JPH0246401Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] This invention provides a mode selection function for selecting a vehicle height adjustment mode and a suspension mode, and an electronically controlled suspension device that displays the mode. This invention relates to an electronically controlled suspension device in which the display is switched off so as not to be displayed.

In recent years, due to the switch operation by the passenger in the driver's seat,
BACKGROUND ART A device configured to be able to select a suspension mode with a mode switching function is in practical use.
In this type of device, which is operated by pressure from a fluid pressure source driven by the engine, if the engine is stopped, the fluid pressure source will not operate even if the above switch is operated. Therefore, a situation arises in which the suspension mode is not switched. In other words, a situation arises in which the state of the indoor switch and the suspension mode are different.

Furthermore, even if an accumulator is provided, if the pressure in the accumulator is not sufficient, it will take a long time to switch modes.
In any case, especially in devices equipped with a failure detection function that determines that a failure has occurred and lights up an alarm lamp when mode switching is not performed within a set time, the alarm lamp will turn on, and the cause may be simple. The drawback was that it caused discomfort to the driver even though the engine was stalled.

This idea was made in view of the above points,
The purpose of this is to switch between the vehicle height adjustment mode and suspension mode when the engine stalls in an electronically controlled suspension device that has a mode selection function to select the vehicle height adjustment mode and suspension mode, and a display section to display the mode. An object of the present invention is to provide an electronically controlled suspension device that does not display any information.

An embodiment of this invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a car equipped with this device, and FIG. 2 is a diagram showing the overall configuration of the device. As shown in Fig. 1, front air suspension units FS, FS1, and FS2 are interposed between the left and right ends of the front wheel FA side axle and the vehicle body B side member, and the rear wheel BA side axle is interposed between the front air suspension units FS, FS1, and FS2. Rear air suspension units RS, RS1, and RS2 are interposed between the left and right ends of the vehicle and the vehicle body B side member, respectively.

These air suspension units FS1,
Since FS2, RS1, and RS2 each have almost the same structure, air suspension units will be referred to by reference numerals as shown in Fig. 2, unless the front and rear suspension units are explained separately. S
The explanation will be made using the following figure, and only the parts necessary for vehicle height control will be illustrated and explained.

That is, these air suspension units S incorporate a strut type damping force switching type shock absorber 1, and this shock absorber 1 has a cylinder attached to the front wheel FA side or the rear wheel BA side, and this It has a piston that is slidably inserted into the cylinder, and the cylinder moves up and down with respect to the piston rod 2 in response to the up and down movement of the wheel, thereby exerting a damping function that corresponds to the position of the shutter in the shock absorber 1. , it is now able to absorb shots effectively.

Incidentally, a main air spring chamber 3 which also serves as a vehicle height adjustment fluid chamber is disposed coaxially with the piston rod 2 at the top of the shock absorber 1.
Since a part of the main air spring chamber 3 is formed by a bellows 4, the piston rod 2 can be moved up and down by supplying and discharging air to the main air spring chamber 3.

Further, a sub air spring chamber 5 is disposed coaxially with the piston rod 2 directly above the main air spring chamber 3.

Further, the outer wall of the shock absorber 1 is provided with a spring receiver 6a facing upward, and the outer wall of the auxiliary air spring chamber 5 is provided with a spring receiver 6b facing downward. , 6b is loaded with a coil spring 7.

Further, these air spring chambers 3 and 5 are connected to each other via a communication passage 9 bored in a control rod 8 which is rotatably inserted into the piston rod 2. An on-off valve 10 constituting a spring constant switching mechanism is interposed therein.

This on-off valve 10 is connected to the auxiliary air spring chamber 5 and the communication passage 9.
The main air spring chamber 3 is configured to include a first valve portion 10a that cuts off communication between the main air spring chamber 3 and the communication passage 9, and a second valve portion 10b that cuts off communication between the main air spring chamber 3 and the communication passage 9.

Therefore, when the on-off valve 10 is in the open mode,
The main air spring chamber 3 and the auxiliary air spring chamber 5 can be brought into communication with each other to make the spring constant small (soft). By cutting off the chamber 5, the spring constant can be increased (hardened).

That is, by rotating the control rod 8, the on-off valve 10 can be opened and closed.
By opening and closing, the spring chamber capacity can be changed.

By changing this spring chamber capacity, the spring constant of the suspension can be changed.

Further, the lower end of the control rod 8 is provided with a control valve 8a that can change the orifice area of the piston 1a of the shock absorber 1. This control valve 8a is configured by the control rod 8 to increase the orifice area of the piston 1a to reduce the damping force when the on-off valve 10 is in the open mode, and to reduce the damping force when the on-off valve 10 is in the closed mode.
The damping force is increased by reducing the orifice area.

