JPH06246087A - Washing machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To detect abnormal vibration during spin-drying by the use of a converting means so as to efficiently carry out the spin-drying and to exchange the durability by providing a weight sensor at the upper end of a suspension rod to pick up an electrical signal corresponding to a motion of the suspension rod during vibration of a spin-drying basket so that occurrence of a abnormal vibration is determined when a detected value exceeds a predetermined value so as to stop the spin-drying. CONSTITUTION:A coil is provided around a magnetic core 23 attache to the upper end of a core holding cylinder 19. A suspension rod 5 supporting a spin-drying basket through the intermediary of two coil springs 17, 22 changes the lengths of the coil springs 22, 17 in accordance with a weight of washing set in the dehydrator tank so that the core 23 extends from or retracts into coil 24. A detecting means 25 detects a movement of the suspension rod 4 from the positional relationship between the core 23 and the coil 24 so as to transmit an electrical signal so as to deliver a certain frequency in accordance with the positional relation. Further, an oscillating frequency delivered in accordance with a weight of a fabric is inputted to a microcomputer, and an output variation becomes larger than a predetermined value, occurrence of abnormal vibration is determined so as to stop the basket.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a washing machine having a dehydration tub suspended and supported by a plurality of suspension rods, and more particularly, to a detection device suitable for detecting abnormal vibrations caused by uneven displacement of dehydration cloth. Relates to a washing machine equipped with.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art When dewatering, when laundry is biased into the dehydration tank, the dehydration tank shakes laterally and abnormal vibration occurs. In such a case, as disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 57-10776, for example, a safety lever that is interlocked with a dehydration tank lid that is conventionally provided to prevent the danger of opening the lid of the dehydration tank during high-speed rotation is used. In addition, the vibration of the dehydration tank hits the safety lever to detect the abnormal vibration, and the safety lever operates the safety switch to stop the motor for driving the dehydration tank.

[0003]

However, in such a conventional detection method in which the safety lever detects when abnormal vibration occurs due to uneven load (laundry), the safety lever is bent, or the safety lever is detected. When it exceeds horizontal vibration in a trajectory that does not hit the rail, it cannot be detected and tries to continue the dehydration process, so it makes a dent on the frame of the washing machine, and when it is terrible, the main body of the washing machine starts moving and falls. There is a problem of breaking the wall.

In addition to the horizontal vibration described above, vertical vibration may occur. In such a case, there is a problem that the safety lever cannot detect even the normal position.

The present invention has been made in view of these problems. It is possible to detect abnormal vibration during dehydration more accurately, to quickly respond to correction of normal dehydration, and to prevent cloth damage. An object of the present invention is to provide a washing machine equipped with a detection device capable of solving problems such as a dent on the washing machine body.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a washing machine having a dehydration tub elastically suspended and supported by a plurality of suspension rods on a machine frame, and a coil provided in a receiving portion of the suspension rod and an upper end of the suspension rod. It has a core attached to, and detects the amount of movement of the suspension rod as an electrical signal, and if the detection output from this detection means fluctuates beyond a certain value, it is judged as abnormal vibration and the dehydration tank rotates. And a control means for stopping the washing machine.

[0007]

Before the start of washing, the hanging rod is moved by the weight of the laundry, and the weight is measured by the detection means by the electric signal output according to the movement amount. However, when the dewatering tank vibrates due to the displacement of the cloth in the dewatering tank, the output of the electrical signal changes according to the amount of vibration, and when this output change exceeds a certain value, it is judged as abnormal vibration. , It is possible to stop the dehydration tank automatically.

The detection means can reliably detect abnormal vibration of the dehydration tub regardless of horizontal shake and vertical shake, and can perform efficient dehydration without damaging the laundry.

