JPH10299066A - Urinal washing system - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a urinal washing system capable of automatically flushing washing liquid in accordance with a using state. SOLUTION: A sensor section 10 incorporating vibration sensor, signal processing and relative decision thereinto is provided to the rear side of a urinal main body 1. When urination is made, since vibration occurs in the urinal main body 1, the vibration is detected by the vibration sensor. Output from the vibration sensor is processed by the signal processing in a state to easily make decision, and the relative decision decides whether or not vibration occurs by urination. A washing command signal based on the result of the decision is transmitted to a washing controller 3, a valve is opened and closed, and washing liquid is made to flow into the urinal main body 1.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a urinal cleaning system.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art As is well known, in the case of a flush toilet, a cleaning liquid (generally, Normal water is used).

[0003] As a cleaning system for automatically flowing such a cleaning liquid after adding it, a system using a photoelectric switch is widely used. In this system, for example, a sensor unit equipped with a photoelectric switch is installed above the urinal, and if a person stops in front of the urinal for a certain period of time, it detects that the person has left the urinal after that Then, a certain amount of cleaning liquid is allowed to flow. Such a system has the advantage that it is not necessary for a person to press the push button each time, and that the cleaning liquid automatically flows when the person leaves after use, so that he / she does not forget to wash.

[0004]

However, in the urinal cleaning system using the above-mentioned photoelectric switch, since the sensor unit is installed at a position that can be seen from the outside, it is necessary to hold a hand or the like on purpose in front of the sensor unit. If the hand is left for a while, and then the hand is released, a sensor output similar to that obtained when a person adds a small amount of light is obtained, and there is a possibility that the cleaning liquid may flow. Further, there is a possibility that the sensor unit itself may be depressed and damaged. Thus, it is easy to be mischievous.

[0005] In addition, if mischief such as a foreign substance is stuck to the surface of the sensor unit, or if the dust is adhered to the surface of the sensor unit after frequent cleaning is neglected, the user may be forced to use the urinal. May not be able to detect that the user has left after standing for a certain period of time, and may not be able to automatically flow the cleaning liquid where the cleaning liquid has to flow.
Therefore, frequent cleaning work is required, and the labor of such cleaning work is complicated.

When a short person such as a child uses the washing liquid, the washing liquid cannot be detected, and the washing liquid may not be allowed to flow automatically where the washing liquid must be poured. Furthermore, for example, if I was standing in front of the urinal for a certain amount of time with the intention of adding, but eventually I left the urinal without adding it, or just stopped just before the sensor part without adding it Just passing through, the same sensor output is obtained as if a person had added extra work,
The cleaning liquid may flow. As described above, there is a problem that an operation suitable for a use state such as actual use or non-use may not be performed. Furthermore, since the sensor was exposed, there was a sense of incongruity in terms of design.

[0007] The present invention has been made in view of the above background, and an object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems, to allow a cleaning liquid to flow depending on the use condition, to prevent mischief, To provide a urinal flushing system that can save water and does not expose a sensor for detecting the presence or absence of a refill, prevents the sensor from being directly touched and damaged, and has a good design. It is in.

[0008]

In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a urinal cleaning system according to the present invention is provided with a vibration detecting means attached to a toilet body and detecting vibration, and a vibration detecting means based on an output of the vibration detecting means. A determination means for determining the presence or absence of urination by the user, and a flush control means for discharging a cleaning liquid into the toilet based on the determination result of the determination means. Here, various types of cleaning liquids can be used as long as they clean the inside of the toilet body, such as water and detergent.

[0009] When the urine is added, the urinated urine hits the inner wall of the toilet body or flows through the inner wall of the toilet body, so that the toilet body vibrates. Therefore, the presence or absence of urination can be detected by detecting the vibration of the toilet body. Based on the detection result, the washing control means opens, for example, a valve attached to a pipe through which the washing liquid passes,
A cleaning liquid is supplied to the toilet body.

[0010] After the vibration which can be determined as urination is detected by the determination means, a new flushing liquid may not be discharged to the toilet body within a predetermined time (claim 2). That is, according to the present invention, the flushing liquid is automatically flown into the toilet body after urination, so that when the flushing liquid flows along the inner wall of the toilet body, vibration similar to urination occurs. The vibration caused by the cleaning liquid occurs within a certain period after detecting the vibration caused by urination. Therefore, after detecting a signal that can be determined as urination, a new cleaning liquid is not supplied within a predetermined time (a period in which a certain margin is taken with respect to the time when the supply of the cleaning liquid is completed) regardless of the presence or absence of vibration. Thus, it is possible to prevent the vibration generated at the time of supplying the cleaning liquid accompanying the urination immediately before being erroneously determined as the vibration accompanying the urination, and prevent the cleaning liquid from being supplied again.

