TWI471512B - Water heater control method - Google Patents

Description

Water heater control method

The invention relates to a water heater, and more particularly to a method of controlling a water heater.

With the development of technology, water heaters have been widely used in various households, and with the advancement of thermal energy technology, water heaters are gradually designed to provide higher heat in the direction of heating, thereby providing hot water with a larger amount of water. It is also time consuming to reduce the heating of the water to the specified temperature.

Under normal circumstances, when the water heater supplies heat to heat the water, many factors cause heat loss and overflow, so that the heating efficiency can not reach 100%. As the heat supply increases, the heat loss and the overflow will also increase, which will further reduce the heating efficiency. Therefore, although the provision of large heat heating can achieve the purpose of providing a large amount of hot water, when the user only uses a lower amount of water, the conventional water heater is still heated with a larger amount of heat, although the time taken for heating is reduced, But it also caused a lot of unnecessary heat loss, and it violated the current design concept of energy saving and carbon reduction.

In view of this, the main object of the present invention is to provide a method for controlling a water heater, which can be switched according to usage requirements to select whether the water heater supplies a large amount of heat or a small amount of heat for heating.

In order to achieve the above object, the method for controlling the water heater provided by the present invention comprises the steps of: providing a first heating mode and a second heating mode for the user to select; when the user selects the first heating mode, The maximum amount of heat that can be supplied per unit time when a first heat is used for heating; and the maximum amount of heat that can be supplied per unit time when a second heat mode is selected by the user as heating. And the second heat is less than the first heat.

According to the above concept, when the user selects the first heating mode, the first water amount is used as the maximum amount of water that can be supplied per unit time when heating, and when the user selects the second heating mode, The second amount of water is the maximum amount of water that can be supplied per unit time when heated, and the second amount of water is less than the first amount of water.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention further provides a method for controlling another water heater, comprising the steps of: detecting the amount of water supplied to the water heater per unit time, and when the water supply amount is greater than a predetermined amount of water, Heating mode is performed; when the water supply amount is less than the predetermined water amount, heating is performed in a second heating mode; and in the first heating mode, the maximum amount of heat that can be supplied per unit time when the first heat is used as heating In the second heating mode, a second heat is used as the maximum heat that can be supplied per unit time when heated, and the second heat is less than the first heat.

According to the above concept, the method limits the maximum amount of heat supplied during heating by controlling the amount of gas supplied to the water heater.

According to the above concept, the method further limits the maximum amount of heat supplied during heating by controlling the amount of air supplied to the water heater.

Therefore, through the above design, the water heater is switched according to the use requirement to supply a large amount of heat or a small amount of heat for heating, thereby achieving the effect of selecting high heating efficiency or supplying hot water with a large amount of water.

In order that the present invention may be more clearly described, the preferred embodiments are illustrated in the accompanying drawings.

Referring to FIG. 1, a water heater 1 for implementing the control method of the first preferred embodiment of the present invention includes a heater 10, a gas proportional valve 12, a blower 14, a water amount control valve 16, a processor 18, and a The switch 20 is switched. Wherein: the heater 10 is disposed under a water pipe 100 for providing heat to heat the water in the water pipe 100.

The gas proportional valve 12 is disposed in a gas tube 102 and is located on the gas supply path, and has the effect of adjusting the amount of gas supplied to the heater 10 to control the heat output of the heater 10.

The blower 14 is disposed below the heater 10, and external air can be introduced into the heater 10 to mix with the gas to achieve combustion-supporting purposes.

The water quantity control valve 16 is disposed at the front end of the water pipe 100 for controlling each The amount of water supplied to the water pipe 100 per unit time.

The processor 18 is electrically connected to the gas proportional valve 12, the blower 14 and the water quantity control valve 16 for controlling the operation of the gas proportional valve 12 and the blower 14 and the water quantity control valve 16.

The switch 20 is electrically connected to the processor 18 for the user to switch to select different heating modes.

Therefore, referring to FIG. 2, the control method of the first preferred embodiment of the present invention includes the following steps: A. using the switch 20 to provide a switching option of a first heating mode and a second heating mode for the user to select. B. When the processor 18 detects that the switch 20 is in the first heating mode, controlling the gas volume and air amount supplied by the gas proportional valve 12 and the blower 14, and controlling the water volume control valve 16 to supply The amount of water; when the heater 10 is heated, a first heat is used as the maximum amount of heat that can be supplied per unit time, and a first amount of water is used as the maximum amount of water that can be supplied per unit time, and in this embodiment The unit time is seconds, and the first heat is 80,000 British thermal units (BTU), and the first amount of water is 14 liters.

