JP2008186558A - Electronic appliance - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To decrease temperature inside an electronic appliance by controlling the direction of a cooling fan in four directions with accuracy. <P>SOLUTION: The electronic appliance comprises a plurality of temperature sensors disposed in the vicinity of each device to monitor a heating temperature of each device, a cooling fan for cooling each device, and a memory for storing the preset temperature for each device and positional information of a plurality of the temperature sensors. A horizontal shaft motor for setting a horizontal angle of the cooling fan and a vertical shaft motor for setting a vertical angle of the cooling fan, and a means for controlling the cooling fan to direct toward the temperature sensor by driving the horizontal shaft motor and the vertical shaft motor. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

The present invention relates to an electronic device having a cooling fan for arranging an electrical component having a large amount of heat generation inside the device and suppressing an increase in temperature of the electronic component.

In recent years, in addition to optical disk storage media as recording media for consumer electronic devices, large-capacity recording media using magnetic disks such as hard disks have come to be used together. Developed to increase speed. As described above, the amount of heat generated from the drive motor is increased by rotating at high speed. In addition, the main processor for controlling the consumer electronic device also generates heat due to the necessity of controlling the two storage devices of the optical disk and the hard disk as described above, and high integration for speeding up and downsizing the control processing. The amount is increasing. An operation compensation temperature is set for an electronic component constituting the electronic device, and this represents a temperature range in which the electronic component can operate normally. In particular, an electronic component using a semiconductor changes its electrical characteristics depending on the temperature. Therefore, it is necessary to design a product within the above-mentioned operation compensation temperature range. Heat generation of the main electronic components such as the storage device and the main processor as described above raises the temperature inside the device, and may cause abnormal operation of not only the main electronic components themselves but also other electronic components. In order to prevent this, measures such as attaching a heat sink to the electronic component body and arranging the components in consideration of the air flow inside the electronic device have been taken. However, these countermeasures are not sufficient in recent electronic devices. As these countermeasures, a countermeasure for providing a cooling fan inside the electronic apparatus is used.

FIG. 6 shows a block diagram of a hard disk built-in DVD recorder using the cooling fan described above. A cooling fan 601 for cooling the inside of the electronic device, a fan motor 603 for driving the cooling fan, a fan motor on / off switch 605 for turning on / off the operation of the fan motor, and a temperature for detecting the temperature inside the electronic device Temperature sensors 607, 609 and 611, a main processor 613 for controlling electronic devices, a hard disk drive 615 for recording video signals from outside the electronic devices, DVD recording / reproducing for recording / reproducing video information and audio information on an optical disc Part 617.

The temperature sensors 607, 609, and 611 are arranged at or near an electronic component that generates a large amount of heat. If any of the temperature sensors exceeds a predetermined threshold value, the fan motor on / off switch 605 is turned on, and the fan motor 603 starts driving and the cooling fan 601 operates to drive heat out of the electronic device and lower the temperature of each electronic component. When the temperature falls, a signal for turning on the fan motor on / off switch 605 from the temperature sensor is not output, the drive of the fan motor 603 is stopped, and the operation of the cooling fan 601 is stopped.

In Patent Document 1, heat is efficiently discharged to the outside of an electronic device by variably controlling the direction of the exhaust fan and adjusting the direction of the wind based on information from a plurality of temperature sensor groups. A means for determining and cooling a thermal component in a temperature state most likely to fail by a temperature list is disclosed.
JP-A-10-93276

However, with the technique disclosed in Patent Document 1, the direction of the exhaust fan can be controlled only within a plane, and there remains a problem that heat cannot be lowered sufficiently depending on the height and arrangement of components inside the electronic device. Further, since there is no disclosure about means for accurately controlling the direction of the exhaust fan, there remains a problem that the efficient heat exhaust direction cannot be controlled. Particularly in an electronic apparatus such as a DVD recorder / hard disk composite recording / reproducing apparatus, since there are many heat generating parts, a more efficient cooling means is required.

In view of the above-described problems, the present invention efficiently reduces the temperature inside an electronic device by controlling the direction of the cooling fan to the left and right and up and down, and accurately controlling the direction of the cooling fan. With the goal.