Thus, the vehicle height adjustment of the automobile is carried out by the configuration shown in FIG. That is, as shown in FIG. 2, compressed air for adjusting the vehicle height is transmitted from a compressor 11 as a compressed air generating device to a dryer 12,
Each suspension unit is It is now supplied to S.

The compressor 11 compresses the air sent from the air cleaner 18 and supplies the compressed air to the dryer 12. The compressed air dried by silica gel or the like in the dryer 12 is shown by the solid line arrows in FIG. Like, suspension unit S
supplied to Furthermore, when compressed air is exhausted from the suspension unit S, the exhaust solenoid valve 1 is
Via 9, the compressed air is released to the atmosphere.

Note that the dryer 12 includes a reserve tank 20.
A portion of the compressed air is supplied from this reserve tank 20 to each suspension unit S via an air supply solenoid valve 21.

Further, as shown in FIG. 2, a vehicle height sensor 22 is provided, and this vehicle height sensor 22 is attached to a lower arm 23 of the front right suspension of the vehicle to detect the front vehicle height of the vehicle. The vehicle height sensor 22F includes a height sensor 22F and a rear vehicle height sensor 22R that is attached to the lateral rod 24 of the rear left suspension of the vehicle and detects the rear vehicle height of the vehicle.
A front vehicle height detection signal and a rear vehicle height detection signal are supplied from 2F and 22R to a control unit 25 serving as a vehicle height adjustment control section.

Each sensor 22F, 22 in the vehicle height sensor 22
R is the Hall IC element and one of the magnets connected to the wheel FA.
and the other side is attached to the vehicle body B side to detect the distance from the Remar vehicle height level and the low vehicle height or high vehicle height level, respectively. Note that the vehicle height sensor may be of any other type, for example, one using a phototransistor.

Furthermore, the speedometer 26 has a built-in vehicle speed sensor 27, which detects the vehicle speed and sends a detection signal to the control unit 2.
Mechanical speedometers use a reed switch type vehicle speed sensor, and electronic speedometers use a transistor-based open collector output type sensor.

Further, an acceleration sensor 28 is provided as a vehicle body posture sensor that detects changes in the posture of the vehicle body.
This acceleration sensor 28 is designed to detect changes in the vehicle body posture such as pitch, roll, and yaw on the car's springs. For example, when there is no acceleration, the weight is in a hanging state, and the light from the light emitting diode is directed toward the shielding plate. The structure is such that the absence of acceleration can be detected by blocking the light from reaching the photodiode.

When acceleration acts in the front and back, left and right, or up and down directions, the weight tilts or moves, and the acceleration state of the vehicle body is detected.

Reference numeral 32 is a steering sensor that detects the rotational speed of the steering wheel 33, that is, the steering speed. Reference numeral 34 denotes an accelerator sensor that detects the operation speed of an accelerator pedal of the engine (not shown).

35 communicates with the reserve tank 20 via three-way switching valves 36, and the control rod 8
The three-way switching valve 36 is a pneumatic drive mechanism that rotates the pneumatic drive mechanism 35 and the reserve tank 20 according to a signal from the control unit 25.
You can select either a position where the pneumatic drive mechanism 35 communicates with the atmosphere or a position where the air pressure drive mechanism 35 communicates with the atmosphere.
This has the function of rotating the control rod 8 to a predetermined position to transition from the hard state to the soft state, and also rotating the control rod 8 in the opposite direction to a predetermined position to transition from the soft state to the hard state. . Note that an air cylinder type drive mechanism may be used instead of the solenoid type drive mechanism 29. Also, the sign LF
indicates the boundary between the engine room (to the left of the broken line LF) and the passenger compartment (between the broken lines LF and LR), and LR indicates the boundary between the passenger compartment and the trunk room (to the right of the broken line LR). Reference numeral 30 indicates a bump stopper for preventing damage to the wall surface of the main air spring chamber 3 due to the relative rise of the cylinder of the shock absorber 1 on rough roads or the like. Reference numeral 31 indicates a mode changeover switch for vehicle height adjustment, which serves as a high vehicle height selection switch.

Further, 37 is a spring force/damping force mode changeover switch for changing the mode of the air spring constant of the suspension unit S and the damping force of the shock absorber 1, and 38 is a vehicle height adjustment mode and a spring force/damping force mode changeover switch as shown in FIG. This is a display device provided with an indicator lamp that indicates the damping force mode. The display device 38 is provided with the vehicle height adjustment mode changeover switch 31 and the spring force/damping force mode changeover switch 37.

