KR100229641B1 - Cooling air supply control method in ref. - Google Patents

Abstract

The disclosed refrigerator control method relates to a cold air discharge control method of a refrigerator in which a partial temperature difference therein is eliminated by rapidly circulating cold air discharged into a refrigerating compartment and delivering the same to the entire space of the refrigerating compartment.

The present invention includes a plurality of temperature sensors for sensing a temperature inside the refrigerating chamber, and in order to control the temperature of the refrigerating chamber to control the supply or blocking of the cold air discharged to the refrigerating chamber through the shutter drive unit. The temperature value of the refrigerating chamber is detected through the sensor, and if the difference between the detected plurality of temperature sensor values is greater than or equal to the predetermined temperature, the opening and closing operation of the cold window is repeated a predetermined number of times to quickly circulate the cold air in the refrigerator, thereby to uniform the temperature distribution in the refrigerator. In addition, there is an effect of preventing food from freezing due to intensive cold air discharge near the cold window.

Description

Cold air discharge control method of refrigerator

The present invention relates to a method for controlling a refrigerator, and more particularly, to a method for controlling cold air discharge of a refrigerator from which partial temperature differences are eliminated by circulating rapidly the cold air discharged into the refrigerating compartment to be uniformly transmitted to the entire space of the refrigerating compartment.

Generally, an evaporator and a fan are installed in the refrigerator, that is, the refrigerating chamber. The evaporator cools the surrounding air by heat exchange of refrigerant when the compressor is operated, and the fan is for forced circulation of the cooled air around the evaporator into the air. Therefore, the compressor and the fan are properly operated according to the temperature change, and the cold air window is opened and closed to maintain the temperature in the refrigerator.

Referring to FIG. 1, a cold air circulation system in a conventional refrigerator refrigerator is described. A door 2 is attached to the refrigerator body 1, and when the door 2 is closed, the refrigerator compartment 3 in the body 1 is sealed. do.

On the other hand, the refrigerating chamber (3) is usually divided into a multi-layer by the shelves (4), it is partitioned into an evaporation chamber (6) by a separate cover (5) on one side of the uppermost layer.

The evaporator 6 is mounted in the evaporation chamber 6 with the evaporator 7 supported by the holder 8, the holder 8 being slightly spaced from the evaporation chamber cover 5, and provided with a cold air outlet 9. . Further, the cold air discharge port 9 is provided with a fan 10 for discharging the air cooled by the evaporator 7, that is, the cold air.

The above-mentioned cold air discharge port 9 has a cold air window 11 formed in the cover 5 through the gap between the evaporation chamber cover 5 and the evaporator holder 8 and the grill-type cold air window of the duct 12 connected below. It is connected to (13) and leads to the refrigerating chamber (3).

In addition, the duct 12 rotates the cold air in the left and right directions in each floor as shown by the arrow shown in the figure by rotating the rotating blades not shown in the inside to circulate the cold air in the entire space of the refrigerating chamber (3).

On the other hand, the evaporator 7 is connected to a compressor 14 mounted on the outside of the refrigerator body 1 to form a refrigerant circuit. When the compressor 14 is operated, the evaporator 7 is cooled to air in the evaporation chamber 6. Is cooled.

At this time, by operating the fan 10, the cooled air, that is, cold air is discharged from the cold air outlet 9 is supplied to the refrigerating chamber (2) through the cold windows (11, 13), the air heated in the refrigerating chamber (2) It is lifted up and sucked into the suction port 15 formed in the evaporation chamber cover 5, which flows directly into the evaporator holder 8 inside.

Therefore, the air introduced into the evaporation chamber 6 is cooled by the evaporator 7 and then discharged to the refrigerating chamber 3 again by the fan 10. Although not illustrated in the drawings, the freezer compartment of the refrigerator also has a cold air circulation system similar to a refrigerator compartment.

In addition, recently widely used refrigerators are automatically operated by an electronic control method that automatically controls refrigerator loads such as the compressor 14 and the fan 10 by using a microcomputer and a temperature sensor.

That is, the microcomputer detects the change in the internal temperature from the temperature sensor, and when the detected temperature rises above the range set by the user, operates the compressor 14 and the fan 10, and the internal temperature is below the set range. When lowered, the operation of the compressor 14 and the fan 10 is stopped.

In addition, by controlling the amount of cold air discharged into the refrigerator by opening and closing the cold air window 13 according to the temperature change in the refrigerator, the temperature in the refrigerator is controlled to a setting range.

