JPS6332480B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a clothes dryer in which a horizontal drum is rotatably provided in a cabinet, and heated air heated by a positive characteristic semiconductor heater is supplied into the drum to dry clothes. This is to increase the amount of heat generated by passing a large amount of air to the semiconductor heater, and to improve the drying efficiency by passing a large amount of heated air into the drum. The aim is to obtain an effective clothes dryer by increasing the diameter of the drum and making the drum thinner. Furthermore, the outside air intake port provided in the cabinet and the discharge port for discharging exhaust air from the drum can be easily arranged on the front of the cabinet, so that the outside air intake port and the discharge port can be easily cleaned. It's where you want to get it.

In recent years, clothes dryers are often used in combination with washing machines and placed above the washing machine, or are placed along indoor walls, etc., which makes it difficult to use the washing machine and the harmony of the room. There has been a trend toward a desire for thinner devices with smaller depths. This necessarily requires that the drum also be made thin.

However, in conventional dryers of this type, the heated air within the drum generally flows in the longitudinal direction of the drum, that is, in the direction of the rotational axis. In this way, if the depth (length in the front-rear direction) of the drum is reduced to make it thinner, the diameter of the drum, that is, the length of the top and bottom, must be increased accordingly in order not to reduce the internal volume of the drum. In this case, the heated air is exhausted outside the drum before it is sufficiently filled from the top to the bottom of the drum, so that the heat is not used effectively and the drying effect deteriorates. Therefore, it has been considered to have many holes in the peripheral wall of the drum to allow heated air to flow vertically inside the drum, but since there are holes in the peripheral wall of the drum for the heated air to pass through, there is no chance that these holes will be blocked by clothing. Therefore, the flow of the heated air was not smooth, and the drying process took a long time and the drying effect deteriorated. Particularly in the case where a semiconductor heater with positive characteristics is used as a heater, poor air flow generally leads to a decrease in drying efficiency because the amount of heat generated by the heater itself decreases.

The present invention has been made in view of this point, and the position of the intake hole for taking heated air into the drum and the exhaust hole for discharging the heated air from the drum have been devised, and an annular drum support plate parallel to the front surface of the cabinet provided in the cabinet has been devised. By providing an intake hole at the top and an exhaust hole at the bottom, the amount of ventilation to the semiconductor heater is increased, and a large amount of heated air flows from the top to the bottom of the drum, making the drum thinner. The shape also improves drying efficiency.

The present invention will be described above based on the drawings. Reference numeral 1 denotes a cabinet whose rear opening is covered with a back plate 2, and a horizontal drum 3 for storing clothes to be dried is rotatably provided inside the cabinet 1. The drum 3 has a peripheral wall 4 and a rear wall 5 integrally molded of synthetic resin such as polypropylene, and a front plate 6 is fixed to the front end of the peripheral wall 4. A plurality of buffs 7 are integrally bulged inward from the peripheral wall 4. The front plate 6 is fixed to the front end of the buttful 7 with screws 8, and the portion of the front plate 6 other than the screwed portion is fitted into a groove 9 formed in the front end of the peripheral wall 4.

An edge flange 11 of the front plate 6, which forms the front opening of the drum 3, is fitted via a felt 14 to an outer periphery flange 13 of a drum support plate 12, which is parallel to a cabinet front surface 16 that partitions the inside and outside of the drum 3. The drum support plate 12 has an annular shape with an opening at its center, and the edge 15 of this central opening is screwed to the peripheral edge of a clothes input port 17 provided on the front surface 16 of the cabinet. The clothes input port 17 is covered with a protective cover 18 made of elastic synthetic resin, and is opened and closed by a door 19. The front surface of the door 19 is transparent.

A rotary shaft 26 made of a synthetic resin such as DURACON, which has high wear resistance, is protruded from the center of the rear wall 5 of the drum.
The rotating shaft is inserted inside and supported by the cylinder 28. Before inserting the rotating shaft 26 into the cylinder 28, several slip washers 29 are fitted onto the rotating shaft 26. After inserting the rotating shaft 26 into the cylinder 28, the washer 30 is applied to the tip, and the tapping screw 31 is inserted into the rotating shaft 26. It is screwed into the body and is prevented from coming out,
The movement in the thrust direction is
9 and Watshire 30. Both ends of the support plate 27 are fixed to the rear ends of both sides of the cabinet 1. The drum 3 is thus supported at the rear by the rotating shaft 26 inserted into the cylinder 28, and at the front by the opening edge 11 of the front plate 6 fitting into the outer periphery flange 13 of the drum support plate 12. It is supported and rotatable.

A large number of intake holes 32 are formed in the upper part of the drum support plate 12, and a large number of exhaust holes 33 are formed in the lower part. A heater mounting plate 34 is attached to the drum support plate 12 at a position facing the intake hole 32, and several honeycomb-shaped positive characteristic semiconductor heaters 35 are attached to this mounting plate 34.
A discharge port 36 is provided at the bottom of the cabinet front plate 16, and the exhaust hole 33 of the drum support plate 12 is communicated with the discharge port 36 through an exhaust duct 37. The discharge port 36 is covered with a removable exhaust grille 39 having a filter on the back surface.

