JPH05162619A - Illuminator cleaner - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To jet a minimum amount of washing liquid. CONSTITUTION:A pump is driven by rotating a motor 8, so that a pulse is generated each time the motor 8 is rotated by a prescribed angle, and its number is counted by a counter 12. When the counted value becomes as prescribed, an output signal is emitted from the counter 12, and an energizing to the motor 8 is shut down, and the rotation of the motor 8 stops, and the pump also stops.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an illuminator cleaner for cleaning a lens of a headlamp of an automobile, for example.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Since headlamps of automobiles deteriorate their illumination performance when their lens surfaces are contaminated, some automobiles use a headlamp cleaner that sprays a cleaning liquid onto the lens surface for cleaning. This device uses a timer and employs a method of spraying a cleaning liquid onto an illuminator for a certain period of time.

[0003]

However, in such a conventional apparatus, since the number of revolutions of the motor varies depending on the fluctuation of the battery voltage of the automobile, the amount of the cleaning liquid injected per cleaning changes and the cleaning performance is deteriorated. Variation occurs.
This phenomenon can be solved by setting the timer time so that the specified performance can be obtained when the battery voltage becomes low and the motor speed decreases, but if such a setting is made, the battery voltage will become high. In this case, more than necessary cleaning liquid is sprayed in one cleaning, and the cleaning liquid in the tank is wasted. Therefore, the cleaning liquid had to be replenished frequently.

In recent years, as the design of automobiles has become more complex, the shape of the tank for containing the cleaning liquid is restricted, and the tank capacity tends to be smaller. Therefore, the minimum necessary cleaning liquid is injected for one cleaning. Method is required,
Timer There was a limit in controlling by the operating time of the timer.
The present invention is made in view of such a situation, and is designed to inject the minimum necessary cleaning liquid.

[0005]

In order to solve such a problem, the present invention provides a pulse generating means for generating a pulse corresponding to a rotation angle of a motor and a pulse number for counting the number of pulses to reach a predetermined value. A counter for generating an output signal in such a case, and an energization interruption circuit for interrupting an energization circuit to the motor when an output signal is generated from the counter are provided.

[0006]

The pump is driven by the rotation of the motor, and a pulse is generated every time the motor rotates by a predetermined angle, and the pulse is counted by the counter. When the count value reaches a predetermined value, an output signal is generated from the counter, the energizing circuit to the motor is cut off by the output signal, the rotation of the motor is stopped, and the pump is stopped.

[0007]

FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention. When the ignition switch 1 is turned on, power is supplied from a battery 2 to a relay 3 which is an energizing means. Then, when the cleaner switch 4 is turned on, the RS flip-flop 6 is set via the inverter 5, and an H level output signal is output from the Q output terminal.

As a result, the relay 3 to which the diode 6 is connected in parallel is driven via the inverter 5b, and the contact 3a thereof is turned on, so that the motor 8 is energized. The motor 8 starts to rotate by being energized, and drives a pump (not shown) to inject cleaning water. Further, the slit plate 9 attached to the rotary shaft of the motor 8 also rotates. The slit plate 9 is a light emitting diode 1 of a photo interface tap circuit 10 including a light emitting diode 10a, a phototransistor 10b, and resistors 10c and 10d.
0a and the phototransistor 10b.

Therefore, when the motor 8 rotates, the slit plate 9 rotates and shuts off the light generated from the light emitting diode 10a every time the motor 8 rotates by a predetermined angle, so that a pulse corresponding to the rotation of the motor 8 is generated by the photo interrupter. It occurs from 10. This pulse is supplied to the clock input circuit of the counter 12 via the buffer 5c and the AND circuit 11.

As a result, the counter 12 counts the input pulses, and when the count value reaches a predetermined value, the carry signal is generated from the carry terminal. Since this carry signal is supplied to the reset terminal of the RS flip-flop 6 via the OR circuit 13, the RS signal is supplied at the time when this signal is supplied.
The flip-flop 6 is reset.

