and bottom right, and coincide with corresponding register marks in the field 13. In that case a distinction between the righthand field and the lefthand field could still be achieved by, for example, providing circles in the lefthand field and triangles in the righthand field as register marks.

In the illustrated embodiment, the film has area dimensions which correspond with those of the associated text field. However, it is also possible to dimension the film so that it at least approximately covers over the entire legend carrier.

In the case of a legend carrier consisting of a flat plate detented in the control panel, the film can be dimensioned so that at least a part of its cut edge portions project beyond the associated edges of the legend carrier so that these overhanging edge portions can be folded over rearwardly after mounting of the film on the front side of the legend carrier and are thereby better protected against mechanical damage.

Claims

1. A household appliance in combination with a transparent data sheet to be applied to the appliance, the appliance being provided with a data panel carrying a first set of instructional data and having an area for a second set of instructional data associated with the first set, and the data sheet being printed with the second set of data and securable to the panel to dispose the data in said area.

2. A combination as claimed in claim 1, the data of the first set comprising at least one of letters, symbols and numbers and the data of the second set comprising words.

3. A combination as claimed in either claim 1 or claim 2, wherein at least one of the panel and the sheet is provided, in said area and in the region of said second set of data respectively, with register marks to facilitate registration of the second set of data with said area during securing of the sheet to the panel.

4. A combination as claimed in claim 3, wherein each of the panel and the sheet is provided with such register marks, those of the sheet being congruent with those of the panel in a predetermined disposition of the second set of data in said area.

5. A combination as claimed in either claim 3 or claim 4, wherein the register marks comprise lines separating the instructional data into rows and columns.

6. A combination as claimed in either claim 3 or claim 4, wherein the register marks comprise at least two geometric shapes.

7. A combination as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the sheet is an adhesive or self-adhesive film.

8. A combination as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the area of the sheet is substantially equal to said area of the panel.

9. A combination as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the area of the sheet is substantially equal to that of the panel.

10. A combination as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the data panel is a legend carrier mounted on a surface portion of a control panel of the appliance.

11. A combination as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 7, wherein the data panel is a legend carrier removably mounted on a control panel of the appliance, the area ofthesheet being greater than that of the carrier to permit edge portions of the sheet to be wrapped over a rear face of the carrier after removal of the carrier from the control panel.

12. A combination as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the data panel is a legend carrier removably mounted on a control panel of the appliance and the sheet comprises a member of stable shape with return flanges engageable over a rear face of the carrier after removal of the carrier from the control panel.

13. A combination as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the sheet is packed in a package of accessories for the appliance.

14. A combination as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the appliance is a programme-controlled appliance and the instructional data relates to operations of the appliance under the control of the programme.

15. A combination as claimed in any one of the preceding claims, wherein the appliance is one of a laundry washing machine, a dishwashing machine, and a cooker.

16. A combination as claimed in claim 1 and substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to Figs. 3 to 5 of the accompanying drawings.