However, in the conventional refrigerator control method, when the compressor and the fan are operated, the aforementioned cold air window is completely opened to discharge the cold air intensively in a space of a certain distance, so that the front and rear sides of the refrigerating chamber have different temperature values. The distribution is uneven.

Therefore, when the temperature is detected at a position where the temperature is high in the internal space of the refrigerating chamber, there is a problem in that food near the cold air window having a lower temperature is frozen by continuously discharging cold air in order to lower the internal temperature to a predetermined range.

An object of the present invention for solving the above problems is to quickly circulate the cold air discharged into the refrigerating chamber to be evenly transmitted to the entire space of the refrigerator compartment to remove the partial temperature difference to prevent the freezing of food in the vicinity of the cold window To provide a cold air discharge control method of.

1 is a partial ablation perspective view illustrating a cold air circulation system of a typical refrigerator;

2 is a control block diagram for explaining a cold air discharge control method of a refrigerator according to the present invention;

3a and 3b is a schematic cross-sectional view showing an opening and closing operation state of the cold air window according to the present invention,

4 is an operation flowchart showing a cold air discharge control method of the refrigerator according to the present invention.

Explanation of symbols on the main parts of the drawings

1: refrigerator body 3: refrigerating chamber

7: evaporator 10: fan

11,13: cold window 14: compressor

16: shutter member 17: motor

100: first temperature sensor 110: second temperature sensor

120: microcomputer 130: shutter drive unit

140: compressor drive unit 150: refrigerator compartment fan drive unit

A feature of the present invention for achieving the above object, is provided with a plurality of temperature sensors for sensing the temperature of the refrigerating chamber, and controls to supply or block the cold air discharged to the refrigerating chamber through the shutter drive unit to adjust the temperature of the refrigerating chamber The method may include detecting a temperature value of a refrigerating compartment through the plurality of temperature sensors, and opening / closing the cold air window when the difference between the plurality of temperature sensor values detected in the detecting of the temperature value is greater than or equal to a predetermined temperature. Circulating the cold air in the refrigerator repeatedly, and opening the cold air window entirely when the difference between the plurality of temperature sensor values detected in the detecting of the temperature value is not greater than a predetermined temperature.

Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of the refrigerator air discharge control method according to the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings, the same components as in the prior art will be described with the same reference numerals.

FIG. 2 is a control block diagram illustrating a method for controlling cold air discharge of a refrigerator according to the present invention. As shown in FIG. 2, the control circuit includes a conventional microcomputer 120, first and second temperature sensors 100 and 110. ), A compressor driver 140, a refrigerator compartment fan driver 25, and a shutter driver 27.

Here, the microcomputer 120 controls the operation of the compressor 14 and the fan 10 described above through the compressor driver 140 and the refrigerator compartment fan driver 150. In addition, by detecting the temperature of the interior (refrigeration chamber) from the first and second temperature sensor (100, 110) and calculates the difference, and by controlling the operation of the shutter drive unit 130 when the temperature difference is more than a predetermined temperature It is configured to control the temperature in the refrigerator by supplying or blocking the cold air discharged into the.

Figure 3a and 3b is a schematic cross-sectional view showing the open and closed state of the cold window according to the present invention.

The shutter member 16 is installed inside the cold window 13 to move up and down, and the shutter member 16 is provided with a ventilation hole 16a corresponding to the window hole 13a and the grate 13b of the cold window 13. ) And a blocking portion 16b.

In addition, a motor 17 and a power converter 18 are installed as the driving means of the shutter member 16, and the power converter 18 converts the rotational motion of the motor 17 into a linear motion of the shutter member 16 and transmits it. This is a common one that can simply be configured as a mechanical element such as a gear or cam.

That is, when the motor 17 is driven, the shutter member 16 connected to the power converter 18 is lifted up, and when the shutter member 16 is raised as shown in FIG. 3A, the vent hole 16a of the cold air window 13 A large amount of cold air is discharged to the far space in front of the inside by coinciding with the front of the window hole 13a, and when lowered as shown in FIG. 3B, the blocking part 16b closes a part of the window hole 13b so that the cold air window ( Discharged in the vicinity of 13).

In addition, when the shutter member 16 is lowered more than that shown in FIG. 3B, the blocking part 16b closes the window hole 13b so that cold air does not pass.

On the other hand, in the present invention, the magnet for sensing the movement position of the shutter member 16 for the control of the motor 17 to cause the shutter member 16 to stop at the position to open and close the cold air window 13 (19) and reed switch (20) are installed.

Here, the reed switch 20 detects a signal indicating the opening / closing position of the shutter member 16 by having a magnet 19 moving together with the shutter member 16 and a contact opening and closing according to its position.