[0009]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. The drawing shows a one-tank type dehydrator, 1 is a machine frame, 2 is an outer tub in which a washing and dehydrating tub (hereinafter abbreviated as a dehydrating tub) 3 is installed, and a corner reinforcing plate 4 provided at the upper 4 corners of the machine frame 1 The hanging rod receiving part 4a
It is elastically suspended and supported by four suspension rods 5 suspended as. Each suspension rod 5 has an upper seat 6 supported by the suspension rod receiving portion 4a by inserting a coil spring, which will be described later, at the upper end thereof, and a coil spring externally mounted on the suspension rod 5 at the lower end (described later). ), And the lower seats 8 for supporting the lower end portion of the outer tub 2 via the outer tub receiving portion 7 are mounted respectively. The support structure of the outer tub 2 including the suspension rod 4 will be described in detail later.

The dehydration tub 3 is held by bearings 9 and is rotatably supported about a rotary shaft 11, and the dehydration tub 3 is also supported.
A rotary blade 12 is rotatably mounted at the center of the inner bottom of the rotary shaft 1.
It is attached to 1. A drive motor 13 is connected to the rotary blade 12 and the dehydration tub 3 via pulleys 14a and 14b and a belt, rotates the rotary blade 12 during washing, and rotates both the rotary blade 12 and the dehydration tub 3 at high speed during dehydration. Rotate in a fixed direction.

The detailed structure of the suspension rod 5 is shown in FIG.
That is, the lower end of the hanging rod 5 is bent into an L shape, and the lower spring seat 16a held by the lower bent portion is held.
The lower spring seat 8 is constituted by an upper spring seat 16b externally mounted on the suspension rod 5, and a coil spring 17 for absorbing vibration interposed between the spring seats 16a and 16b. The conical curved surface of the seat 16b absorbs the vibration of the outer tub 2 received at the outer tub receiving portion 7 during washing and dehydration by the coil spring 17 so as not to be directly transmitted to the machine frame 1.

On the other hand, the upper seat 6 holds the core holding cylinder 19 which is inserted in the suspension rod 5 so as to prevent it from falling out, and the lower end portion 19b of the core holding cylinder 19 to be engaged with the lower end of the lower small diameter portion 21b. And the extrapolated case 21. And the core holding cylinder 1
A disc-shaped collar portion 19a is formed on the upper portion of the collar portion 9 and the collar portion 2
A coil spring 22 is inserted in the core holding cylinder 19 and is internally provided in a space below 1 above. Therefore, the core holding cylinder 19 can move up and down with respect to the outer insertion case 21 while the flange portion 19a is in sliding contact with the inner surface of the outer insertion case 21.

A core 23 made of a magnetic material is attached to the upper end of the core holding cylinder 19, and the core 23
A coil 24 is fixedly provided to the upper seat 6 on the outer periphery of the. Here, the suspension rod 5 supporting the dehydration tub 3 via the two coil springs 17 and 22 has a coil spring 17 and a coil spring 17 depending on the weight of the laundry put in the dehydration tub 3.
Since the length of 22 is changed so as to rise and fall up and down, the core 23 moves up and down with respect to the coil 24 accordingly.

Numeral 25 is a detection means for detecting the movement amount of the suspension rod 5 as an electric signal from the positional relationship between the core 23 and the coil 24, and is attached to the corner reinforcing plate 4 or the like to be located above the upper seat 6. It is provided.

A change in the positional relationship between the core 23 and the coil 24 causes a change in the inductance of the coil 24. A certain frequency is oscillated and output from the detecting means 25 according to the change in the inductance.

Therefore, the weight of the cloth is converted into an oscillation frequency and detected, and the core 23 and the coil 24 serve as a weight sensor 30 for measuring the weight of the cloth before starting washing. Then, the oscillation frequency output according to the detected weight of the cloth is input to a microcomputer to be described later to be subjected to arithmetic processing, and is used for determining the water supply level at the time of washing and the strength of the water flow. It enables rational operation control according to the level.

Although the core 23, the coil 24, and the detecting means 25 are described in the embodiment as being provided in all four hanging rods 5, at least one hanging rod 5 is provided. For example, the amount of movement of the suspension rod (weight of cloth) can be detected.

