GB2300700A - Clothes washing and drying machine - Google Patents

Abstract

A combined machine for washing and drying laundry comprising a device 1 for condensation of the moisture in said air flowing in said conduit, which device is disposed adjacent to a vertical wall 3 of the casing of the machine and is removable and at a position corresponding to said device said casing has an opening 4 for access thereto. A filter (6, figures 2 and 3) for intercepting fluff may be disposed within a portion of said condensation device, which filter is removable from the exterior. In the machines which are provided with a filter for the drain liquid which is removable and accessible from the front side of the machine, the condenser is connected to a conduit which passes into the tub and which also passes through the drain filter (figures 4 and 5).

Description

IMPROVED CLOTHES WASHING MACHINE The invention concerns an improved type of combined machine for washing and drying laundry wherein the drying procedure is effected by condensation of the moisture contained in the hot air which is passed through the laundry, which is provided with means which make cleaning of the condenser particularly fast.

Clothes washing-drying machines are known which operate by condensation of a flow of hot air which is blown into the drum and which removes the moisture contained in the laundry. They are designed in known manner by installing a ventilation system, normally a fan formed by a fan impeller and associated electric motor, which circulates the air in a closed cycle by means of a conduit, heats it and blows it into the drum containing the laundry to be dried.

Fitted in the interior of the conduit is a heating element which, when suitably activated, heats the air passing around it, which is blown by said fan, whereby air which is sufficiently hot to cause evaporation of the moisture contained in the laundry is passed into the drum.

The hot air which is thus impregnated with moisture is then drawn out of the drum and is passed through a condenser which is generally formed by jet of fresh water taken from the mains, which creates a cold barrier against which the hot moist air is blown.

Due to the effect of the difference in temperature the moisture present in the circulating air is condensed and the condensate is passed to the bottom of the tub from which it is easily removed.

All that is well known in the state of the art and is set forth above merely in order to facilitate understanding of the particularities of the present patent.

Those clothes drying machines are machines which are fairly simple, economical and reliable in operation but, as is well known, they suffer from the disadvantage that the fluff and particles of cloth which become detåthed from the laundry being dried are transported by the drying air into the condenser and are deposited on the walls thereof, more especially in its upper region; as the drying cycles increase the progressive accumulation of such fluff in that zone causes clogging which restricts the flow section for the dried air, thus correspondingly reducing the speed and effectiveness of the drying operation.

A condensation-type clothes-drying machine is known from Italian patent (application) no. PN91 A 000007 in which cleaning of the lower part of the condenser is effected by sucking therein water which is sucked from the tub, and using the same air-circulating fan for that suction effect; however the procedure requires modifications to the programmer but in particular washing with the water which is sucked in is limited to the lower portion of the condenser, leaving the upper portion completely clogged.

The result of this is that the use of such machines is normally limited by such maintenance problems.

In order to remedy such disadvantages it is necessary to provide for cleaning of the condenser; however it is stably mounted within the machine and is in accessible from the exterior, and thus such an operation requires the intervention of a specialist technician, with the troubles and inconveniences that this involves.

It would therefore be desirable, and this is the aim of the present invention, to provide a machine for washing and drying laundry which is capable of permitting quick and easy cleaning of the entire condenser with a fast, simple operation which can be easily performed by the actual user, with modest modifications to the machine which can be performed without excessive trouble.

According to the present invention, there is provided a combined machine for washing and condensation-type drying of laundry, comprising a conduit for circulation, condensation and heating of the air which is taken from a suction intake region disposed on the wall of said tub and blown in a delivery zone within said tub, said conduit comprising a motor-driven fan impeller, at least one electrical resistance for heating the air circulating within said conduit and a device for condensation of the moisture in said air circulating in said conduit and disposed adjacent to a vertical wall of the casing of said machine, wherein said condensation device is removably fitted to the conduit by means of suitable locking means and, at a position corresponding to said device said casing has an access opening closable by an associated door.

The invention which will be better appreciated from the following description given solely by way of non-limiting example and as set forth in the accompanying claims and with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 diagrammatically shows a first embodiment of a machine according to the invention; Figure 2 is a diagrammatic view of a first variant of a machine according to the invention; Figure 3 shows a detail of the machine in Figure 2, removed therefrom, Figure 4 shows a second variant of a machine according to the invention; and Figure 5 shows a detail of the construction shown in Figure 4.

The solution devised is based on the consideration that the most reliable and convenient way of cleaning the condenser, in particular the upper part thereof, of the fluff which is deposited therein, would simply be to remove it and to proceed with manual cleaning, for example by means of a jet of water which is directed into its interior.

Now that is impossible both because the current condensers are not removable for normal maintenance operations, and also because they are not accessible except after having been removed from the machine, something which puts the entire operation beyond the reach of the user.

Those obstacles are overcome with the present invention by means of corresponding and simultaneous solutions (see Figure 1): the first solution involves designing a condenser 1 which can be assembled in an easily dismantleable and refittable manner using known sound technology such as for example with pressure-engagement and latching-engagement elements 2, or unhookable and rehookable hook elements, etc.

The second solution involves disposing the condenser in the immediate vicinity of a vertical wall of the machine which may be either a side wall or the front, and that the portion of said wall which faces said removable condenser has an access opening 3 which is closable by a suitable door 4.

Naturally both the position and the size of the opening must be such that, once the door is open, it is possible easily to gain access to the condenser, to release the respective fixing means 2, and to be able to remove it from its assembly and extract it from the machine.

