JPH0910153A - Electric vacuum cleaner - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE: To provide an electric vacuum cleaner which can display the presence of dirts accurately only when the amount of dirts exceeds a specified value and a current value of an electric blower falls below a threshold. CONSTITUTION: This electric vacuum cleaner is provided with the body of a cleaner containing an electric blower while having a dust collection chamber, a current detecting part 6 to detect current flowing through the electric blower, a power source circuit part 1 having a power source voltage detecting part 2 for detecting a power source voltage, a dirts display means (dirts display LED) 7 to display the amount of dirts in the duct collection chamber and a control circuit part to control the dirts display means 7 based on outputs of a current detecting part 6 and the power source circuit part 1.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

FIELD OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to vacuum cleaners. More specifically, the present invention relates to an electric vacuum cleaner that displays whether or not the amount of sucked dust has reached a predetermined amount.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Electric vacuum cleaners (hereinafter simply referred to as vacuum cleaners)
As the amount of dust sucked inside the cleaner body increases, the air flow to the electric blower inside the cleaner body becomes slower (airflow resistance increases), so the load on the electric blower becomes lighter. The current value flowing through the electric blower decreases. Utilizing the fact that the current value decreases in this way,
Indicates that the amount of dust inhaled has reached a specified amount (below,
It is done simply as garbage display. A conventional vacuum cleaner having a dust display function detects the current flowing through the electric blower after setting a predetermined value of the value of the current flowing through the electric blower as a threshold value, and when the value falls below the threshold value, By the way, garbage is displayed.

[0003]

However, when the operator operates the hand switch, the suction force of the vacuum cleaner is sorted in descending order of the suction force, such as "high power", "strong", "medium", and "quiet". In a vacuum cleaner capable of changing to a mode, the following malfunction may occur when such dust display is performed. That is, not only when the amount of dust sucked into the vacuum cleaner exceeds a predetermined amount, but also when the suction force is set to "medium" or "quiet", "high power" or " Since the electric current that flows through the electric blower is smaller than that when "Strong" is set, even in such a case, when the mode is "Strong" in the vacuum cleaner with the dust display function by the conventional method. Since the current flowing in the electric blower is detected based on the above, there is a problem that it is determined that the current flowing in the electric blower has become small and the dust display is performed regardless of the amount of dust sucked.

Therefore, it is conceivable to set a reference value for each mode, but when the electric vacuum cleaner is operated,
When the electric appliances used in the home are in use, or when the voltage supplied to the household drops for some reason, the power supply voltage supplied to the electric blower drops, which causes the current to flow. The value also decreases. Also in this case, there is a problem that it is determined that the amount of dust sucked into the vacuum cleaner exceeds a predetermined amount, and the dust is displayed.

The present invention has been made in order to solve such a problem. When the amount of inhaled dust exceeds a predetermined amount,
An object of the present invention is to provide a vacuum cleaner that reliably displays dust only when the current value of the electric blower falls below a threshold value.

[0006]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A vacuum cleaner according to the present invention has a main body of a cleaner having an electric blower and a dust collection chamber, a current detector for detecting a current flowing through the electric blower, and a power supply voltage. A power supply circuit unit having a power supply voltage detection unit, a dust display unit that displays the amount of dust in the dust collection chamber, and a control circuit that controls the dust display unit based on the outputs of the current detection unit and the power supply circuit unit. And a section.

The dust display means may be configured not to display dust when the current value detected by the current detector of the current flowing through the electric blower is larger than a predetermined threshold value. This is preferable because dust can be displayed accurately.

[0008]

According to the vacuum cleaner of the present invention, since the power supply circuit section includes the power supply voltage detecting section, when the power supply voltage itself decreases, the current value does not become smaller than the predetermined threshold value. , Do not display garbage.

[0009]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, a vacuum cleaner of the present invention will be described with reference to the attached drawings.

FIG. 1 is an explanatory view showing the appearance of a vacuum cleaner of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the circuit configuration of an embodiment of the vacuum cleaner of the present invention. As shown in FIG. 1, the vacuum cleaner of the present invention comprises a cleaner main body 16 in which an electric blower (not shown) is incorporated and a suction means 17. An electric floor suction tool 17d including a hose 17b, an extension pipe 17c, and a power brush (rotating brush) is connected to the suction port. Hand switch 15 is attached to the tip of hose 17b.
A hand grip 17a provided with is provided. By operating the hand switch 15, the rotation speed of the electric blower provided in the cleaner body 16 is controlled. The hand grip 17a, the hose 17b, the extension pipe 17c,
The suction means 17 is composed of the floor suction tool 17d.