Next, the display device 38 will be explained with reference to FIG. As shown in the figure, the display device 38 includes a spring force/damping force mode changeover switch 37 for switching the spring force and damping force between hard and soft, and a vehicle height mode changeover switch 37 for switching the vehicle height between high vehicle height mode and automatic mode. A mode changeover switch 31 for high adjustment is provided. Then, when the spring force/damping force mode is set to hard mode, "hard mode"
When the lamp 39 is set to the soft mode in the spring force/damping force mode, the “soft mode” lamp 40
lights up. On the other hand, when the vehicle height adjustment mode is set to high vehicle height mode, the "high mode" lamp 41 lights up, and when the vehicle height adjustment mode is set to auto mode, the "auto mode" lamp 42 lights up. be done.

Next, the operation of one embodiment of the invention as described above will be explained. The control unit 25 performs the processing shown in the flow chart shown in FIG. First, in step S1, it is determined whether the mode changeover switch 37 is turned on. If ``YES'' is determined in this step S1, the process proceeds to step S2, where it is determined whether the vehicle speed detected by the vehicle speed sensor 27 is 3 km/h or less. If the determination in step S2 is "NO", the process advances to step S3, where the process shown in the flowchart of FIG. 5 is performed, and the opposite mode is set. On the other hand, if the determination in step S2 is ``YES'', the process proceeds to step S4, where it is determined whether the generator L terminal is at L level or not. "NO" in this step S4
If it is determined that this is the case, the process proceeds to step S3 described above. on the other hand,
If the determination in step S4 is ``YES'', the process advances to step S5. In this step S5, it is determined whether the mode changeover switch 31 has been turned on. If ``YES'' is determined in this step S5, the process proceeds to step S6, where it is determined whether the vehicle speed detected by the vehicle speed sensor 27 is 70 km/h or more.
If the determination in step S6 is "NO", the process proceeds to step S7, where it is determined whether the vehicle speed detected by the vehicle speed sensor 27 is 3 km/h or less. This step
If the determination in S7 is "NO", the process advances to step S8, where the process shown in FIG. 6 is performed and the opposite mode is set. On the other hand, if the determination in step S7 is ``YES'', the process proceeds to step S7, where it is determined whether the generator L terminal is at L level or not. If the determination in step S9 is "NO", the process advances to step S8.

Next, referring to FIG. 5, step S3 in FIG.
The following describes the auto/hard mode setting process. In step S11 of FIG. 5, it is determined whether the previous mode, that is, the mode before the mode changeover switch 37 was turned on, is the auto mode. If the determination in step S11 is ``YES'', the process advances to step S12, where the mode is set to hard mode, and the "hard mode" lamp 39 is lit.
On the other hand, if the determination in step S11 is "NO", the process advances to step S13 where the mode is set to auto mode and the "soft mode" lamp 40 is turned on.

Next, referring to FIG. 6, proceed to step S8 in FIG.
The auto/high mode setting process will be explained. In step S21 of FIG. 6, it is determined whether the previous mode, that is, the mode before the mode changeover switch 31 was turned on, was the auto mode. If the determination in step S21 is ``YES'', the process advances to step S22 where the mode is set to high mode and the ``high mode'' lamp 41 is lit. On the other hand, if the determination in step S21 is "NO", the process proceeds to step S23, where the mode is set to auto mode and the "auto mode" lamp 42 is turned on.

As detailed above, according to this invention, in an electronically controlled suspension device having a mode for selecting a vehicle height adjustment mode and a suspension mode, a selection function, and a display section for displaying the mode, when the engine is stalled, the vehicle height is adjusted. Since the adjustment mode and the suspension mode are switched and not displayed, it is possible to provide an electronically controlled suspension device that can prevent the state of the mode changeover switch from being different from the state of the display when the engine is stalled. .

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a schematic diagram of a car equipped with this device, Fig. 2 is an overall configuration diagram of the device, Fig. 3 is a diagram showing a display device, and Figs. 4 to 6 explain the operation of one embodiment. This is a flowchart for 25... Control unit, 27... Vehicle speed sensor, 31, 37... Mode changeover switch.

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] In an electronically controlled suspension device that is equipped with a mode selection function that selects a vehicle height adjustment mode and a suspension mode, and a display device that displays the mode, when the vehicle speed is below a set value and the L terminal output of the generator is “L” An electronically controlled suspension device characterized in that the display of the vehicle height adjustment mode and the suspension mode is not switched when the vehicle height adjustment mode is at the level.