Here, not supplying a new cleaning liquid means not stopping supply of the currently supplied cleaning liquid, but instead of stopping supply of the currently supplied cleaning liquid.
The cleaning process is terminated once if the supply of the cleaning liquid based on the previously detected vibration is performed without starting the supply of the cleaning liquid again from the water washing control means based on the vibration. Then, in order not to supply a new cleaning liquid within a predetermined time, the output of the vibration detection means is temporarily stopped, the determination processing of the determination means is not performed, and the washing is performed regardless of the determination result of the determination means. It can be realized by various methods such as ignoring the input on the control means side. Such a situation is the same in claim 3.

Further, in order to prevent such a malfunction due to the supply of the cleaning liquid, for example, after detecting the vibration which can be judged as urination by the judging means, based on the vibration which can be judged as urination to be detected next, The cleaning liquid may not be discharged to the toilet body (claim 3).

Since the vibration due to the cleaning liquid occurs after the vibration due to urination, after detecting the vibration due to urination, the next first vibration can be assumed to be the vibration generated when the cleaning liquid flows. Therefore, when the first vibration is detected, the cleaning liquid is not supplied to the toilet body, thereby preventing a malfunction such as the cleaning liquid flowing out again.

Preferably, a semiconductor sensor is used as the vibration sensor. Since the semiconductor type sensor is small, it can be easily attached to any position of the toilet body currently used. And, for example, by installing the apparatus on the back side of the toilet, the equipment for automatically cleaning is invisible to the user, so that there is no sense of incongruity in the design and no mischief. In addition, since the detection sensitivity is high, it is possible to reliably detect the vibration of the toilet body caused by urination.

[0015]

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 shows an example of a state where a urinal cleaning system according to the present invention is mounted on a toilet body. As shown in the figure, a tip of a cleaning liquid pipe 2 is connected to an inner top surface of the toilet body 1 which is open to the front for receiving urine. The other end of the washing liquid pipe 2 is connected to a washing controller 3.
Attached to. The cleaning liquid is supplied into the toilet body 1 through the cleaning liquid pipe 2. At this time, the supply of the washing liquid is controlled by the washing controller 3.

Here, in the present invention, the sensor unit 10 is attached to the back of the toilet body 1. Such a sensor unit 10
Is a vibration sensor 11 and a signal processing unit 1 as shown in FIG.
2. The comparison / determination unit 13 is connected in series in that order and is incorporated. Then, the output of the vibration sensor 11 is changed to a form that can be easily compared by the signal processing unit 12, and the comparison determination unit 13 determines whether or not the output is the vibration output due to addition. Then, a flush command signal based on the determination is sent to the flush controller 3. The flush controller 3 controls the opening and closing of a valve (not shown) based on the flush command signal sent from the sensor unit 10 to supply and stop the flush liquid to the toilet body 1.

Next, each part will be described. First, as the vibration sensor 11, a piezoelectric element or various semiconductor-type sensors can be used as long as it can detect microvibration generated during addition.

As shown in FIG. 3, the signal processing section 12 includes an amplifier (AMP) 14, a band-pass filter (BPF) 1
5, full-wave rectifier 16, low-pass filter (LPF) 17
Are sequentially connected. That is, the detection signal output from the vibration sensor 11 is amplified by the amplifier 14. At this time, when the vibration sensor 11 outputs a detection signal with a value such as a capacitance as in a capacitance type, the vibration signal is converted into a value such as a voltage value that is easy to process and amplified. Then, the signal amplified by the amplifier 14 is supplied to a band-pass filter 15, where a filtering process is performed to pass only a signal in a frequency band (for example, about 500 to 2000 Hz) of a vibration generated due to urination. Since the predetermined frequency band varies depending on the material and structure of the toilet, the frequency band in which the frequency component constituting the output electric signal exists by detecting vibrations due to urination in advance through experiments or the like is clarified, and other than the frequency band concerned The band-pass filter 15 is adjusted so as to remove the frequency of. Therefore, in the band-pass filter 15, noise included in the detection signal can be removed.
For example, it is not affected by environmental vibration such as an earthquake.