FIG. 7 shows a concrete circuit configuration of the detecting means 25 described above. The coil 24 constitutes an oscillation circuit 28 together with the capacitors 27a and 27b, and when the inductance of the coil 24 changes, the oscillation frequency oscillated from the oscillation circuit 29 changes. This signal is amplified by the buffer amplifier 32 that constitutes the conversion circuits 31a to 31d corresponding to each suspension rod 5, and is input as a pulse signal to the microcomputer (hereinafter abbreviated as microcomputer) 33 shown in FIG. The microcomputer 32 determines the amount of movement of the suspension rod 5 based on the cycle of this pulse signal.

As described above, the weight sensor 30 at the upper end of the hanging rod 5 calculates the weight of the load (laundry) before starting the operation. The present invention uses the weight sensor 30 to detect and operate even during dehydration. When vibration is small (the load is not biased), weight measurement can be performed (almost constant frequency is output), but measurement is impossible (changes). When the frequency is output, it is judged that the vibration is large (the load is biased) and abnormal vibration is detected.

The rotation of the dehydration tank 3 and the vertical direction (vertical direction)
When the abnormal vibration occurs, the conventional safety lever cannot detect it, but the weight sensor 30 can detect it.

FIG. 2 is a graph showing the relationship between the oscillation frequency and the dehydration time as an output example of the weight sensor 30 in the dehydration step. The graph a shows the case of a small deviation of the cloth (normal vibration), and the graph b shows the case of a large deviation of the cloth (abnormal vibration). From this graph, as the dehydration progresses and the water is dehydrated from the cloth, the positional relationship between the coil 24 and the core 23 of the weight sensor 30 above the suspension rod changes according to the suspended weight. However, in the case of abnormal vibration, it can be seen that the oscillation frequency gradually increases and the vertical vibration during dehydration repeats smaller changes.

However, the amount of change due to the vertical movement is small when the deviation of the cloth is small, and is large when the deviation of the cloth is large.

The amount of change and the state of change over time are as shown in the table of FIG. In this table, the amount of change increases with the passage of time when the amount of fabric deviation is large, but when the amount of fabric deviation is small, the amount of change becomes maximum (MAX) at a certain point and decreases thereafter. It is confirmed.

Next, the control operation of the washing machine in which the above-mentioned weight sensor 30 can detect abnormal vibration during dehydration will be described.
FIG. 1 shows a flowchart of the operation. The flow starts, and washing and rinsing are finished (Step S
1) Drain and drain process (step S2, step S3). In the dehydration process, it is determined whether or not the safety lever has operated (step S4), and when the safety lever operates due to vibration (YES in S4), the dehydration is interrupted and water is supplied (steps S8 and S9). The load (laundry) is loosened and flattened by the rinsing process or manually (step S10), and the dehydration process is started again. When the safety lever is not actuated in step S4 (NO in S4), the weight sensor 30 of the present invention is actuated to perform measurement (step S).
5, step S6). If you can measure (small vibration),
The dehydration process is continued (step S7), and if the measurement cannot be performed (NO in S6), it is determined that the load (laundry) is uneven, and control is performed so that normal dehydration operation can be performed (step S).
8, step S9, step S10).

Here, the determination in step S6 is basically made based on whether or not the amount of change in the electric signal during dehydration detected by the weight sensor 30 is larger than a certain amount. A control method of judging that the deviation of 3 is large and stopping or temporarily stopping the dehydration can be considered.

Further, as described in the embodiment, it is possible to use the oscillation frequency to determine the abnormal vibration based on the change amount of the electric signal.

In addition, when the amount of change in the electric signal during dehydration is larger than a certain amount and exceeds a certain amount of time, it may be determined as abnormal dehydration vibration, and the operation may be stopped or temporarily stopped.

Further, if the amount of change in the output of the weight sensor 30 gradually increases or is approximately equal, it is judged as abnormal vibration, and if the amount of change exceeds the maximum value and then decreases, it is judged as normal dehydration operation. A control method may be used (see the graph of FIG. 2 and FIG. 3).

When the amount of change in the electric signal during dehydration is larger than a preset fixed amount, in the case of a method in which it is judged that the deviation of the cloth is large, this fixed amount is applied to the cloth load (weight, type).
A control method in which several types are changed according to the above is also possible.

In addition, since the load (dehydration tub) is large due to the laundry containing water at the initial stage of dehydration, the drive motor 12 is turned on for a certain time or turned off for a certain time, and the dehydration tub 3 is rotated intermittently. There may be cases where the process of lightening the load is repeated by repeating.

