KR102717192B1 - Dryer and control method thereof - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a dryer including a processor that can control the drying conditions according to the type of the drying material by controlling the temperature according to the humidity conditions by turning on/off all or some of the heating units, and a control method thereof. By using the dryer of the present invention and the control method thereof, the humidity and temperature can be controlled according to the type of the drying material, and in particular, sterilization can be effectively performed while maintaining a specific humidity under medium-low temperature conditions, and unnecessary waste of power can be prevented by controlling the turning on/off of the plurality of heating units for temperature control.

Description

DRYER AND CONTROL METHOD THEREOF

The present invention relates to a dryer and a control method therefor.

In general, a dryer includes a cylindrical drum into which a drying object is placed, an air circulation device that circulates air in the drum, and a heater that heats the medium temperature, high humidity air discharged from the drum to make it high temperature, low humidity air. In order to effectively dry the drying object, the drum is formed to rotate continuously so that the high temperature, low humidity air can evenly contact the drying object.

A dryer can be classified into an exhaust type dryer that directly discharges humid air discharged from the drum to the outside after heat exchange with the drying object inside the drum, and a circulating (or condensing) type dryer that, instead of directly discharging humid air discharged from the drum to the outside, goes through a dehumidification and heating process and circulates it back into the drum. A condensing type dryer has a heat pump system composed of a compressor, a condenser, an expansion valve, and an evaporator, and is configured so that a refrigerant circulates between them. In the case of a condensing type dryer, humid air discharged from the drum undergoes heat exchange and dehumidification through contact with the evaporator of the heat pump system, is heated through the condenser, and is introduced back into the drum in a high-temperature, dry state. In the heat exchange process described above, condensate from the air forms on the surface of the evaporator. The condensate formed on the surface of the evaporator accumulates on the bottom surface of the base of the dryer and then moves to the pump room, and the drainage pump operates to discharge the condensate collected in the pump room to the outside based on a certain period or a certain water level.

In a dryer according to the prior art, the drying temperature is adjusted by turning the condenser in the heater or heat pump system on and off, and the temperature inside the drying room is determined by the operating time of the heater, etc. For example, the drying temperature is adjusted by turning the heater off when the temperature is above a certain set temperature and turning the heater on when the temperature is below a certain set temperature. However, there is a problem of power loss due to repeatedly turning the heater on and off.

In addition, when drying laundry that can be damaged by high temperatures, the heater operation time is set short to perform medium or low-temperature drying. In this case, damage to the laundry can be prevented, but there is a problem that sterilization cannot be achieved at a sufficient temperature. In other words, sterilization is possible through a drying process for a certain period of time under high temperature conditions (e.g., 65℃ or higher), but under medium temperature conditions (e.g., 50-60℃), the drying process needs to be performed under higher humidity conditions.

Korean Patent Publication No. 10-2007-0053047 (May 23, 2007) proposes an ultraviolet sterilizing dryer characterized by including an ultraviolet light source installed on a front supporter to irradiate ultraviolet rays to sterilize the inside of the drum, and a control means connected to the ultraviolet light source to control the generation of ultraviolet rays. However, in the case of ultraviolet sterilization, sterilization may not be performed in areas where ultraviolet rays are not irradiated, and there are problems of design complexity and increased price due to the adoption of a separate configuration for ultraviolet sterilization.

In addition, Korean Patent No. 10-2504577 (2023.02.23) provides a clothes dryer and a sterilization performing method thereof which can perform a sterilization process with different processes depending on the drying state of the object to be dried, and specifically, discloses sensing the drying state of the object to be dried through a sensor and controlling the rotation speed of the fan through a processor to reduce the wind volume. However, this document states that controlling the rotation speed of the fan is for the purpose of rapidly increasing the temperature inside the drum (see identification item [0133]), and unlike the present invention, it adopts a method in which the temperature is rapidly increased while the fan speed is lowered through the first to third strokes. That is, it does not disclose a configuration for performing a sterilization process while maintaining specific humidity conditions depending on the drying process.

Republic of Korea Publication Patent No. 10-2007-0053047 Republic of Korea Patent No. 10-2504577

The purpose of the present invention is to solve such problems, and the present invention provides a dryer including a drum in which a drying material is accommodated, a humidity sensor for sensing humidity inside the drum, a plurality of heating units for heating air supplied into the inside of the drum, a blower including a fan for forming a flow of air penetrating the inside of the drum, a temperature sensor for sensing the temperature inside the drum; and a processor for controlling the drum, the plurality of heating units and the blower unit to perform a drying process when a user input for selecting a specific course is received, and for controlling drying under a specific temperature in a specific humidity process by turning on/off all or part of the plurality of heating units according to a preset humidity section based on the humidity sensed by the humidity sensor after the drying process starts.