In a DVD recording / reproducing machine with a built-in hard disk, a plurality of temperature sensors arranged in the vicinity of each device to monitor the heat generation temperature of each device, a cooling fan for cooling each device, and a set temperature for each device And a memory for storing position information of the plurality of temperature sensors, a horizontal axis motor for setting a horizontal angle of the cooling fan, and a vertical axis for setting the vertical angle of the cooling fan. An axis motor, a photo interrupter for detecting the rotation speed of each of the horizontal axis motor and the vertical axis motor, an interrupter slit for projecting and shielding the photo interrupter, and the photo interrupter by projecting and shielding the interrupter slit And a counter for counting the number of pulses output from the each temperature When the temperature monitored by the sensor exceeds the set temperature read from the memory, the horizontal axis motor and the vertical axis motor are driven according to the positional information of the sensor on the temperature of the corresponding device to Control is performed to cool the device toward the temperature sensor.

In an electronic apparatus, a plurality of temperature sensors arranged in the vicinity of the device to monitor the heat generation temperature of each device, a cooling fan for cooling each device, a set temperature for each device, and the plurality of devices A memory for storing position information of the temperature sensor; a horizontal axis motor for setting a horizontal angle of the cooling fan; and a vertical axis motor for setting a vertical angle of the cooling fan. And a cooling fan control means for controlling the cooling fan to be directed toward the temperature sensor by driving the horizontal axis motor and the vertical axis motor.

The electronic apparatus includes a photo interrupter for detecting the rotational speeds of the horizontal axis motor and the vertical axis motor.

The electronic device includes a counter for counting signals from the photo interrupter.

In the electronic device, when the temperature monitored by each temperature sensor exceeds the set temperature read from the memory, the horizontal axis motor and the vertical axis motor are driven according to the position information of the corresponding temperature sensor to A cooling fan is controlled to be directed toward the temperature sensor to cool the device.

By configuring as described above, the cooling fan can be controlled in the front-rear and left-right directions, and acts to efficiently lower the temperature in the electronic device.

According to the present invention, it is possible to efficiently reduce the temperature inside the electronic device by controlling the direction of the cooling fan in the left and right and up and down directions and accurately controlling the direction of the cooling fan.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, a plurality of temperature sensors are provided, and the vertical axis motor and the horizontal axis motor are arranged so that the direction of the cooling fan is peeled up and down and up and down with respect to a place where the high temperature sensor exists. It is possible by arranging a motor, and the direction of the fan can be accurately detected by detecting the rotation of the count vertical axis motor and horizontal axis motor with a photo interrupter, and the normal operating temperature of each thermal component It is possible to reduce the power consumption of the electronic device main body by controlling the number of rotations of the fan and turning it on and off so that any of the thermal components can be cooled at the minimum. In addition, when all the thermal components exceed the upper limit, it is also possible to set which components are preferentially cooled, so that the electronic components that cause the most trouble in the operation of the electronic device in the case of malfunction due to heat can be selected. It becomes possible to cool preferentially.

According to the second aspect of the present invention, a plurality of temperature sensors are provided, and a vertical fan and a horizontal motor are provided so as to peel the direction of the cooling fan forward, backward, upward and downward with respect to a place where the high temperature sensor is present. This is possible by arranging a motor.

According to invention of Claim 3, it becomes possible to detect and control the direction of a fan correctly by detecting rotation of the axis | shaft of a vertical axis | shaft motor and a horizontal axis motor with a photo interrupter.

According to the fourth aspect of the present invention, the direction of the fan can be accurately detected and controlled by counting the output from the photo interrupter.

According to the fifth aspect of the present invention, when the electronic component exceeds the operation compensation temperature data, it is possible to control the driving of the cooling fan to prevent the operation of the electronic device from being hindered. Become.

Next, the best mode for carrying out the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.

