JP2969729B2 - Electric vacuum cleaner - Google Patents

Description

Description: BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a vacuum cleaner that controls the number of revolutions of an electric blower by an output of a state sensor and a dust sensor that detect movement of a hand operation unit.

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, with the diversification of objects to be cleaned such as carpets, there is a tendency that the number of rotations of an electric blower can be changed as needed. There is also a vacuum cleaner equipped with various sensors and controlling the number of revolutions according to the signals.

Conventionally, this type of vacuum cleaner generally has a configuration shown in FIG. 5 and FIG. Hereinafter, the configuration will be described.

As shown in the figure, a hose 2 is connected to the cleaner body 1, a hand operation unit 3 is provided at the end of the hose 2, and a floor suction tool 4 is further provided. The electric blower 5 and the first bidirectional thyristor 6 provided in the cleaner main body 1 are connected in series and connected to an AC power supply, and the gate of the first bidirectional thyristor 6 is connected via a resistor 7 to the gate. A second bidirectional thyristor 8 is connected. Between the gate of the second bidirectional thyristor 8 and one side of the AC power supply, a trigger element 9 and current limiting resistors 10, 11 connect the tip of the hose 2. Hand operation unit 3
Is connected to the switch 12 and the slide resistor 13 installed in the switch. Further, a trigger element 9 between T ₁ terminal of the second bidirectional thyristor 8, the capacitor 14 is connected.

As is apparent from the above configuration, when the value of the slide resistor 13 of the hand operation unit 3 is changed, the charging time of the capacitor 14 changes, the trigger timing of the trigger element 9 changes, and the power of the electric blower 5 is reduced. The number of rotations is controlled.

Problems to be Solved by the Invention In such a conventional vacuum cleaner, the user must manually change the value of the slide resistor 13 of the hand operation unit, so that the degree of contamination on the cleaning surface and the cleaning The method often depends on the intuition of the user, and there are many problems in performing optimal cleaning.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made to solve the above problems, and has as its first object to detect the amount of dust on a floor surface and the movement of a hand operation unit to automate cleaning which has conventionally depended on intuition, thereby improving usability. It is a second object of the present invention to improve safety by automatically stopping when the hand operation unit is at rest or at rest. It is a third object of the present invention to automatically determine a user's cleaning method and the necessity of cleaning the cleaning surface, and to set an optimum cleaning mode according to each household to greatly improve the usability.

Means for Solving the Problems In order to achieve the first object, the present invention provides a dust sensor for detecting dust in an air flow path, a state sensor for detecting an operation speed of a hand operation unit, and the dust sensor. And a control means for inputting the output of the state sensor. The first means for solving the problem is that the control means controls the number of revolutions of the electric blower from the output of the dust sensor and the output of the state sensor.

In order to achieve the second object, in addition to the first means for solving the above problems, when the output of any one of the dust sensor and the state sensor is generated, the number of rotations of the electric blower is controlled. The second problem-solving means is to stop the operation when no output is generated.

According to the first aspect of the present invention, for example, when the amount of dust is large and the cleaning speed is high, the suction force for speed cleaning is determined by the amount of dust from the dust sensor and the operation speed (cleaning speed) from the state sensor. Can be controlled, and the suction force can be controlled according to the amount of dust and the cleaning speed.

Further, according to the second problem solving means, when the outputs of the dust sensor and the state sensor are not generated, the electric blower can be stopped by judging that the cleaning is stopped or the stationary state, and when the electric blower is operated again, All you have to do is move the hand control.

Embodiment Hereinafter, an embodiment of the first invention will be described with reference to FIG.

As shown in the figure, a dust sensor 24 is formed by installing a light emitting element 22 and a light receiving element 23 in the air passage 21 to face each other, and the output of the light receiving element 23 is supplied to a first level detector 25. The first level detector 25 determines the amount of light fluctuation that occurs when dust passes through the control circuit.
Enter 26.

The state sensor 27 includes a spherical ball 28 in a closed case, and a photointerrupter 31 including a light emitting element 29 and a light receiving element 30 is provided. A change in the amount of light generated by cutting off the optical axis of the raptor 31 in proportion to the cleaning speed is detected by the second level detector 32 and input to the control circuit 26. The control circuit 26 is configured to receive the output of the dust sensor 24 and the output of the state sensor 27, calculate the output, and control the rotation speed of the electric blower 34 via the bidirectional thyristor 33.