The present invention relates to a dryer including a processor that can control drying conditions according to the type of material to be dried by controlling the temperature according to humidity conditions by turning on/off all or some of the heating units, and a control method therefor.

By using the dryer of the present invention and its control method, humidity and temperature can be controlled according to the type of drying material, and in particular, sterilization can be effectively performed while maintaining a specific humidity under medium-low temperature conditions, and unnecessary waste of electricity can be prevented by controlling multiple heating units to turn them on/off for temperature control.

Figure 1 is a drawing showing the overall configuration of the dryer of the present invention.
Figure 2 is a drawing showing one form of a dryer control method of the present invention.
Figure 3 is a drawing showing one form of a dryer control method of the present invention.
Figure 4 is a drawing showing the external configuration of the dryer of the present invention.

In order to fully understand the present invention, its operational advantages, and the objects achieved by the practice of the present invention, reference should be made to the accompanying drawings and the contents described in the drawings illustrating preferred embodiments of the present invention.

It should be understood that the expressions “includes,” “consists of,” “has,” etc., which may be used hereinafter, do not exclude additional components or features.

The expressions “first…”, “second…”, “first”, “second”, etc., which may be used hereinafter, should not be construed as limiting the order or importance among the components, unless explicitly stated otherwise.

The '~ unit' that may be used hereinafter includes a unit realized by hardware, a unit realized by software, and a unit realized using both. In addition, one unit may be realized by using two or more pieces of hardware, and two or more units may be realized by one piece of hardware. Meanwhile, the '~ unit' is not limited to software or hardware, and the '~ unit' may be configured to be in an addressable storage medium or may be configured to reproduce one or more processors. Accordingly, as an example, the '~ unit' includes components such as software components, object-oriented software components, class components, and task components, and processes, functions, properties, procedures, subroutines, segments of program code, drivers, firmware, microcode, circuits, data, databases, data structures, tables, arrays, and variables. The functions provided in the components and '~ units' may be combined into a smaller number of components and '~ units' or further separated into additional components and '~ units'. Additionally, the components and '~parts' may be implemented to regenerate one or more CPUs within the device or secure multimedia card.

In the use of terms hereinafter, singular expressions should be understood as not excluding plural expressions unless explicitly stated otherwise.

Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail by describing a preferred embodiment of the present invention with reference to the attached drawings. The same reference numerals presented in each drawing represent the same components.

Hereinafter, the dryer of the present invention and its control method will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4.

According to one aspect of the present invention, the present invention provides a dryer including a drum in which a drying material is accommodated, a humidity sensor for sensing humidity inside the drum, a plurality of heating units for heating air supplied into the inside of the drum, a blower including a fan for forming a flow of air penetrating the inside of the drum, a temperature sensor for sensing temperature inside the drum, and a processor for controlling the drum, the plurality of heating units and the blower unit to perform a drying process when a user input for selecting a specific course is received, and for controlling drying under a specific temperature in a specific humidity process by turning on/off all or part of the plurality of heating units according to a preset humidity section based on the humidity sensed by the humidity sensor after the drying process starts.

A dryer according to one embodiment may include a housing forming an exterior. The housing may have a hexahedral shape and may include a base plate forming a bottom surface of the dryer, a front cover forming a front surface of the dryer, a top cover forming an upper surface of the dryer, and side covers forming side surfaces and a rear surface of the dryer. An opening may be formed in the center of the front cover for inserting or taking out an object to be dried into or from a drum. A drum is rotatably arranged inside the main body, and the drum is connected to the opening so that an object to be dried can be inserted into the inside through the opening. Specifically, the drum has a drying room (not shown) connected to the opening, and an object to be dried inserted into the drying room (not shown) through the opening can be dried by hot air introduced into the drying room. A hinge may be arranged on one side of the front panel adjacent to the opening, and a door may be connected to the hinge so as to open and close the opening by rotating relative to the hinge.

At least one humidity sensor can be installed in the drying space, and measures the humidity during drying and transmits it to the processor in real time. For example, the humidity sensor includes two electrodes provided inside the drum, and when the object to be dried is placed between the two electrodes, the humidity sensor senses the drying state of the object to be dried based on the magnitude of the current flowing between the two electrodes, and generates a value representing the drying state. However, this is only an example, and the humidity sensor can be implemented in a way that senses the humidity of the drum at various locations as a sensor of various forms.