As a result, the relay 3 is de-energized,
The contact 3a is turned off and the motor 8 is also de-energized,
Stop rotation. Therefore, the pump (not shown) driven by the motor 8 is also not driven, and the injection of cleaning water is stopped.

As described above, in this apparatus, the period during which the cleaning water is sprayed is the rotation of the motor 8, and the period during which the cleaning water is rotated is determined by the number of pulses generated from the photo interrupter 10. The number of the pulses depends on the number of rotations of the motor 8. When a direct current motor is used for the motor 8, the number of rotations is less likely to decrease in voltage, but the number of pulses generated at this time is less. Also, the amount of washing water sprayed is reduced. Therefore, if the voltage decreases, the rotation period of the motor 8 becomes longer, and if the voltage increases, the rotation period of the motor 8 becomes shorter.

However, the counter 12 outputs a carry signal when the count value reaches a predetermined value, and the rotation of the motor 8 stops at the time when the carry signal is generated, so that the motor 8 is constant regardless of the voltage level. Rotate a certain amount. Therefore, the injection amount of the cleaning liquid also becomes a constant value regardless of the level of the voltage.

The resistor 14a, the capacitor 14b, and the buffer 14c form a power-on reset circuit 14, and when power is supplied, a pulse is generated for a predetermined period to reset the RS flip-flop 6 and the counter 12. Is becoming

FIG. 2 is a circuit diagram showing another embodiment, in which the cleaner switch 4 is operated and the RS flip-flop 6 is operated.
When a signal of H level is generated from the Q output terminal of, the signal is supplied to the transistor 15 via the buffer 5d. This turns on the transistor 15, so that the motor 8 is energized and starts to rotate.

Therefore, a signal corresponding to the rotation of the motor 8 is generated at point A in FIG. 2 as shown in FIG. 3 (a). This cause is not described in detail because it is out of the gist of the present application, but when a motor 8 having a plurality of commutators is used, for example, the direction and magnitude of the current flowing through each coil differ depending on the rotational position. Specifically, in a motor having a commutator with 3 slots, the current increases and decreases 6 times per revolution.

The signal generated at point A in FIG.
The signal shown in FIG. 3B is amplified by an amplifier circuit 16 including 6a and 16b and resistors 16c to 16g and an operational amplifier 16h, and is supplied to a comparator 17. When the signal supplied from the amplifier circuit 16 becomes larger than the level of the signal supplied to the inverting input terminal, the comparator 17 generates a pulse signal across the resistor 17a as shown in FIG. 3 (c).

This pulse signal is supplied to the counter 12 as described above, and since the pulse signal is generated in response to the rotation of the motor 8, the motor 8 is similar to the above-mentioned example.
The rotation stops by rotating a certain amount.

[0019]

As described above, according to the present invention, the pulse is generated in accordance with the rotation of the motor, and the power supply to the motor is cut off when a predetermined number of the pulses are generated.
The cleaning liquid ejected from the pump driven by the rotation of the motor can be controlled to be constant regardless of the change in voltage.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a circuit diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a circuit diagram showing another embodiment of the present invention.

3 is a waveform diagram of each part of the circuit of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Ignition Switch 2 Battery 3 Relay 4 Cleaner Switch 5 Inverter 6 Diode 8 Motor 9 Slit Plate 10 Photointerrupter 11 AND Circuit 12 Counter 13 OR Circuit 14 Power-on Reset Circuit 15 Transistor 16 Amplifying Circuit 17 Comparator

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An illuminator cleaner for injecting cleaning liquid into an illuminator based on the rotation of a motor; pulse generating means for generating a pulse corresponding to a rotation angle of a motor; and counting the number of pulses, a count value is a predetermined value. An illuminator cleaner comprising: a counter that generates an output signal when the output signal reaches a predetermined value; and an energization interruption circuit that interrupts an energization circuit to the motor when the output signal is generated from the counter.