When the processor 18 detects that the switch 20 is in the second heating mode, controlling to heat the heater 10, using a second heat as the maximum amount of heat that can be supplied per unit time, and a second The amount of water is the maximum amount of water that can be supplied per unit time, and in the present embodiment, the second amount of heat It is 60,000 British thermal units, and the second water volume is 10 liters.

Therefore, as can be seen from FIG. 3, when the user selects the first heating mode, although the heating efficiency is low, a larger amount of hot water can be supplied to the user. When the user selects the second heating mode, better heating efficiency can be obtained.

In this way, when more than one bathroom or hot water tap is used at the same time, the user can select the first heating mode, so that the water heater has the effect of supplying large amount of hot water. When the demand for hot water supply in the home is small, the user can select the second heating mode, and the design of high heating efficiency must be adopted to achieve the purpose of energy saving and carbon reduction.

Referring to FIG. 4, the water heater 2 for implementing the control method of the second preferred embodiment of the present invention includes a heater 30, a gas proportional valve 32, a blower 34, a water amount detector 36, and a processor 38. The difference from the above is that the switch is not used, and the position of the original water control valve is replaced by the water amount detector 36 connected to the processor 38. The water volume detector 36 is configured to detect the amount of water supplied to a water pipe 104 to know the demand of the user's water volume. In other words, when the user needs to use a larger amount of water, the amount of water supplied to the water pipe 104 increases. And vice versa.

Therefore, referring to FIG. 5, the control method of the second preferred embodiment of the present invention includes the following steps:

A. Using the water quantity detector 36 to detect the amount of water supplied to the water pipe 104 per unit time, when the water supply amount is greater than a predetermined water quantity, the processor controls The gas proportional valve 32 and the blower 34 are configured to heat the heater 30 in a first heating mode; when the water supply amount is less than the predetermined amount of water, controlling to heat the heater 30 in a second heating mode; In this embodiment, the predetermined amount of water is 12 liters.

B. In the first heating mode, when the heater 30 is heated, a first heat is used as the maximum amount of heat that can be supplied per unit time; in the embodiment, the first heat is also 80,000 inches of heat. The unit is an example.

In the second heating mode, when the heater is heated by 30, a second heat is used as the maximum heat that can be supplied per unit time; in this embodiment, the second heat is also 60,000 British thermal units. For example.

Therefore, when more than one bathroom or hot water tap of the user is used at the same time, the processor 38 can detect that the supplied water exceeds the predetermined amount of water through the water amount detector 36, and switch to the first heating mode to provide a large amount of water. The hot water; when the domestic hot water supply demand is small, the processor 38 detects that the supplied water quantity is lower than the predetermined water quantity through the water quantity detector 36, and automatically switches to the second heating mode to achieve high heating. The purpose of efficiency. In this way, by automatically detecting the amount of water, the heating mode can be switched more quickly and conveniently.

In addition, the above description is only a preferred embodiment of the present invention. In addition to being applied to a powerful type of water heater having a blower, the controllable heat can be adjusted by controlling only the gas proportional valve, and is applicable to general natural convection. Variations in the equivalent method of the present invention and the scope of the patent application are intended to be included in the scope of the present invention.

1‧‧‧Water heater

10‧‧‧heater

12‧‧ ‧ gas proportional valve

14‧‧‧Blowers

16‧‧‧Water volume control valve

18‧‧‧ processor

20‧‧‧Toggle switch

100‧‧‧Water pipes

102‧‧‧ Gas tube

2‧‧‧Water heater

30‧‧‧heater

32‧‧ ‧ gas proportional valve

34‧‧‧Blowers

36‧‧‧Water Volume Detector

38‧‧‧ Processor

104‧‧‧Water pipes

1 is a water heater embodying a first preferred embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 2 is a flow chart of a first preferred embodiment of the present invention; FIG. 3 is a graph showing a relationship between heat supply and heating efficiency; The water heater of the second preferred embodiment; FIG. 5 is a flow chart of the first preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Claims (3)

A method for controlling a water heater includes the steps of: providing a first heating mode and a second heating mode for a user to select; when the user selects the first heating mode, when a first heat is used as heating, The maximum amount of heat that can be supplied per unit time; when the user selects the second heating mode, the second heat is used as the maximum amount of heat that can be supplied per unit time, and the second amount of heat is less than the first a heat; wherein, when the user selects the first heating mode, a first amount of water is used as the maximum amount of water that can be supplied per unit time; and when the user selects the second heating mode, A second amount of water is the maximum amount of water that can be supplied per unit time when heated, and the second amount of water is less than the first amount of water. The method for controlling the water heater according to claim 1 is to limit the maximum amount of heat supplied during heating by controlling the amount of gas supplied to the water heater. The method for controlling the water heater according to claim 2, and at the same time, limits the maximum amount of heat supplied during heating by controlling the amount of air supplied to the water heater.