The heating unit is provided in multiples, and specifically, six units may be provided, but is not limited thereto, and may be implemented as a gas or electric heater or a heat pump system. When implemented as a heat pump system, it may include a compressor that compresses a refrigerant, a condenser that heats air through heat exchange between air and the refrigerant, an evaporator that dehumidifies air through heat exchange between air and the refrigerant, and an expansion valve that expands the refrigerant.

A dryer according to one embodiment may include an air passage that guides air circulating inside and outside the drum and a blower fan that forms the air flow, and the term ‘blowing unit’ used in the present invention refers to a configuration that serves to guide air circulating inside and outside the drum, including the air passage and the blower fan.

A dryer according to one embodiment may include a filter for filtering foreign substances contained in air circulating inside and outside the drum. The filter may filter foreign substances such as dust or lint generated from an object to be dried during a drying process. The filter may be placed in a front duct of an air passage.

A temperature sensor is placed inside the drum to sense the temperature of the air inside the drum, generate a value representing the temperature of the air, and transmit this to the processor in real time. However, this is only an example, and the temperature sensor can sense the temperature of the drum at various locations.

The processor controls the overall operation of the dryer of the present invention. Specifically, the processor can control the rotation speed and rotation direction of the drum, the temperature of the air discharged from the drum (by turning all or part of the heating unit on/off), and the rotation speed and on/off of the blower fan. To this end, the processor can be connected to various components included in the dryer and transmit and receive various data and signals. In addition, the processor can generate and transmit a control command to control various components included in the dryer.

In this case, the processor may control hardware or software components connected to the processor, for example, by driving an operating system or an application program, and may perform various data processing and calculations. In addition, the processor may load commands or data received from at least one of the other components into a volatile memory and process them, and store various data in a non-volatile memory. To this end, the processor may be implemented as a dedicated processor (e.g., an embedded processor) for performing the corresponding operations, or a general-purpose processor (e.g., a CPU, a GPU, or an application processor) that may perform the corresponding operations by executing one or more software programs stored in a memory device. In particular, the processor may control drying to be performed at a specific temperature in a specific humidity range by turning on/off all or part of a plurality of heating units according to a preset humidity range based on the humidity sensed by the humidity sensor.

A processor that controls drying so that it is performed at a specific temperature in a specific humidity range can be implemented in a way that it controls drying so that it is performed at a relatively low temperature in a relatively low humidity range. This is because the lower the humidity, the faster the heat transfer speed, which may damage the object to be dried. Therefore, it is preferable to perform high-temperature drying by fully operating the heating unit in the initial process where the humidity is relatively high, and to perform drying in a state where the temperature is lowered by partially turning off the heating unit as the drying progresses. Specifically, high-temperature drying can be performed at 65°C to 75°C, medium-temperature drying at 50°C to 60°C, and low-temperature drying at 35°C to 45°C.

According to one embodiment, the dryer may be implemented such that, when a user input for selecting a course including sterilization drying is received, the processor stops the operation of the blower for a preset period of time for sterilization under preset specific temperature and humidity conditions. By stopping the operation of the blower in this way, the flow of air is blocked, so that sterilization can be performed under fixed humidity conditions. In this case, as one embodiment, for more effective blocking of air flow, an air flow blocking unit for blocking an air flow may be additionally provided, and may be controlled together by the processor.

In one embodiment of the dryer, the processor may be implemented such that the lower the temperature condition preset for sterilization, the longer the blower stop time. This is because the slower the temperature, the longer it takes for sterilization.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the present invention provides a method for controlling the operation of a dryer, including a high-temperature drying step of performing a high-temperature drying process for a preset specific period of time by turning on all of a drum, a blower, and a plurality of heating units, a sterilization step of performing a sterilization process while turning off the blower and blocking air circulation, and a low-temperature drying step of performing drying by turning off some of the plurality of heating units when the preset sterilization time has elapsed, lowering the drying temperature, and restarting the blower.

The preset sterilization time is provided as a database by weight/temperature/humidity of the dried material, and can be set as the sterilization time required for specific weight, temperature, and humidity conditions. At this time, the sterilization time can be set by matching the data measured by the humidity sensor and temperature sensor just before the start of the sterilization process, the sterilization time suitable for the weight condition measured by the weight of the dried material input by the user, or the weight measurement means provided separately, with the values of the database by weight/temperature/humidity.