An outside air intake port 40 is opened in the upper part of the cabinet front plate 16, and this outside air intake port is closed by a removable intake grille 42 having a filter on the back surface. Further, a centrifugal fan 43 is disposed within the cabinet 1 opposite to the outside air intake port 40.
This fan 43 is fixed to one end of a rotating shaft 45 of a drive motor 44 installed on the ceiling of the cabinet. A cooling fan 46 for the motor 44 is formed on the back side of the fan 43 . Motor shaft 45
A small pulley 47 is fixed to the other end, and a belt 48 is wound around the small pulley 47 and the outer peripheral wall of the drum 3 to transmit the rotation of the motor 44 to the drum 3 via the small pulley 47 and the belt 48. The tension of the belt 48 is adjusted by a tension pulley 49.

In such a configuration, when the motor 44 is driven, the drum 3 rotates and the centrifugal fan 4
3 also rotates, and the rotation of this fan 43 sucks outside air into the cabinet 1 from the outside air intake port 40.
Make the pressure inside the cabinet higher than the outside positive pressure. This positively pressurized outside air is sent to the heater 35 as shown by the arrow in FIG. The clothes are then exhausted to the outside of the drum, passed through the exhaust duct 37, and discharged out of the cabinet from the outlet 36. In this process, moisture is removed from the clothes and the clothes are dried.

By the way, as the drum rotates, the clothes in the drum 3 are scraped up by the brush 7 and fall.
As the clothes fall from top to bottom, the air inside the drum also moves from top to bottom. Specifically, where clothing is being swept up, the air also flows from the bottom to the top, but since the speed at which clothes fall is faster than the speed at which they are lifted, the air flow from top to bottom becomes stronger overall. Also, there are fewer clothes in the drum at the top and more at the bottom.

However, the drum support plate 1, which is the upper part inside the drum,
Since the intake hole 32 is provided at the top of the drum 2, the intake hole 32 is unlikely to be blocked by clothing, and as the air moves from top to bottom inside the drum, a larger amount of heated air than the intake hole 32 flows into the drum. to invade. Then, the heated air that has entered is removed from the exhaust hole 33 provided at the bottom of the drum.
However, exhaust air from the exhaust hole 33 is promoted by the wind pressure generated by the clothes falling from above.

Therefore, the heated air easily enters the drum and exits the drum, so the amount of air increases. In other words, the amount of air passing through the heater 35 increases, which increases the amount of heat generated and improves drying efficiency. In particular, since the heated air passes vertically from the top to the bottom of the drum, when the drum is made thinner by reducing its depth and increasing its diameter, it is effective to spread the heated air throughout the drum.

FIG. 3 shows the positions of the intake hole 32 and exhaust hole 33.
The input power of the heater 35 in the case where the dryer is placed in the position which is a feature of the present invention as shown in FIG. If the intake hole is placed up and the exhaust hole is placed down, the input value will be high as shown by line A, indicating that the amount of ventilation to the heater is large and the amount of heat generated is high. On the other hand, when the intake hole is placed at the bottom and the exhaust hole is placed at the top, the input value becomes low as shown by line B, indicating that the amount of ventilation to the heater decreases and the amount of heat generated decreases. In an unloaded state where nothing is put into the drum, there is no air flow due to clothing, so the input value is the same as shown by line C regardless of the vertical position of the intake and exhaust holes, and the resistance due to clothing is Since there is no wind, it has the highest input value due to the largest amount of wind passing through it. Furthermore, A line and B
The reason why the input value decreases as the drying time elapses as indicated by the line is thought to be because the clothes swell as they dry, increasing the resistance of the wind passing through the drum.

As described above, according to the present invention, an intake hole is provided in the upper part of the drum support plate which is slidably fitted into the front opening, that is, the end opening of the drum, and an exhaust hole is provided in the lower part, and the intake hole is blocked with clothing. It is designed to prevent the heated air from coming off easily, and by utilizing the air flow generated by the falling clothes inside the drum, it is made so that heated air can easily enter the drum through the intake hole and easily exit from the exhaust hole. Since the heated air flows from top to bottom inside the drum, the amount of heat generated by the semiconductor heater is increased, and a rich amount of heat is applied to the clothes to evaporate moisture, improving drying efficiency and making the drum especially When the drum is made thin, heated air can be passed through the entire drum, which is effective.

In addition, since the drum support plate that fits into the front opening of the drum has an intake hole and an exhaust hole, it is easy to arrange an outside air intake in the cabinet and an outlet for discharging exhaust from the drum on the front of the cabinet.
This makes it possible to easily clean these outside air intake ports and outlet ports.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a vertical side view of the clothes dryer of the present invention, Fig. 2 is a partially cutaway front view of the same, and Fig. 3 is the input characteristics depending on the position of the intake hole and exhaust hole of the heater and the presence or absence of load. It is a diagram. 1...cabinet, 3...drum, 40...
Outside air intake port, 35... Semiconductor heater, 17... Clothes input port, 12... Drum support board, 11... Front end opening of drum, 32... Intake hole, 33...
Exhaust hole.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a device in which a horizontal drum is rotatably provided in a cabinet and air heated by a positive characteristic semiconductor heater is supplied into the drum to dry clothes, an annular drum parallel to the front panel of the cabinet is provided in the cabinet. A drum support plate is attached, and the end opening of the drum is slidably fitted to the outer peripheral edge of the support plate, and an outside air intake port is provided in the upper part of the cabinet front plate, and an outlet port is provided in the lower part. established,
Clothes drying characterized in that the heater is attached to the upper part of the drum support plate and an intake hole is provided to take heated air into the drum, and the lower part is provided with an exhaust hole for discharging the air from the drum toward the discharge port. Machine.