First, a block diagram of a hard disk built-in DVD recorder according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. Temperature sensors 101, 103 and 105 for detecting the ambient temperature, a cooling fan 109 for cooling the electronic components, a fan motor 111 for rotating the cooling fan 109, the operation compensation temperature of each main electronic component, Temperature comparison means 113 that controls the fan motor 111 by comparing the ambient temperature detected by each sensor arranged near the electronic component (for example, the temperature detected by the temperature sensor 101 exceeds 85 degrees as shown in FIG. 4). The horizontal axis motor 115 for adjusting the horizontal direction of the cooling fan 109, the vertical axis motor 117 for adjusting the vertical direction of the cooling fan 109, and the horizontal axis motor 115. The photo interrupter 119 for detecting the rotation angle of the motor shaft of the motor and the photo interrupter for detecting the rotation angle of the motor shaft of the vertical motor 117. The interrupter 121, the interrupter slit 123 for projecting and shielding the photo interrupter 119, the interrupter slit 125 for posting and shielding the photo interrupter 121, the horizontal axis counter 127 for counting the on / off signal of the interrupter slit 123, and the vertical for counting the on / off signal of the interrupter slit 125 Axis counter 129, memory 130 for recording the operation compensation temperature upper limit value of each device, fan direction control means 131 for driving the horizontal axis motor 115 and the vertical axis motor 117, a hard disk drive 133 for recording video and audio, and an optical disk It comprises a DVD recording / reproducing unit 135 for recording and reproducing video and audio, and a main processor 137 for controlling the entire operation of the hard disk built-in DVD recorder. When any of the temperature sensors 101, 103, and 105 exceeds the operation compensation temperature upper limit value stored in the memory 130, the temperature comparison unit 113 drives the fan motor 111 to rotate the fan motor 109. At the same time, the fan direction control means 131 reads the position information of the temperature sensor that detects that the operation compensation temperature upper limit value stored in the memory 129 has been exceeded, and rotates the horizontal axis motor 115 and the vertical axis motor 117. Next, interrupter slits 123 and 125 provided on the rotation shafts of the horizontal axis motor 115 and the vertical axis motor 117 respectively project and block light between the two poles of the photo interrupters 121 and 123. The horizontal axis counter 127 and the vertical axis counter 129 count the number of pulses from the photointerrupters 119 and 121, respectively, with the light projection shielding as one pulse. The position information is the number of pulses of each of the photointerrupters 119 and 121. When the pulses are counted, the rotation of the horizontal motor 115 and the vertical motor 117 is stopped so that the cooling fan is accurately directed to the position of the temperature sensor. To control.

Next, an outline of the photo interrupter will be described with reference to FIG. The photo interrupter is a semiconductor provided with a photodiode 201 and a phototransistor 203 inside, and a gap 205 is provided between the photodiode 201 and the phototransistor 203. When the photodiode 201 is turned on, infrared rays are generated, and the infrared rays are input to the base of the phototransistor 203, whereby the collector-emitter is turned on.

Next, operations of the photo interrupter and the interrupt slit will be described with reference to FIG. The interrupter slit 213 has a disk shape, and is provided with slits 215 radially from the center of the circle. The interrupter slit 213 is provided in the motor shafts 124 and 126 of the horizontal axis motor 115 and the vertical axis motor 117, respectively. Here, for the sake of simplicity, only the horizontal axis motor 115 will be described. The interrupter slit 213 is inserted in the gap of the photo interrupter 119. The interrupter slit 123 also rotates according to the rotation of the horizontal axis motor 115, and infrared light is projected to the base of the phototransistor 203 when the slit 215 passes through the gap 205, and the infrared light is shielded when the light shielding unit 214 passes through the gap 205. To do. By reducing the size of the slit 215 and the light-shielding portion 214, the number of times of light projection and light-shielding obtained by one rotation of the interrupter slit 213 is increased, and the rotation angle can be controlled in stages corresponding to the number of times. It is possible to control the high directivity.

Next, the potential transition of the emitter 211 of the photo interrupter 119 that is projected and shielded by the interrupter slit 213 will be described with reference to FIG. A constant voltage Vcc is applied to the collector 209 of the photo interrupter 119. When infrared light is projected to the base 210 of the phototransistor 203, the collector 209 and the emitter 211 are conducted, and the emitter 211 has substantially the same potential as the constant voltage Vcc. It becomes. A rectangular wave is configured with the state where the collector 209 and the emitter 211 are conductive (light-projected state) being Hi and the state where the collector 209 and the emitter 211 are not conductive (light-shielded state) being Lo. One pulse is from one rising edge of the rectangular wave to the next rising edge of Hi.

Next, the direction control of the cooling fan 109 will be described with reference to FIG. As the horizontal motor 115 rotates, the horizontal motor shaft 124 rotates and the cooling fan 109 rotates in the left-right direction as indicated by the arrow A about the horizontal axis 116. Further, as the vertical motor 117 rotates, the vertical motor shaft 126 rotates and the cooling fan 109 rotates in the vertical direction as indicated by an arrow B around the vertical axis 118.

Next, the operation compensation upper limit temperature and position information of devices in the vicinity of each temperature sensor will be described with reference to FIG. The upper row shows each temperature sensor, the middle row shows the operation compensation upper limit temperature corresponding to each temperature sensor, and the lower row shows the position information of each temperature sensor. In this embodiment, there are four main devices in the electronic apparatus, and temperature sensors are arranged in the vicinity thereof. The operation compensation upper limit temperature may be a numerical value described in a device specification or may be smaller than a value in the specification in consideration of a margin according to a design concept. The position information stores the number of pulses output from the photo interrupter that the counter counts when the horizontal axis motor rotates, and the number of pulses that are output from the photo interrupter that the counter counts when the vertical axis motor rotates. Has been.