A variant of those solutions is based on the premise that, instead of allowing the fluff to be deposited on the condenser and then removing it, it is better to prevent the fluff remaining in circulation; for that purpose, a filter 6 of sufficiently narrow mesh is fitted in a suitable section of the condenser, and there are provided means 7 for locking and unlocking the filter which is capable of intercepting the fluff in its position of normal operation. In this case also the above-mentioned means 7 must be capable of being easily actuated, and in front of the filter the casing has a similar opening which is closable by a door, which opening is suitable for gaining access to the filter from the exterior in order to be able to release the filter and remove it.

The filter may be either a grid-type filter with meshes which are sufficiently narrow as to intercept the fluff but sufficiently wide to avoid the danger of clogging and stoppage thereof.

It is naturally also possible to use a filter of 'labyrinth' type among the many which are known in the state of the art, which however may involve an excessive pressure drop; the man skilled in the art is certainly capable of correctly evaluating all the factors involved and selecting the solution which is most appropriate to the existing constraints and the requirements sought.

However the solutions proposed, while being effective in regard to the requirements laid down, suffer from disadvantages which can be summarised as follows: a) the need to have to work normally on one side of the machine since the condenser is almost always disposed along a side wall; that involves the need in most cases to have to remove the machine from its housing in which it is normally placed; and b) the fact that the design hereinbefore required and described, that is to say involving an opening, a door, and devices for locking and unlocking the condenser, involves an undesirable although modest production burden.

To obviate that, in particular in regard to point a), it has been considered that such combined machines, insofar as constituting washing machines, normally have a filter for protecting the drain pump which is accessible to the user for periodic maintenance. The reason for and the functioning and the mounting of such a filter are universally known and therefore will not be further discussed herein for the sake of brevity.

Reflecting therefore on the presence both of a filter for the water which is already available and perfectly accessible and on the desirable presence of a filter for the air, it has been found that those filters can advantageously be unified in a single filter, preferably the pre-existing filter for the drain liquid which however must be partially modified.

The modification essentially involves providing on the common filter 10 two further openings, one opening 11 for introduction into the filtering chamber 12 and one opening 13 for discharge from the filtering chamber, wherein the opening 11 is fed by a conduit 14 coming from the condenser 1 and the discharge opening 13 passed into a conduit 15 which carried the drying air within the tub, preferably passing through a plurality of electrical resistances (not shown) for heating thereof (see Figure 5).

It has in fact been checked by experiment that a normal filter for the washing liquid comprises a variously shaped filtering element, the filtering chamber of which affords good characteristics in regard to interception also of the fluff which is in suspension in the drying air; that can be explained by the fact that the drying air, unlike the washing liquid which passes through the filter once, passes through that filter a large number of times and for a prolonged period of about 1 hour or 2 hours, and in that period it is sufficient for the filter to intercept in each recirculation of the filtering air even only a minimal amount of fluff or resides since at the end of the drying operation the maximum part of the fluff or undesirable fragments is completely blocked.

For that reason some filters which are currently used as liquid filters can also be employed as elements for filtering air, without substantial modifications.

The advantage of that configuration is apparent: indeed, with just one filtering element which is already available and perfectly accessible, it is possible to achieve the dual filtering action and it is possible to effect cleaning of the filter once only in order to remove therefrom both the resides intercepted in the liquid filtering operation and the fluff.

It is apparent that the man skilled in the art can find other technical solutions and optimum designs in terms of the use of the reservoir and the associated components by having recourse to the normal technology and knowledge in the art; therefore although the invention has been described using generally known terminology, it is not considered as being limited by the examples given since the man skilled in the art may make numerous modifications and variations therein. It is appreciated therefore that the accompanying claims include such obvious manifestations which are apparent to the man skilled in the art and which are contained within the true spirit and scope of the present invention as defined in the appended claims.

Claims (5)

1. A combined machine for washing and condensationtype drying of laundry, comprising a conduit for circulation, condensation and heating of the air which is taken from a suction intake region disposed on the wall of said tub and blown in a delivery zone within said tub, said conduit comprising a motor-driven fan impeller, at least one electrical resistance for heating the air circulating within said conduit and a device for condensation of the moisture in said air circulating in said conduit and disposed adjacent to a vertical wall of the casing of said machine, wherein said condensation device is removably fitted to the conduit by means of suitable locking means and, at a position corresponding to said device said casing has an access opening closable by an associated door.

2. A machine according to the classifying portion of claim 1, wherein said condensation device comprises a fluff filter, that said filter is removable and can be extracted from the exterior without removing said condenser, that means re provided which are capable of locking and unlocking said filter and that at a position corresponding to said filter said casing has an opening for access thereto.

3. A machine according to the classifying portion of claim 1 and further provided with a filtering device which accommodates a filter for the drain liquid, said filter being removable and accessible from the front side of the machine, wherein the outlet portion for the air from said condensation device comprises a conduit which passes by means of an opening into the filtering chamber in which there is provided a further opening which together with a suitable conduit communicates said filtering chamber with said tub.

4. A machine according to claim 3 wherein said filter is capable of intercepting both the fluff and impurities present in the drain liquid during the washing program and the fluff or other bodies present in the flow of air downstream of the condenser during the drying phase.

5. A machine constructed and arranged to operate substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to and as illustrated in Figure 1, Figures 2 and 3, Figures 4 and 5 of the accompanying drawings.