JPH0556483A - 2-wire type signal transmitter - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To realize the signal transmitter in which a microcomputer for controlling a remote controller is used in common by connecting a device main body and the remote controller with 2-wires and using the two-wires for power supply from the device main body to the remote controller and for signal transmission between the device main body and the remote controller in time division. CONSTITUTION:The transmitter consists of a T/L register 9 in which a period for power supply stop period is used one phase, plural phases used for one cycle and the plural phases are designated optionally as the transmission phase of the device main body 1 or the transmission phase of the remote controller 2 and of a couple of signal transmission sections 5, 6 implementing signal transmission based on the T/L register 9. Then the T/L register 9 is revised tentatively to increase the signal transmission data quantity from the device main body 1 to the remote controller 2 in one cycle. Furthermore, even the remote controller 2 with a different display content uses in common the control microcomputer of the remote controller 2.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention comprises a device body (hereinafter referred to as "main body") for controlling a load such as a water heater and an air conditioner, and a remote control device (hereinafter referred to as "remote control") for displaying an operation. The present invention relates to a two-wire signal transmission device in which a remote controller is connected by two wires, and power is supplied from the main body to the remote controller by the two wires and signal transmission between the main body and the remote controller is performed in a time division manner.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, a method of alternately supplying power and transmitting signals has been proposed as a method of connecting a main body of this type and a remote controller with two wires to supply power and transmit signals in a time division manner.
This signal transmission device will be described with reference to FIG. FIG. 4 shows a signal waveform between two lines connecting the main body and the remote controller, in which power supply and signal transmission are repeated every 5 ms, and signal transmission is performed during the power supply stop period. One cycle of signal transmission is 100
In ms, it is composed of 10 phases. FIG. 5 shows a waveform of signal transmission in one phase. The transmission signal consists of a synchronization pulse a, a start code b, phase data c, control data d, an error detection bit e, and a stop code f. The bi-phase encoding method is used, and the data is fixed at 200 μs per bit. It is long. In this example, the control data that can be sent in one phase is 8 bits, and 10 bytes of signal can be transmitted in one cycle. Further, data of signal transmission from the main body to the remote controller is control mode, hot water supply temperature, water level setting, clock data, etc., and data of signal transmission from the remote controller to the main body is mainly switch operation data. FIG. 6 shows the appearance of the remote controller in the water heater. The remote controller uses the hot water supply temperature 11, the bath temperature 12, the hot water level 13 to the bath, the LCD display of time 14 and the operation input of each setting switch 15 as the main body. Is being performed while transmitting the signal.

[0003]

In such a conventional two-wire type signal transmission device, since the transmission data from the device body to the remote control is each data of hot water supply mode, hot water supply temperature, hot water supply water level, and time, the remote control is used. Needs to determine the display contents based on these data and output the display. That is, even if 42 ° C. is received as the temperature data for hot water supply, this data is only a numerical value and is different from the data to be output for displaying, and cannot be directly output. It must be output after it has been converted to output data. Usually, a microcomputer (hereinafter referred to as a microcomputer) controls signal transmission and display output. Therefore, in the past, since the display output was converted to output data by the remote controller, when developing a new water heater, when developing a remote controller with different display contents or changing the display contents slightly In that case, there is a problem in that the program of the remote-control microcomputer needs to be modified again, which requires development man-hours, which requires a new mask and is costly.

As a solution to this problem, if the output data itself can be signal-transmitted from the main body to the remote controller, the remote controller only has to output the received data as it is, and when changing the display, only the control microcomputer of the main body needs to be changed. This means that all the remote control microcomputers can be made common, but for that purpose it is necessary to increase the amount of data for signal transmission. For example, considering the case where one of the eight LEDs is turned on, the display data can be represented by 4 bits if treated as numerical data.
The actual output data when the display is performed by the 4 × 2 scan method becomes 4 bits × 2 and becomes 8 bits, which is twice as large as when it is handled as the numerical data. In the current signal transmission, the amount of data that can be transmitted from the main body to the remote controller per cycle is small and it is not possible to support this amount of data. Therefore, the numeric data must be sent from the main body to the remote controller, converted into display data by the remote controller, and output. There is no.

To increase the amount of signal transmission data per cycle, there are a method of increasing the amount of transmission data in one phase of signal transmission and a method of increasing the number of phases in one cycle to increase the number of data items that can be transmitted. However, the former means shortening the basic length per bit, which requires a high-speed and high-processing microcomputer as the microcomputer to be used, resulting in an increase in cost. In addition, since the basic length becomes short, it becomes difficult to achieve synchronization, and normal transmission / reception cannot be performed. The latter has a problem of responsiveness, that is, it takes a long time from the time the operation is performed until the display on the remote control is changed.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention provides a main body for controlling a load, a display of the control state of the load and a control state of the main body which is connected to the main body by two electric wires. A remote controller for inputting operation for setting, a power supply unit for periodically supplying a DC power from the main body to the remote controller by the electric wire, and a power supply stop period as one phase and a plurality of phases as one cycle. Based on the T / L register, a phase management unit that manages, a T / L register that arbitrarily specifies a plurality of phases in one cycle as a main body transmission phase or a remote control transmission phase according to a load control state And a pair of signal transmission units that perform signal transmission between the main unit and the remote control,
The problem solving means is provided with a pair of data buffers for storing the control data by the signal transmission in an address corresponding to the phase.