The signal output from the band-pass filter 15 is full-wave rectified by the full-wave rectifier 16, and the high-frequency component is removed by the low-pass filter 17. That is,
As described above, since the pass frequency band of the band-pass filter 15 is set in accordance with the frequency of the vibration waveform generated with urination, the band-pass filter 15 is not used when urinating.
Is almost non-existent, and at the time of urination, a vibration waveform signal that largely fluctuates positively and negatively around 0 is output. Therefore,
The low-pass filter 17 extracts the envelope of the signal obtained by inverting the negative signal by the full-wave rectifier 16,
The output signal of the low-pass filter 17 is close to 0 level when not urinating, and becomes an envelope connecting the peak values of the vibration waveforms generated when urinating, so that it is a signal that maintains a certain level or more. . And
Such an electric signal is sent to the comparison / determination unit 13.

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of the comparison / determination unit 13. As shown in the figure, the comparison / determination unit 13 includes a comparator 18, an on / off delay timer 19, and a flush command signal generator 20. That is, as described above, since the output level of the signal processing unit 12 varies depending on the presence or absence of urination, the comparator 18 performs threshold processing to discriminate the presence or absence of urination. When the electric signal is larger than the threshold value (during urination), “H” is output. When the electric signal is smaller than the threshold value (when not used), “L” is output. That is, when the output of the comparator 18 changes from “L” to “H”, it can be said that urination starts, and when it returns from “H” to “L”, urination ends. Furthermore, it can be said that when the state of “H” is maintained, urination is being performed, and when the state of “L” is maintained, it is not in use.

The specific threshold value set in the comparator 18 is as follows: when the average value of the output of the signal processing unit 12 during urination (during use) is μ, and the standard deviation is σ. , Threshold value A = μ−3σ. Of course, it may be set by another method.

Further, in this embodiment, since the on / off delay timer 19 is provided, after the output from the comparator 18 changes from "L" to "H", it takes more than a predetermined time set by the on-delay timer. If the output of “H” continues continuously, it is determined that vibration due to addition has been detected, and “H” is output from the on / off delay timer 19 to the flushing command signal generator 20. As a result, even if there is a short-time vibration (less than a fixed time set by the on-delay timer) or noise other than urination, the output of the on / off delay timer 19 is maintained at “L”, and urination occurs. Will not be erroneously determined.

Further, after the output from the comparator 18 changes from "H" to "L" and the output of "L" continues for a predetermined time set by the off-delay timer, vibration caused by urination is not possible until the output of "L" has elapsed. Is completed, and “L” is output from the on / off delay timer 19 to the flushing command signal generator 20. As a result, the output of the on / off delay timer 19 maintains “H” even if the vibration is instantaneously lost due to noise, temporary stoppage of urination, or the like. Thus, it is possible to reliably detect the end of urination, and it is possible to prevent the cleaning liquid from being accidentally started to flow during use.

The flush command signal generator 20 sends a flush command signal to the flush controller 3 based on the change of the output signal of the on / off delay timer 19. Specifically, the output of the on / off delay timer 19 is input to a flip-flop circuit built in the flushing command signal generator 20, and the output of the on / off delay timer 19 becomes "H".
The moment when the signal changes from (use signal) to “L” (non-use signal) is detected. Normally, "L" is output from the flushing command signal generator 20, and "H" (use signal) is output.
Is detected, an instant "H" is output from the flushing command signal generator 20 to the flushing controller 3 for a prescribed time after a delay of a predetermined time from the instant. I do. Then, by adjusting the delay time, it is possible to change the time until the cleaning liquid starts flowing after the urination ends.

When the flushing command signal input to the flushing controller 3 becomes "H", the flushing controller 3 receiving the signal opens the valve of the pipe, so that the flushing liquid flows from the top surface of the toilet bowl 2 to the inner wall of the toilet bowl 2. Flow.

Since the vibration detected when the cleaning liquid flows is similar to the vibration detected when the cleaning liquid is added, it is determined that the vibration is generated when the cleaning liquid is added, and there is a possibility that the cleaning liquid may flow again. is there.

Therefore, in the flushing command signal generator 20, regardless of the output of the on / off delay timer 19, for a certain period during which the supply of the cleaning liquid is completed and the vibration accompanying the supplied cleaning liquid can be predicted to disappear. “L” is output, and it is determined that there is no predetermined vibration. Therefore, since “L” is still input to the water washing controller 3, there is no need to newly supply the cleaning liquid due to the vibration generated due to the supply of the cleaning liquid.

The flush command signal generator 20 outputs "H"
After detecting the moment when the signal changes from (use signal) to “L” (non-use signal), even if the moment when the signal changes from “H” (use signal) to “L” (non-use signal) is detected, only once "L" may be continuously output. As a result, the cleaning liquid does not flow again.

