JPH0999194A - Dehydration control for fully automatic washing machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To make one dehydration pattern conformable to every quantity of clothes or dehydration condition, and simplify the control software by regulating the frequency of intermittent dehydration in dehydrating process on the basis of the information of a cloth quantity sensor in the dehydration control performed after washing and rinsing. SOLUTION: In dehydration after washing process, a foaming obstruction occurs in dehydration when much detergent is contained in cloths, which has a possibility of reducing the function as fully automatic course. Thus, in the dehydration after washing, a motor 17 is controlled in such a manner that the intermittent frequency is increased to rotate a washing tank 3 gradually at high speed. In the dehydration after washing when the quantity of the washed clothes is small by the information of a cloth quantity sensor, the intermittent frequency is reduced to perform the dehydration since little detergent is contained in the clothes, whereby the dehydrating time is shortened. In dehydration after rinsing, the control is similarly performed so as to perform a dehydration with low intermittent frequency because there is no fear of foaming obstruction.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

TECHNICAL FIELD The present invention relates to a dehydration control for dehydrating clothes in a fully automatic washing machine.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In the conventional dehydration process, the intermittent patterns after washing, after rinsing, and after dehydration are different from each other, and also differ depending on the washing capacity.
In each case, the relationship between the washing capacity and the dehydration control after washing had to be finely divided and controlled. Therefore, there is a drawback that the intermittent pattern becomes complicated.

Further, since there are many dehydration control patterns, there are cases in which the control does not work properly, which makes it difficult to properly operate for washing capacity and dehydration conditions.

[0004]

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION The present invention eliminates the drawbacks of the prior art and enables dewatering to be carried out under appropriate control suitable for each washing condition. That is, the conventional control in the dehydration process has many dehydration control patterns according to the washing capacity and the conditions of the dehydration process, which is a very complicated control. For this reason, as the control becomes complicated, there is a problem that many malfunctions occur and proper operation cannot be performed, so that the dehydration pattern needs to be simplified. However, if the dehydration pattern is simplified, there arises a problem that it becomes difficult to perform fine control suitable for the washing capacity and the dehydration conditions. These problems are controlled by adjusting the amount of laundry clothes and the conditions of the dehydration process based on the information from the cloth amount sensor.

[0005]

The present invention determines the dehydration pattern by controlling the information on the amount of laundry clothes from the cloth amount sensing and the condition of the dehydration process during the washing process by the microcomputer. Thus, by controlling the dehydration pattern based on the information from the cloth amount sensing, it is possible to control the dehydration after washing, the rinsing and the final dehydration by one combination of intermittent dehydration and continuous dehydration. As a result, after washing, the number of times of intermittent dehydration is increased and then transition to continuous dehydration is performed, and after rinsing and final dehydration, the number of times of intermittent dehydration is reduced and then continuous dehydration control is performed. Also, depending on the amount of clothes, the number of intermittents is adjusted to dehydrate.

For the purpose of simplifying the dehydration pattern of the dehydration process, the information obtained by the cloth amount sensor is constantly compared with the conditions of the dehydration process, and dehydration is performed in an intermittent pattern suitable for the amount of laundry clothes during dehydration. That is, when there are many laundry clothes in the dehydration after washing, the intermittent dehydration is performed many times, and then the continuous dehydration step is performed, and the dehydration after rinsing is performed by reducing the intermittent frequency as compared with the dehydration after washing. In the final dehydration, the control method can be adapted to any washing dehydration condition with a pattern of one combination of intermittent dehydration and continuous dehydration by further reducing the number of intermittent dehydrations.

[0007]

BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION The present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a longitudinal sectional view of a fully automatic washing machine adopting the present invention. The operation will be described in sequence. In the fully automatic washing machine, an outer tub 2 is provided inside an outer frame 1 by four hanging rods 5. It is supported by corner plates 21 at the four corners of the upper portion of the outer frame 1.
The suspension bar 5 is provided with a push spring 4 that absorbs vibration during washing and dehydration. In the case of washing, the lid 18 is opened, the clothes are put into the washing tub 3, and the water is supplied in accordance with the command from the control unit 19, and then the motor 20 is rotated in the forward and reverse directions. The rotation of the motor 20 is transmitted from the motor pulley 17 to the clutch pulley 15 in the clutch 14 via the V belt 16. The rotation is transmitted by the clutch 14 when washing.
It is located in the center of the washing tub 3. The stirring blade 7 for moving the clothes is rotated to wash. At the time of drainage, the motor 17 is stopped according to a command from the control unit 19, the drain valve 12 is opened, and the washing liquid in the washing tub 3 is drained from the machine through the drain hose 13. After the drainage, the dehydration process proceeds, but the dehydration process causes the outer tub 2 to greatly shake depending on the condition of the clothes. Therefore, in order to prevent the outer tub 2 from swinging, a balancer 6 is provided above the washing tub 3, and Prevent runout. For dehydration, the rotation of the motor 17 is performed via the V-belt 16 as in the case of washing, and the clutch 14 is rotated.
The rotation of the washing tub 3 is transmitted to the outer tub 2 by the centrifugal force by rotating the washing tub 3 at a high speed by the clutch 14, and the dewatered washing water is drained from the drain valve 12 by operating the drain valve 12. From 13, it is drained to the outside of the aircraft. FIG. 2 is a detailed explanatory diagram of the control unit 19 described in FIG. The electronic control circuit consisting of the timer, CPU (central processing unit), memory, and I / O port is designed to be sequentially shifted from washing to dehydration in the same manner as in the timer consisting of the timer motor and the cam switch. Since this is well known, a block diagram will be described in the following embodiments. The electronic control circuit 34 shown in FIG. 2 is for automatically shifting the process from the washing process using a detergent to the final dehydrating process. Basically, as is well known, the timer 33 and the CPU 3 are used.
2, a memory 31, an input port 29, and an output port 30. The CPU issues a control command at the time of washing, and the CPU has an arithmetic unit and a control unit, which is the center of the system. Basically, fetching and decoding instructions,
Specifically, it executes arithmetic and logical operations, controls reading and writing of the contents of specified addresses in the memory, controls input / output to specified addresses to the input / output device, and controls program flow.

The memory 31 stores a program and data, and has both read and write functions.
There are two types, a ROM having only a read function. R
The AM is used as a work area for storing data or assembling a program, and the ROM is used for storing a fixed program or fixed data and performing the same processing at any time. It is composed of an input port 29 and an output port 30. The output port 30 is a circuit that acts as an intermediary when data is transferred between the CPU and the input device and the output device, and is generally called an I / O port.

On the input side of the I / O port, an electric command from the fully automatic washing machine is input, and mainly the power switch 2
3, the water level sensor 22, the lid switch 24, the program selection switch 25, the start / stop switch 26, the cloth amount sensor 35, etc. are connected, and signals from them are sent to the CPU via the data bus. Further, the washing motor 20, the water supply valve 10, the drain valve 12, the clutch solenoid 27, the alarm 28, etc. are connected to the output side, and are controlled by the CPU command through the I / O port, and a series of Do the washing operation. The control of the fully-automatic washing machine by microcomputer control has been described above with reference to FIG. 2. The operation of these microcomputer controls will be described more specifically with reference to the block diagram of FIG. When the switch 23 is pressed and the program selection switch 25 selects, for example, a standard washing course, and the start / stop switch 26 is pressed, the water supply hose 11 and the water supply valve 10 are interposed, and the water supply 10a is inserted into the washing tub 3. To be done. Based on the information from the water level sensor 22, the CPU 32 determines that a specified amount of washing water has entered the washing tub 3, and starts the specified washing operation.
After the washing operation is completed for the specified time, the drain valve 12 drains the drain hose 13 to the outside of the machine 12a.

After that, dehydration 37a is performed to dehydrate the moisture in the clothes from the dehydration hole 3a by centrifugal force, and then rinse water is supplied and rinse 38 is performed. Such a series of washing operations is carried out by the microcomputer for washing.

In the process block diagram of FIG. 3, the dewatering 12a after the washing 36, the dewatering 37 after the rinsing 38, and the final dewatering 37a performed after the rinsing 38 are performed by the cloth amount sensor 35 of the control unit described in FIG. The dehydration control method in the dehydration 37a, the dehydration 37b, and the final dehydration differs depending on the washing amount.

Since the dehydration control in the dehydration 37a dehydrates clothes containing a large amount of detergent, the detergent liquid contained in the clothes during dehydration causes bubbles to foam between the washing tub 3 and the outer tub 2. Foaming between the washing tub 3 and the outer tub 2 causes a great resistance to the rotation of the washing tub 3 during dehydration, which causes a situation in which the washing tub 3 does not rotate and water in the clothes cannot be dehydrated. Therefore, there is a drawback that the rinsing performance is deteriorated. For this reason, in particular, dehydration 37a after washing 36
In the control, the motor 20 is intermittently operated, the rotation of the washing tub 3 is gradually increased, and the liquid containing a large amount of detergent in the clothes is dehydrated little by little through the dehydration hole 3a to the outer tub 2. This intermittent operation is repeated several times to dehydrate the moisture in the clothes to some extent, and then the continuous dehydration is performed to sufficiently dehydrate the clothes. These control methods are used for dehydration 37b after rinsing 37.
The final dehydration 37c after the rinse 38 is also controlled by the same combination of intermittent dehydration and continuous dehydration.