Next, the circuit configuration in the cleaner body 16 according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIG. In FIG. 2, reference numeral 1 is a power supply circuit unit, which is a step-down transformer 1a,
It is composed of a power supply voltage detection unit 2 and a constant voltage circuit unit 3. Input on the primary side of the transformer 1a, that is, AC power supply 1
The input from 1 is distributed to the circuit related to the motor of the electric blower (hereinafter referred to as the main body motor 18a) and the circuit related to the power brush. The circuit related to the main body motor 18a is composed of the control element 4a, the main body motor 18a, and the current detection unit 6, and the current flowing through the main body motor 18a is detected by the current detection unit 6. Current detector 6
The current signal from is input to the microcomputer 5. Control element 4
a is composed of, for example, a triac (trade name; bidirectional three-terminal thyristor manufactured by General Electric Co., Ltd.), and the output from the control element 4a is input to the microcomputer 5. The circuit related to the power brush is composed of the control element 4b and the motor 15a of the power brush.

The secondary side voltage of the transformer 1a is measured by the power supply voltage detector 2, and the measured value is input to the microcomputer 5 as a power supply voltage signal. In addition, hand switch 1
By the operation of 5, the mode is changed to "high power", "strong", "medium", "quiet", etc., and as a result, the secondary voltage of the transformer is changed. As a result, the power supply voltage signal changes in response to the mode switching. This power supply voltage signal is compared in the microcomputer 5 with the current signal from the current detector 6 which is input when the control element 4a is ON. This comparative example is shown in Table 1. Table 1 shows the power supply voltage, the power supply voltage signal, and the threshold value of the current signal in the "high power" mode, respectively.

[0013]

[Table 1]

For example, when the power supply voltage signal is 5.0 V or less and 4.75 V or more (that is, the power supply voltage is about 110 V), the current signal detected by the current detection unit 6 in the state where dust is not accumulated is 2 Since it is about 0.7 V, if the detected current signal is 2.5 V or less, the microcomputer 5 determines that dust is accumulated, and the dust display LED 7 is turned on. Further, when the power supply voltage signal is less than 4.25V and 0V or more (that is, the power supply voltage is about 90V), the current signal detected by the current detection unit 6 in the state where dust is not accumulated is about 2.5V. . As described above, when the power supply voltage is high, the threshold value of the current signal is set large, and when the power supply voltage is low, the threshold value of the current signal is set small, so that the correct value according to the decrease of the power supply voltage Garbage can be displayed.

Further, the secondary side voltage of the transformer 1a becomes a constant voltage in the constant voltage circuit section 3, for example, 5V,
It is supplied to the microcomputer 5. A garbage display L is displayed on the microcomputer 5.
An ED 7, a dummy resistor 8 corresponding to the dust display LED 7, and a dummy resistor 9 corresponding to the power brush are connected,
Each of them is supplied with a constant DC voltage, for example, 5V. The dummy resistor 8 uses, for example, a current of about 510Ω in order to flow the same current as the current that flows when the dust display LED 7 is lit. When the dust display LED 7 is lit, the dummy resistor 8 has a port of the microcomputer 5. Becomes H level, that is, no current flows through the dummy resistor 8. On the contrary, when the dust display LED 7 is not lit, the port of the microcomputer 5 becomes L level, and the current flows through the dummy resistor 8. Similarly, when the power brush is ON (the connected control element 4b is ON), the port of the microcomputer 5 is set to H level, that is, the current is prevented from flowing through the dummy resistor 9, and when the power brush is OFF, Microcomputer 5
The port of is set to L level. Here, the microcomputer 5, the control elements 4a and 4b, the current detection unit 6, the dust display LED 7, and the dummy resistors 8 and 9 form a control circuit unit (not shown).

By connecting the dummy resistors 8 and 9 in this manner, the dust display LED 7 and the power brush O
Since the load applied to the power supply circuit can always be made constant regardless of N or OFF, the output from the power supply detection unit 6 becomes small when the power brush is ON, and the malfunction of displaying dust is not caused.

The above Table 1 is merely an example, and the type of mode and the threshold value of each mode can be appropriately selected.

[0018]

According to the vacuum cleaner of the present invention, it is possible to accurately indicate whether or not the amount of sucked dust has reached a predetermined amount according to the amount of dust.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory view showing an embodiment of a vacuum cleaner of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing a circuit configuration of an embodiment of the vacuum cleaner of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 power supply circuit section 2 power supply voltage detection section 3 constant voltage circuit section 4a control element 4b control element 5 microcomputer 6 current detection section 7 dust display LED 8 dummy resistance 9 dummy resistance

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A power supply circuit unit including a cleaner body having a built-in electric blower and having a dust collection chamber, a current detection unit for detecting a current flowing in the electric blower, and a power supply voltage detection unit for detecting a power supply voltage. And a dust display unit that displays the amount of dust in the dust collection chamber, and a control circuit unit that controls the dust display unit based on the outputs of the current detection unit and the power supply circuit unit. Vacuum cleaner. 2. The dust display means is configured so as not to display dust when the current value detected by the current detector of the current flowing through the electric blower is larger than a predetermined threshold value. The electric vacuum cleaner according to 1.