In such a case, when the electric signal of the weight sensor 30 in the initial stage of dehydration exceeds a certain amount and the deviation of the cloth is judged to be large, the number of intermittent dehydrations and the intermittent dehydration time per operation are normally set. It is also possible to adopt a control method in which a value different from the case of dehydration (generally, the number of times and the time is increased) is set.

When the amount of change in the electrical signal from the weight sensor 30 is large, even if the dehydration is stopped by determining abnormal vibration, intermittent dehydration at the initial stage of dehydration is included in order to ensure safety. It is also possible to adopt a control method in which the signal from the conventional dehydration safety switch is prioritized over the signal from the weight sensor 30.

Finally, FIG. 8 shows a microcomputer 33 which receives a signal (weight of laundry, abnormal frequency) from the weight sensor 30 to operate the washing machine and determine abnormal vibration.

The microcomputer 33 includes a CPU 50, a RAM 51,
ROM 52, timer 53, system bus 54, I / O
It is composed of a buffer 55 and input / output ports 56a to 56g. I / O ports 56a to 56d on the microcomputer 33
Through the weight sensor 30, an input key circuit 41 including various operation keys, a safety switch 42 that operates in conjunction with opening and closing of the upper lid, and a water level sensor 43 that detects the water level in the dehydration tub 3 during washing. While each signal from is input,
As a result of processing based on these various types of information from the microcomputer 33, necessary control signals are input / output ports 56e to 56g.
An LED drive circuit 44 composed of a light emitting diode group, a buzzer circuit 45 for process end notification and abnormality notification,
It is sent to the load drive circuit 46 and the like.

The load drive circuit 46 controls each operation of the drive motor 13, the water supply solenoid valve 47, and the drainage solenoid valve 48 according to the control signal from the microcomputer 33. 49 is a power supply circuit for supplying a voltage to the microcomputer 33, and 50 is a reset signal generation circuit.

[0036]

As described above, according to the present invention, in order to carry out a rational washing operation according to the weight (amount) of the laundry, the weight detecting means provided on the upper part of the hanging rod of the dehydration tub is used. do it,
Abnormal vibration during dewatering can be detected with certainty, and the uneven load (laundry) can be immediately corrected.

Therefore, it is possible to easily solve the problems such as the conventional damage to the cloth and the dents on the main body of the washing machine, and to perform the dehydration efficiently, and also to detect the unique vibration which cannot be detected by the conventional safety lever. , If used together with the conventional safety lever,
It is possible to provide a better double safety device. Further, even if the detecting means of the present invention is used as a single body, its detecting ability is high. In that case, cost reduction and design improvement can be achieved.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart for detecting abnormal vibration of a dehydration tank.

FIG. 2 is a graph showing the relationship between the oscillation frequency and the dehydration time based on the size of one side of the cloth.

FIG. 3 is a table showing the measurement results of the fluctuation amount of the oscillation frequency and the dehydration elapsed time based on the size of one side of the cloth.

FIG. 4 is a plan view of the washing machine.

5 is a vertical cross-sectional view of FIG.

FIG. 6 is a vertical cross-sectional view showing the structure of a suspension rod that suspends and supports a dehydration tank.

FIG. 7 is a circuit diagram showing an example of a conversion circuit that converts a moving amount of a suspension rod into a pulse signal.

FIG. 8 is a block circuit diagram of control means including a microcomputer.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Machine frame 2 Washing / dehydration tank (dehydration tank) 5 Suspension rod 23 Core 24 Coil 25 Detection means 30 Weight sensor 33 Microcomputer

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A washing machine having a dehydration tub, which is elastically suspended and supported by a plurality of suspension rods on a machine frame, having a coil provided in a receiving portion of the suspension rod and a core attached to an upper end of the suspension rod. A detection means for detecting the amount of movement of the suspension rod as an electric signal; and a control means for stopping the rotation of the dehydration tank when the detection output from the detection means fluctuates beyond a certain value to determine abnormal vibration. A washing machine characterized by being provided.