Therefore, the motor 17 can be controlled appropriately by recognizing the position of the shutter member 16 based on the signal of the reed switch 20. The signal detecting means may be of a different type from the magnet 19 and the reed switch 20, and may be deleted if a control motor is used.

In addition, Figure 4 is an operation flowchart showing a cold air discharge control method of the refrigerator according to the present invention.

The control method of the present invention configured as described above will be described in more detail with reference to FIG. 4 as follows.

First, as shown in FIG. 4, the microcomputer 120 determines whether normal operation is performed by turning on the compressor and the refrigerating fan of the refrigerator, and closes the cold air window 13 when the compressor and the refrigerating fan are not on. By blocking the cold air discharged into the refrigerator (S1 to S2).

On the other hand, when the compressor and the refrigerator compartment fan is in an on state, a step of detecting temperature values of the refrigerator compartment through a plurality of temperature sensors is performed (S3).

Therefore, the first temperature sensor 100 and the second temperature sensor 110 provided at different positions in the refrigerating chamber detect the temperature values in the refrigerator at the respective positions, and the microcomputer 120 determines the respective temperature values. By calculating the difference, it is determined whether the difference between the temperature values is a predetermined temperature, for example, 2 ° C. or more (S4).

Here, when the difference between the detected temperature values in step S3 of detecting the above-mentioned temperature value is 2 ° C. or more, the opening / closing operation of the cold air window 13 is repeated a predetermined number of times, for example, about 10 times and at the same time, the cold air window 13 The rotary vane (not shown) is rotated to circulate the cold air in the refrigerator in front, rear, left and right (S5 to S6).

In more detail, the microcomputer 120 illustrated in FIG. 2 drives the motor 17 illustrated in FIGS. 3A and 3B through the shutter driver 130.

Accordingly, when the motor 17 is driven, the shutter member 16 repeatedly performs the states of FIGS. 3A and 3B, so that the cool air discharged from the cold air window 13 is the front of the refrigerating chamber 3, that is, the cold air window ( It is evenly discharged to the space far from 13 and behind the refrigerating chamber 3, that is, the space close to the cold air window 13, and the cold air in the inside of the refrigerator is rapidly circulated. Therefore, the temperature difference in the refrigerating chamber 3 is reduced through such an action.

On the other hand, if the difference in temperature values detected in the above-described step (S3) is not more than 2 ℃, it is determined that there is no temperature difference of the refrigerating chamber (3), the cold air window 13 shown in Figure 3b As described above, the front surface is opened to perform a normal cooling operation. (S7 to S8)

At this time, since there is no local temperature difference in the refrigerating chamber 3 as described above, it is preferable that the rotary blade (not shown) of the rear side of the cold air window 13 maintains a stationary state.

Thereafter, the microcomputer 120 determines again whether the compressor and the refrigerating fan of the refrigerator are on, and repeats the above-described steps when the compressor and the refrigerating fan are on.

On the other hand, when the compressor 14 and the refrigerating chamber fan 10 are not in the on state, the cold air window 13 is closed to block the cold air discharged into the refrigerator. At this time, when the cold air window 13 is lowered to the closed state, the shutter The magnet 19 provided in the member 16 comes close to the reed switch 20.

Accordingly, the microcomputer 120 of FIG. 2 recognizes that the cold air window 13 is closed based on the detection signal of the reed switch 20 from the shutter driver 130 and controls the motor 17 to stop driving. .

The present invention is not limited by the above described and illustrated in the drawings, and more modifications and variations are possible within the scope of the claims set out below.

As described above, the cold air discharge control method of the refrigerator according to the present invention allows the cold air discharged into the refrigerator to be rapidly circulated through the entire space in the refrigerator compartment when a partial temperature difference occurs in the refrigerator compartment, and to evenly distribute the temperature in the refrigerator compartment. It is effective to prevent freezing of nearby foods.

Claims (1)

In the method comprising a plurality of temperature sensors for sensing the temperature of the refrigerating compartment, and controlling to supply or block the cold air discharged to the refrigerating compartment through the shutter driver to adjust the temperature of the refrigerating compartment, Detecting a temperature value of a refrigerating compartment through the plurality of temperature sensors; Circulating cold air in the refrigerator by repeating the opening / closing operation of the cold air window a predetermined number of times when the difference between the plurality of temperature sensor values detected in the detecting of the temperature value is greater than or equal to a predetermined temperature; And And opening the front side of the cold air window when the difference between the plurality of temperature sensor values detected in the detecting of the temperature value is not higher than a predetermined temperature.

Images