Further, when any of the above methods is employed, if the cleaning liquid is supplied while the cleaning liquid is being supplied, the cleaning liquid is not discharged due to the urination, but this is a problem in the first place. In the situation, since the washing is performed simultaneously or almost simultaneously with the washing liquid during urination, there is no need to wash again, and the use of the washing liquid can be reduced, so that there is no problem.

Next, the operation of the above embodiment will be described with reference to FIG. The figure shows the waveform of each signal that has been processed internally when vibration is detected in the above urinal cleaning system. It is assumed that vibration generated in the toilet 2 is detected by the vibration sensor 11 and the output is a waveform signal as shown in FIG. Such an output waveform is a waveform in the case where noise is detected first, and then vibration A due to addition is detected.

The output from the vibration sensor 11 is amplified by the signal processing unit 12, frequency components other than the frequency band are removed, and envelope detection (full-wave rectification + low-pass filter) is performed. A waveform as shown in b) is generated. By comparing this waveform with the threshold value by the comparator 18, a pulse output as shown in FIG. That is, the pulse B is generated even on the basis of the noise, and the two separate pulses C and D are generated from the vibration due to one addition.

Assuming that the ON delay time and the OFF delay time set in the ON / OFF delay timer 19 are as shown in FIG.
Since the pulse width of the pulse B based on the noise is shorter than the on-delay time, the output of the on / off delay timer 19 remains "L" as shown in FIG. Further, since the period during which the output C is generated by the vibration of the addition is longer than the on-delay time, “H” is output after the elapse of the on-delay time from the rise of the pulse C. Further, the comparator 1 between the pulse C and the pulse D
8 is less than the off-delay time, the output of the on / off delay timer 19 does not fall to “L” depending on the fall of the pulse C. It falls to "L" after the elapse of the off delay time from the fall. As a result, a pulse E as shown in FIG. 4D is output from the on / off delay timer 19 in association with urination.

Then, based on the output from the on / off delay timer 19, an output as shown in FIG. That is, on /
The output from the off-delay timer 19 changes from “H” to “L”
(A moment when the output E ends), and a pulse G having a predetermined pulse width is output after a delay of a predetermined time F from the moment. The pulse G is input to the flush controller 3, and the flush controller 3 causes the flush liquid to flow out into the toilet body 2 and performs flush only while the pulse G is ON ("H").

[0034]

As described above, in the urinal cleaning system according to the present invention, the vibration sensor is attached to the toilet body, the vibration of the toilet is detected, and the signal of the vibration detection is processed, whereby the state of the toilet is obtained. Can be accurately inferred, so that a cleaning solution applied according to the use situation can be flowed.

Further, since the signal based on the vibration detection is processed to determine whether or not only the feet are used, there is no need to expose the sensor unit unlike the conventionally used infrared sensor. Therefore, by mounting the sensor unit at a position where the sensor unit is not exposed, mischief can be prevented, and even if foreign matter or dust is attached to the sensor unit, it is possible to determine whether or not a supplement has been made, so that cleaning is performed. Can be omitted. Furthermore, the sense of incongruity does not arise from the design aspect.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a view showing an example of an attached state of a urinal cleaning system according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of a preferred embodiment of a urinal cleaning system according to the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a signal processing unit according to the embodiment shown in FIG. 2;

FIG. 4 is a block diagram of a comparison / determination unit of the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 5A is a diagram illustrating an example of an output waveform from a vibration sensor. (B) is a diagram showing a waveform after performing full-wave rectification processing and envelope detection in the signal processing unit.
(C) is a diagram showing an example of an output waveform from the comparator. (D) is a diagram showing an example of an output waveform from an ON / OFF delay timer. (E) is a figure showing an example of an output waveform of a flush command signal.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Toilet 3 Flushing controller 10 Sensor part 11 Vibration sensor 12 Signal processing part 13 Comparison judgment part

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A vibration detection means attached to a toilet body and detecting vibration, a determination means for determining the presence or absence of urination based on an output of the vibration detection means, and the toilet based on a determination result of the determination means A flush system for a toilet bowl, comprising a flush control means for causing a flush liquid to flow out. 2. The apparatus according to claim 1, wherein a new flushing liquid is not discharged to the toilet body within a predetermined time after detecting the vibration that can be determined as urination by the determining means. Urinal cleaning system. 3. The method according to claim 3, wherein after detecting a vibration that can be determined as urination by the determining means, the cleaning liquid is not discharged to the toilet body based on a vibration that can be determined as urination to be detected next. The urinal cleaning system according to claim 1. 4. The urinal cleaning system according to claim 1, wherein said vibration detecting means is a semiconductor type sensor.