JPH04108063A - Vehicle air conditioner and operating method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To present comfortable space through supply of an optimum smell while preventing performances of deodorizing filters and a smell generating device from being negated each other by providing the deodorizing filters in the upstream and the smell generating device in the downstream, of air circulated by a fan in a room respectively. CONSTITUTION:In an air conditioner mounted onto a roof of a vehicle body 1, air in the vehicle, sucked from suction ducts 6a, 6b by a room fan 3, passes through deodorizing filters 7a, 7b to reach in-room heat exchangers 4a, 4b, and the air, after it is cooled or heated, is delivered into the vehicle from a delivery duct 5. Here, a spraying smell generating device 8 is mounted to the downstream of circulating air relating to the deodorizing filters 7a, 7b. A lamp display or the like informs of replacement time of the deodorizing filters 7a, 7b from a differential degree of a smell, detected by a smell sensor 9a mounted before and a smell sensor 9b mounted after the deodorizing filter 7b, while controlling operation of the smell generating device 8 from a smelling degree of air by the smell sensor 9a mounted before the deodorizing filter 7b.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a vehicle air conditioner, and particularly to an effective arrangement and control method when equipped with both a deodorizing filter and a scent generator.

[Prior art] An example of an air conditioner equipped with both a deodorizing filter and a scent generator is the Healthy Air Catalog (No. 126) for building air conditioning published by Taikisha, which uses a blower fan to take in fresh outside air. After deodorizing the room, an air freshener was added to the room and the air was then supplied into the room.The system used a separate exhaust fan to exhaust the dirty air inside the room to the outside.

[Problems to be Solved by the Invention] The above-mentioned conventional technology incorporates both a deodorizing filter and a scent generating device into a vehicle air conditioner to improve passenger comfort by changing the quality of the air inside the vehicle that is circulated by an indoor fan. There was a problem that the performance of the deodorizing filter scent generator was not fully demonstrated because no consideration was given to the effective arrangement and control method for improving the odor.

The purpose of the present invention is to enable the deodorizing filter and scent generator to exhibit sufficient performance without canceling each other out, and further aims to provide passengers with a comfortable space through optimal scent supply. do.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above objective, a deodorizing filter is placed upstream of the air inside the car that is circulated by the indoor fan of the air conditioner, and a scent generator is placed downstream, and the operation of the scent generator is set in front of the intake port of the deodorizing filter. This is done by a microcomputer using the detected pressure value of the scent sensor installed in the room.

[Operation] First, only the air conditioner is operated until the odor inside the car detected by the scent sensor is reduced to a certain value or less by the deodorizing filter, and then the scent generator is operated.

Although the odor inside the car increases due to the scent generator, 0N-O
The odor is stabilized at a certain level by FF operation, and the operation is stopped after a certain period of time has elapsed. Then, the deodorizing filter continues the stopped operation until the odor level inside the car falls below a certain value. When the odor inside the car falls below a certain value, the scent generator restarts operation after a certain period of time. Thereafter, by repeating the above cycle one after another, it is possible to avoid the odor that is caused by the mixture of the supplied scent and the various other odors present in the car, and to prevent passengers from becoming accustomed to a single odor.
It can provide comfortable comfort to passengers.

[Example] Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to an example shown in FIGS. 1 to 5. Here, FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram simply showing the configuration of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a control configuration diagram, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the relationship between the output value of the scent sensor and odor intensity, and FIG. The figure shows a control algorithm for the fragrance generator, and FIG. 5 is a control flowchart.

In FIG. 1, the air conditioner mounted on the roof of the vehicle body 1 is shown in cross section on the indoor unit side.

The air inside the car that is sucked in by the indoor fan 3 from the suction ducts 6a and 6b passes through the deodorizing filter 78.7b and reaches the indoor heat exchangers 4a and 4b, where it is cooled or heated, and then sucked into the indoor fan 3 and discharged. It is discharged from the duct 5 into the vehicle.

The scent generator 8 is a spray type and is installed in the indoor equipment room downstream of the circulating air with respect to the deodorizing filter 78.7b, and has an odor sensor 9 for controlling the scent generator 8.
A is attached to the front side of the suction port of the deodorizing filter 7b. In addition to this arrangement, for example, the fragrance generating device 8 may be placed inside the discharge duct 5, and the deodorizing filter 78.7b may be placed at the suction port of the indoor fan 3.

A microcomputer 10 installed at an arbitrary position inside the car controls the operation of the fragrance generating device 8 as appropriate based on the odor of the air inside the car detected by a scent sensor 9a installed in front of the deodorizing filter 7b, as shown in FIG. At the same time, the deodorizing filter 78.7b is detected based on the odor difference detected by the scent sensor 9b installed after the scent sensor 9a and the deodorizing filter 7b.
This system notifies maintenance and inspection personnel of the replacement period through lamp displays, etc.