According to another aspect of the present invention, the present invention provides a method for controlling the operation of a dryer, including a high-temperature drying step of performing a high-temperature drying process by turning on all of a drum, a blower, and a plurality of heating units, a medium-temperature drying step of performing a drying process by lowering a drying temperature by turning off some of the plurality of heating units when a humidity value measured from a humidity sensor reaches a specific humidity or lower, a sterilization step of performing a sterilization process while blocking air circulation by turning off the blower when a humidity value measured from a humidity sensor reaches a specific preset humidity value, and a low-temperature drying step of performing drying while lowering the drying temperature by additionally turning off some of the plurality of heating units and restarting the blower when a preset sterilization time has elapsed. Through this process, sterilization can be performed while maintaining a specific humidity, and thereafter, as the moisture content of the object to be dried decreases, the drying process can be performed at a lower temperature to minimize damage to the object to be dried. For example, in the case of down or waterproof clothing, there is a high risk of damage to the clothing during the drying process, so drying is not possible in general homes or self-service laundries. However, even in the case of such clothing, sterilization can be performed for the required amount of time at a high moisture content at the beginning of the drying cycle, and then drying at a medium or low temperature can be performed, thereby preventing damage to the clothing while sterilizing and drying under optimal conditions.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, the processor of the present invention can receive a selection of a drying mode through an input unit, select an optimized drying mode, and initiate a drying process. According to one embodiment of the present disclosure, the processor can obtain, for example, information to be used during the drying process from a database, such as operation control information of a driving motor and/or a heating unit, various time information for the drying process, sterilization time information and threshold information according to specific conditions, etc. According to one embodiment of the present invention, the present invention can additionally have a display unit, and the display unit can display the progress status of the drying process, the point that a specific drying process or sterilization is in progress, information on the determined weight category when a weight category is determined, information on the expected remaining time of the drying process, etc. In other words, the display can display the progress status of such processes, such as the corresponding drying mode, the elapsed drying time, information on the expected remaining time of the drying process, etc., while the main drying and sterilization processes are performed according to the selection of the optimized drying mode by the user.

Claims (8)

A dryer comprising: a drum in which a drying material is accommodated; a humidity sensor for sensing humidity inside the drum; a plurality of heating units for heating air supplied into the drum; a blower including a fan for forming a flow of air penetrating the inside of the drum; a temperature sensor for sensing the temperature inside the drum; and a processor for controlling the drum, the plurality of heating units, and the blower unit to perform a drying process when a user input for selecting a specific course is received, and for controlling drying under a specific temperature in a specific humidity range by turning on/off all or part of the plurality of heating units according to a preset humidity range based on the humidity sensed by the humidity sensor after the drying process starts; and an air flow blocking unit for blocking an air flow of the blower unit,
A processor for controlling drying so that drying is performed at a specific temperature in a specific humidity range controls drying so that drying at a relatively low temperature in a relatively low humidity range is performed, and when a user input for selecting a course including sterilization drying is received, the processor stops the operation of the blower for a preset time for sterilization under preset specific temperature and humidity conditions and blocks the air flow path of the blower through the air flow path blocking unit, and a dryer characterized in that the lower the preset temperature condition for sterilization, the longer the operation stop time of the blower.
In the first paragraph, the plurality of heating parts,
A dryer comprising a compressor for heating air supplied into the interior of the drum.
delete delete delete delete A method for controlling the operation of a dryer, comprising: a high-temperature drying step in which a drum, a blower, and a plurality of heating units are all turned on to perform a high-temperature drying process while maintaining a temperature of 65°C to 75°C for a preset specific period of time; a sterilization step in which the blower unit is turned off and the air flow path of the blower unit is blocked by an air flow blocking unit to perform a sterilization process; and a low-temperature drying step in which, when the preset sterilization time has elapsed, some of the plurality of heating units are turned off to lower the drying temperature to 35°C to 45°C and the blower unit is restarted to perform drying, wherein the sterilization step is characterized in that the operation stop time of the blower unit is longer as the preset temperature condition is lower.
A method for controlling the operation of a dryer, comprising: a high-temperature drying step in which a drum, a blower, and all of a plurality of heating units are turned on to perform a high-temperature drying process while maintaining a temperature of 65°C to 75°C; a medium-temperature drying step in which, when a humidity value measured from a humidity sensor reaches a specific humidity or lowers the drying temperature by turning off some of the plurality of heating units, and performs a drying process while maintaining a temperature of 50°C to 60°C; a sterilizing step in which, when a humidity value measured from a humidity sensor reaches a preset specific humidity value, the blower unit is turned off and an air flow path of the blower unit is blocked through an air flow blocking unit to perform a sterilization process; and a low-temperature drying step in which, when a preset sterilization time has elapsed, some of the plurality of heating units are additionally turned off, the blower unit is restarted to lower the drying temperature, and drying is performed while maintaining a temperature of 35°C to 45°C, wherein the sterilizing step comprises a longer operation stop time of the blower unit as the preset temperature condition decreases.