Next, a series of control operations will be described with reference to FIG. The temperature detected by the temperature sensor is compared with the operation compensation upper limit temperature (step S501). When the operation compensation upper limit temperature is exceeded (step S502), the cooling fan is started (step S503). Next, sensor position information stored in advance in the memory is read out (step S504), and driving of the horizontal axis motor and the vertical axis motor is started (steps S505 and S510). Next, the rotation angle of the motor shaft of each of the horizontal axis motor and the vertical axis motor is counted as the number of pulses counted by the counter via the photo interrupter (steps S506 and S511). Details of the sensor position information will be described later. Next, it is determined whether or not the position information read from the memory matches the number of pulses counted by the counter (steps S507 and S512). If they match, the driving of the horizontal axis motor and the vertical axis motor is stopped (steps S508 and S512). Step S513). Next, the temperature detected by the temperature sensor is monitored (step S509), and it is determined whether the temperature is lower than the operation compensation upper limit temperature (step S514). If the temperature is lower, the driving of the cooling fan is stopped (step S515).

Note that it is preferable to drive the horizontal axis motor 115 and the vertical axis motor 117 in parallel because the devices can be cooled more quickly in parallel as in this embodiment.

1 shows a block diagram according to an embodiment of the present invention. (1) An equivalent circuit of a photo interrupter according to an embodiment of the present invention is shown. (2) A photo interrupter and an interrupter slit according to an embodiment of the present invention are shown. (3) A transition graph of the emitter potential of the photo interrupter according to the embodiment of the present invention is shown. 1 shows a driving concept of a cooling fan according to an embodiment of the present invention. The data table of the operation compensation upper limit temperature of each device which concerns on embodiment of this invention, and the positional information on each temperature sensor is shown. The follow chart showing a series of operation concerning an embodiment of the present invention is shown. A conventional example is shown.

Explanation of symbols

101/103/105/107 Temperature sensor 109 Cooling fan 129 Memory 115 Horizontal axis motor 117 Vertical axis motor 119/121 Photo interrupter 123/125 Interrupter slit 127 Horizontal axis counter 129 Vertical axis counter

Claims (5)

A plurality of temperature sensors arranged in the vicinity of the device to monitor the heat generation temperature of each device, a cooling fan for cooling each device, a set temperature for each device, and a position of the plurality of temperature sensors In a hard disk built-in DVD recorder / player equipped with a memory for storing information,
The horizontal axis motor for setting the horizontal angle of the cooling fan, the vertical axis motor for setting the vertical angle of the cooling fan, and the rotational speeds of the horizontal axis motor and the vertical axis motor are detected. A photo interrupter for performing, a slit for projecting and shielding the photo interrupter, and a counter for counting the number of pulses output from the photo interrupter by projecting and shielding the interrupter slit, When the temperature monitored by the temperature sensor exceeds the set temperature read from the memory, the cooling motor is driven by driving the horizontal axis motor and the vertical axis motor according to the positional information of the sensor on the temperature of the corresponding device. The device is controlled to cool the device toward the temperature sensor. De disk visceral DVD recording and playback machine. A plurality of temperature sensors arranged in the vicinity of the device to monitor the heat generation temperature of each device, a cooling fan for cooling each device, a set temperature for each device, and a position of the plurality of temperature sensors In an electronic device provided with a memory for storing information,
A horizontal axis motor for setting a horizontal angle of the cooling fan and a vertical axis motor for setting a vertical angle of the cooling fan are provided, and the horizontal motor and the vertical motor are driven. An electronic device comprising cooling fan control means for controlling the cooling fan to face the temperature sensor. The electronic device of Claim 2 provided with the photo interrupter for detecting the rotation speed of each of the said horizontal axis motor and a vertical axis | shaft motor. The electronic device according to claim 2, further comprising a counter for counting a signal from the photo interrupter. When the temperature monitored by each temperature sensor exceeds the set temperature read from the memory, the horizontal axis motor and the vertical axis motor are driven according to the position information of the corresponding temperature sensor to set the cooling fan to The electronic apparatus according to claim 2, wherein the electronic device is controlled to cool the device toward the temperature sensor.