Fragrance sensors evaluate the strength of odors by converting them into numerical values. When a quartz crystal oscillator coated with a lipid bilayer membrane absorbs an odor substance, the frequency of the quartz crystal oscillator changes depending on the weight of the adsorbed odorant. There are sensors that capture odors using a semiconductor sensor made by vacuum-depositing metal oxides on a ceramic substrate, and display changes in the electrical resistance of the semiconductor as numerical values using a digital meter. As shown in Figure 3, classification is based on a 5-point scale (1 odorless, 2
Able to detect smells, 3, weak smells, 4
The evaluation is done by relatively replacing the digital value detected by the odor sensor (medium, 5, strong, good), and the value of the odor sensor is rated from 1, which has no odor, to 5, which indicates a strong odor.
It is compatible with one pitch.

The operation of the fragrance generating device is controlled by the algorithm shown in Fig. 4.6 When the indoor fan 3 of the air conditioner I is operated, the air inside the car is deodorized by the deodorizing filters 7a and 7b, and the odor is reduced again, so that the passenger When the value decreases to 2, which does not cause discomfort, the fragrance generating device 8 starts operating. When the scent is supplied into the air and reaches a value of 4, at which the passenger does not feel the smell is too strong, the operation of the scent generator 8 is stopped. Thereafter, in order to stabilize the interior of the vehicle at around 4, the fragrance generating device 8 is controlled to turn on and off, and the operation is stopped after a certain period of time A has elapsed. This is done to prevent passengers from becoming olfactory to the same odor.

When the supply of fragrance stops, the air inside the car decreases again, but
Operation is stopped during time B until the passenger's sense of smell returns to its original normal state, and operation is restarted after time B has elapsed. After that, the operation described above is repeated. This will be explained in more detail with reference to the control flowchart shown in FIG.

When the indoor fan 3 is operated, the scent sensors 9a and 9b input the S+ and S2 before and after the deodorizing filter 7b into the microcomputer 10, and when the difference is smaller than the constant value ΔS, the values of the deodorizing filters 7a and 7b are It determines that the deodorizing performance has fallen below a certain level and displays a lamp to indicate that it is time to replace the deodorizing filter.

If the deodorizing performance is still sufficiently maintained, the scent generating device is operated after waiting for the indoor air to be deodorized by the deodorizing filter 78.7b and the input value S of the scent sensor 9a to fall below 2 again. .

This is the flow from fl to f6. By supplying the fragrance, the S1 inside the car rises again, but when the S1 rises again to 4.2 or more, the supply of the fragrance is stopped and the timer T is turned on. When S becomes less than 3.8 again, the scent generator is operated again, and when it exceeds 4.2, it stops. After ON/OFF operation is performed for A time, the timer T is reset and the scent supply is completely stopped. do.

After that, when S1 decreases to 2 or less again, timer T is turned on and this state is maintained until time B has elapsed.
After the elapse of time, the above-described control is repeated from the beginning, and the flow up to this point is from fl to f20.

In this embodiment, the control values of the fragrance generator shown at f9, fl4, and fl8 are set to 4.2.3 and 8.2.0, respectively, but they can be variably adjusted by inputting a potentiometer or the like. It may be changed according to the passenger's preference.

As described above, by optimally controlling the operation of the scent generator 8, the scent solution is not wasted and a comfortable scented space can be efficiently provided to the passengers.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, it is possible to effectively utilize the fragrance generating device without degrading its performance, which is effective in improving passenger comfort.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Fig. 1 is a sectional view of the main parts of an air conditioner according to an embodiment of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a control block diagram, Fig. 3 is a relationship diagram between the output value of the scent sensor and odor intensity, and Fig. 4 5 is a control algorithm diagram of the fragrance generator, and FIG. 5 is a control flowchart. 3------One room fan? a, 7b------Odor filter, 8------One scent generator,'(-)

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. In an air conditioner equipped with an indoor fan that circulates the air inside the car, a deodorizing filter is placed on the upstream side of the circulating air to make the air odorless, and a scent that refreshes the mood of passengers is placed on the downstream side of the circulating air. An air conditioner for a vehicle, characterized in that it is equipped with a fragrance generating device that generates a fragrance. 2. The air conditioner for a vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the operating time of the scent generator is controlled by a detected value of a scent sensor installed in front of the inlet of the deodorizing filter. 3. The vehicle according to claim 1, wherein the odor caused by the scent inside the vehicle is varied over a wide range from barely perceptible to somewhat perceptible, and the fragrance is supplied so as to maintain each odor range for a certain period of time or more. air conditioning equipment.