[0007]

According to the present invention, when the display switching is required, the T / L register is temporarily changed to increase the signal transmission data amount from the main body to the remote controller in one cycle by the above-mentioned means for solving the display output data itself. Can be transmitted in one cycle, and the remote control microcomputer can be handled as if it were an input / output port of the main unit, and remote control microcomputers with different display contents can share all remote control microcomputers, eliminating the need for new microcomputer development. A two-wire signal transmission device can be provided.

[0008]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIG.

As shown in the figure, the main body 1 and the remote controller 2 are
It is connected by two electric wires 3, and a power supply unit 4 periodically supplies power from the main body 1 to the remote controller 2. Body 1
The remote controller 2 has signal transmission units 5 and 6 and data buffers 7 and 8, respectively, which perform mutual signal transmission and storage of signal transmission data. Data buffer 7, 8
Are composed of addresses corresponding to the phases, and signal transmission is performed so that the same data is stored. Figure 2
Shows an example of the T / L register 9, and the main bodies 1 and 2
In the case of being composed of individual remote controllers 2A and 2B, in order to simplify the description here, each remote controller 2A and 2B also has a T
Description will be made assuming that there is a / L register. Here, transmission is performed in the phase of which the value of the T / L register corresponding to the phase number is 1 and reception is performed in the phase of 0.
In one phase, the main body 1 and one of the remote controllers 2A and 2B transmit, and the other two determine the T / L register so as to receive, thereby preventing a problem such as a signal collision. .. Signal transmission is performed by the T / L register 9 and the phase management unit 10.

As a method of changing the value of the T / L register 9, a combination of values of a plurality of T / L registers is determined in advance, and when the change is necessary, the main body 1 or the remote controller 2A,
This can be realized by transmitting the selection code of the T / L register 9 from 2B. As an example, the remote controllers 2A, 2
FIG. 3 shows the T / L register when the display in B needs to be changed. In the setting of the T / L register, eight phases from phase 0 to phase 7 are designated as the transmission phases of the main body 1. In this case, the main body 1 uses the remote controller 2
It is possible to transmit 8 bytes of data to A and 2B in one cycle. As a result, the T / L shown in FIG.
Compared to when the register 9 is set, the main body 1 controls the remote controller 2A,
The transmission amount to 2B is doubled, and a sufficient data amount for transmitting the display output data itself can be secured.

Next, a specific procedure will be described.
First, when the T / L register 9 as shown in FIG. 2 has a normal value and the remote controller 2A, 2B is operated to increase the hot water supply temperature setting, the remote controller 2A, 2B transmits to the main body 1. As data, switch operation data for setting the hot water supply temperature is sent. The main body 1 increases the hot water supply temperature by + 1 ° C. based on the operation data from the remote controllers 2A and 2B, changes the T / L register 9 to the value at the time of transmitting the display data shown in FIG. 3 at the beginning of the next cycle, and first in the 0 phase. T /
After transmitting the selection data of the L register 9 to the remote controllers 2A and 2B, the display output data is transmitted in the phases of 1 to 7.
The remote controllers 2A and 2B receive the T / L received in the 0 phase.
After changing its own T / L register to a predetermined value (shown in FIG. 3) based on the selection data of the register 9, the subsequent data is transmitted as display data.

[0012]

As is apparent from the above embodiments, according to the present invention, a plurality of phases in one cycle are arbitrarily designated as the transmission phase of the device main body or the transmission phase of the remote control device according to the control state of the load. T / L register, a pair of signal transmission units that perform signal transmission between the device main body and the remote control device based on the register, and a pair of memory that stores control data by the signal at addresses corresponding to phases. Since the data buffer is provided, the T / L register can be arbitrarily changed according to the control status of the device main body, so it can be temporarily changed to increase the data amount of signal transmission from the device main body to the remote control device in one cycle for display output. The data itself can be transmitted as a signal in one cycle, and the remote control device can simply output the signal transmission data from the device itself. You can microcontroller for emission device as if treated as input and output ports of the body.

Therefore, when a device requiring a new remote control device is developed, the transmission data from the device body is changed even if a remote control device with different display contents is developed or the display contents are slightly changed. Since it is possible to change the display just by doing so, it is not necessary to modify the program of the microcomputer for the remote control device, and it is possible to reduce the development man-hours or mask cost.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a two-wire signal transmission device according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a configuration diagram of a normal T / L register of the two-wire signal transmission device.

FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a T at the time of transmitting display data of the two-wire signal transmission device.
/ L register configuration diagram

FIG. 4 is a voltage waveform diagram between two lines of a conventional two-line signal transmission device.

FIG. 5 is a signal transmission waveform diagram in one phase of the two-wire type signal transmission device.

FIG. 6 is a front view of a remote control device for the two-wire signal transmission device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 main body (device main body) 2 remote control (remote control device) 3 electric wire 4 power supply section 5, 6 signal transmission section 7, 8 data buffer 9 T / L register 10 phase management section

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A device main body for controlling a load, and a remote control device connected to the device main body by two electric wires for displaying a load control state in the device main body and performing an operation input for setting the control state. A power supply unit that periodically supplies a DC power supply from the device body to the remote control device by the electric wire; and a phase management unit that manages a period of power supply stop as one phase and a plurality of phases as one cycle. A T / L register for arbitrarily designating a plurality of phases in a cycle as a transmission phase of a device body or a transmission phase of a remote control device according to a control state of a load, and a device body and a remote control device based on the T / L register. And a pair of signal transmission units that perform signal transmission in the same manner, and a pair of data storage units that store control data by the signal transmission at addresses corresponding to the phases. 2-wire signal transmission device and a Tabaffa. 2. The two-wire signal transmission device according to claim 1, wherein among the control data by signal transmission, the control data transmitted from the device body to the operation display unit is the output data itself on the operation display unit.