However, the control system of the dehydration 37a after the washing 36, the dehydration 37b after the rinsing 37a and the final dehydration 37c differs depending on the detergent content in the clothes, and the amount of clothes to be washed is also shown in FIG. Different control is performed according to the information of the cloth amount sensor 35. That is, if you have a lot of clothes,
A general control method is to use a control method in which the intermittent time and the number of times are increased, and when the amount of clothes is small, the time and the number of times are decreased.

For this reason, the number of control methods for each dehydration has increased, and the microcomputer software has become complicated.

FIG. 4 is a control method of each dehydration according to the present invention, in which the vertical axis represents the rotation speed of the washing tub 3 at the time of dehydration and the horizontal axis represents the dehydration time and the relationship between the dehydration time and the rotation speed. It is a figure showing.

According to the present invention, the combination of the intermittent dehydration and the continuous dehydration in the dehydration step is one, and the dehydration control is performed by this one combination. As the method, the dehydration 37a, the dehydration 37b and the final dehydration 37c of the process block diagram shown in FIG. 3 are controlled by the information of the cloth amount sensor 35 described in FIG.

First, in the dehydration in the dehydration 37a after the washing 36, since a large amount of detergent is contained in the clothes, a foaming disorder occurs during the dehydration, and the function as a fully automatic course is deteriorated. For the purpose of preventing this, dehydration is controlled to start from the course 1 shown in FIG. As a result, the number of intermittent dehydrations is increased and the washing tub 3 is moved to removal at a high speed, so that the moisture in the clothes is gradually dehydrated over time to prevent foaming.

By rotating the washing tub 3 intermittently,
After dehydrating the moisture in the clothes, shift to the continuous dehydration process,
The water content in the clothes is controlled to be sufficiently dehydrated.

Further, according to the information of the cloth amount sensor 35, the dehydration 37 after the washing 36 when the amount of washed clothes is small
The dehydration control of a is a control to start from the course 2 in FIG. When the amount of clothes is small, the amount of detergent contained in the clothes is also small. Therefore, even if the number of intermittents is reduced, the amount of detergent liquid that collects between the washing tub 3 and the outer tub 2 is small. Since it does not occur, if the course 2 in FIG. 4 is selected and dehydrated, the time in the washing course can be shortened.

The dehydration control of the next dehydration 37b and the final dehydration 37c in FIG. 3 is performed under the same control as the dehydration 37a. However, since the detergent content in the clothes has already been removed by the rinse 37a, the dehydration of the dehydration 37b does not require a large number of intermittent dehydrations as in the case of the dehydration 37a. Since dehydration is started and the risk of effervescence damage is further reduced in the final dehydration 37c, by controlling such as starting dehydration from course 3, a combination of one type of intermittent and continuous dehydration will cause no problems. Since it can be operated, the control software can be simplified.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart of the present invention. At the start of dehydration 39, whether the dehydration is after washing or rinsing,
If it is the final dehydration, and if it is the dehydration after washing, it is determined from the information of the cloth amount sensor 35 whether there is much laundry or less laundry 40. If there is more, dehydration is performed from the course 1 shown in FIG. Start dehydration control with a large number of intermittent operations. When it is determined that the amount of clothes is small, the course 2 is dehydrated and the number of intermittent operations is reduced.

By performing the same control from the next dehydration as well, the dehydration process by a combination of intermittent and continuous can be made one kind.

[0023]

According to the present invention, by forming a dehydration pattern based on the information of the cloth amount sensor, all the washing conditions can be dealt with by a combination pattern of intermittent dehydration and continuous dehydration, and the dehydration control software can be simplified. Can be realized. Further, the software can be simplified and the capacity of the microcomputer can be reduced, which is effective for cost reduction.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a vertical sectional view of a fully automatic washing machine.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of control of a fully automatic washing machine.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a washing process of the fully automatic washing machine.

FIG. 4 is an explanatory diagram of dehydration by a combination of intermittent dehydration and continuous dehydration.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a work process of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

35 ... cloth amount sensor, 36 ... wash, 38 ... rinse, 37
a, 37b ... dehydration, 37c ... final dehydration.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A fully automatic washing machine for automatically performing steps from washing to rinsing and dewatering. A dewatering control method to be performed after washing and after rinsing is intermittently continuous based on information from a cloth amount sensor. The dehydration control of a fully automatic washing machine is characterized in that the amount of clothes to be washed and dehydration conditions can be controlled by one intermittent continuous dehydration pattern by adjusting the number of times of intermittent dehydration.