The operation of the above configuration will be described with reference to FIGS.
As shown in FIG. 2B, the rotation speed of the electric blower 34 is controlled by the output V _A of the dust sensor 24 and the output V _B of the state sensor 27 to control the suction force as shown in FIG. 2C. If the amount of dust is large and the cleaning speed is high, the mode is determined as the "speed cleaning" mode and the suction force is controlled to be maximum.If the amount of dust is small and the cleaning speed is high, the suction force is suppressed and the operation force is reduced. Control. When the amount of dust is large and the cleaning speed is low, the suction power is controlled to be slightly lower by “elaborate easy cleaning”, and a mode is set in which the cleaning is performed slowly and carefully. Further, when the amount of dust is small and the cleaning speed is low, the mode becomes the “power save operation” mode, and the suction force is controlled to be low.

The suction force can be automatically controlled by various cleaning patterns other than the above.

As described above, according to the vacuum cleaner of the first embodiment of the present invention, the suction force can be optimally controlled by the amount of dust on the floor and the movement and operation speed of the hand operation unit, and the usability can be greatly improved.

 Next, an embodiment of the second invention will be described.

The configuration of the second embodiment of the present invention is the same as that of the first embodiment of the present invention shown in FIG.
Output of the dust sensor 24 and the state sensor 27 as shown in FIG.
V _A, when the V _B does not occur to stop operation of the electric blower 34 as in the third view (c), the suction force according to the amount of dust when only the output V _A of the dust sensor 24 is occurring controls, when only the output V _B of the state sensor 27 has occurred is controlled to be "power save operation" mode.

As described above, according to the vacuum cleaner of the second embodiment of the present invention, when there is no dust and the hand operation unit is stopped or stopped, the operation is automatically stopped, so that the safety can be greatly improved.

Next, an embodiment of the third invention will be described with reference to FIG. The components having the same configuration as the embodiment of the first invention are denoted by the same reference numerals, and description thereof is omitted.

As shown in the drawing, the control circuit 35 has a timer function, and can count the operation time during the operation of the cleaner.
The storage device 36 stores the output of the dust sensor 24 and the state sensor 27 and the value obtained by performing an arithmetic operation on the operation time.

The operation of the above configuration will be described. The dust sensor 24 detects the amount of dust distributed on the floor surface, and the state sensor 27 detects the number of times the user performs the reciprocating operation of the floor suction tool during cleaning. The control circuit 35 calculates and processes the three information of 24, the output of the state sensor 27 and the operation time, and determines the degree of dirt on the cleaning surface, the peculiarity of the user's cleaning speed, the cleaning range, etc. The overall state is recognized, the number of revolutions of the electric blower 34 or ON-OFF control is performed, and the information obtained by the arithmetic processing is stored in the storage device 36. Therefore, at the time of the next cleaning, the suction force can be controlled in accordance with the cleaning pattern of each household and each user.
The control target based on the output of the control circuit 35 is the electric blower 34.
In addition, by adding an electric suction nozzle provided on the floor suction tool, more detailed cleaning can be performed.

Advantageous Effects of the Invention As is clear from the above embodiments, according to the present invention, the number of rotations of the electric blower is controlled from the output of the dust sensor and the output of the state sensor. The suction force can be controlled, improving usability. In addition, when the output of the dust sensor and the output of the state sensor are not generated, the rotation of the electric blower is stopped, so that safety is improved. Further, from the information such as the cleaning operation time, the amount of dust during the cleaning operation, the cleaning speed, and the like, the cleaning range, the degree of dirt on the entire floor surface, and the uniqueness of the cleaning speed are determined, and the control of the next electric blower is determined. In the next cleaning, accurate suction force control can be performed according to the usage conditions.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a vacuum cleaner according to one embodiment of the present invention,
2 (a) to 2 (c) are output waveform diagrams and suction force characteristic diagrams of each sensor of the vacuum cleaner, and FIGS. 3 (a) to 3 (c) are diagrams of other usage examples of the vacuum cleaner. FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a vacuum cleaner according to another embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 5 is a perspective view of a conventional vacuum cleaner, and FIG.
The figure is a circuit diagram of the conventional vacuum cleaner. 21 ... air passage, 24 ... dust sensor, 26 ... control circuit (control means), 27 ... state sensor, 34 ... electric blower.

Claims (2)

(57) [Claims] 1. A control device comprising: a dust sensor for detecting dust in an air flow path; a state sensor for detecting an operation speed of a hand operation unit; and control means for inputting outputs of the dust sensor and the state sensor. The means is configured to control the number of revolutions of the electric blower from the output of the dust sensor and the output of the state sensor. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein when any of the output of the dust sensor and the status sensor is generated, the number of rotations of the electric blower is controlled, and when no output is generated from both sensors, the operation is stopped. The vacuum cleaner according to claim 1.