WO2005057302A2

WO2005057302A2 - Household appliance and method for determining a cause of failure on this appliance

Info

Publication number: WO2005057302A2
Application number: PCT/EP2004/053307
Authority: WO
Inventors: Athanasios Athanasiou
Original assignee: BSH Bosch und Siemens Hausgeräte GmbH
Priority date: 2003-12-15
Filing date: 2004-12-07
Publication date: 2005-06-23
Also published as: DE10358732A1; WO2005057302A3; CN1894549A; CN1894549B; EP1697688A2; US20070157643A1

Abstract

A household appliance comprises at least one sensor (5, 6, 8) for detecting an operating parameter of the household appliance, a memory (9) for periodically recording the value of the operating parameter detected by the sensor (5, 6, 8), and comprises an interface (10, 13) for reading out the contents of the memory. In the event of a failure, the memory (9) is read out in order to deduce a possible cause of failure from the stored parameter values.

Description

Description household appliance and method for determining the cause of a fault in such a device

The present invention relates to a household appliance and a method for determining the cause of a malfunction in such a device.

[002] The more technically complex a household appliance is, the more diverse are the malfunctions that can occur on such a device, and consequently also the causes that can be the basis of a malfunction. This is particularly noticeable for devices in the upper price range for both the user and the manufacturer. Compared to devices in the lower and medium price ranges, such devices are necessarily characterized by additional functions, which are often the result of comparatively recent technical developments which have not yet reached the same level of sophistication and reliability as functions which have been standard equipment of such devices for many years belong. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that even the customer service personnel, who may be responsible for repairing malfunctions of such devices, cannot be as familiar with new developments as with old technology, so that there is a risk of misdiagnosis and consequently unsuccessful Repair attempt is comparatively high.

Even in household appliances that use a long time-tested and mature technology, sporadic malfunctions can sometimes occur, which are particularly frustrating for the user, since a targeted diagnosis of such an error, which can be avoided by the customer service staff, is hardly possible and to remedy it, it is often only with good luck that components can be replaced that are suspected to be the cause of the fault, but without you then being sure that the fault has actually been corrected.

It is known to use a so-called diagnostic case for fault diagnosis on a household appliance, a device that is connected to a prepared interface of the household appliance and repeatedly reads measured values detected by various sensors of the household appliance, which are expected to be allow conclusions to be drawn as to the cause of a fault. Such a device must be installed by customer service. Naturally, this only happens if a fault has already occurred. If the fault is sporadic and does not repeat itself as long as a customer service representative is on site with the diagnostic case, its use is to no avail, and a repair can only be carried out as suspected, as indicated above.

The object of the invention is to provide a household appliance and a method for determining a cause of a fault in a household appliance, which enable an exact diagnosis and, consequently, a targeted, successful repair even in the case of sporadic errors or new functions, with their possible causes of the fault individual service technicians are not yet familiar with the details.

The object is achieved on the one hand by a household appliance with at least one sensor for detecting at least one operating parameter of the household appliance, a memory permanently connected to the sensor for periodically recording the value of the operating parameter detected by the sensor and an interface for reading out the content of the memory.

The memory allows the function of the device to be continuously monitored over a period of time that is in principle arbitrarily long, depending on the capacity of the memory, so that extensive data are available for the determination of the cause of a fault, which extend over a substantially longer period of time may be the one that a service technician can reasonably be found on site to observe the device. Of course, one will preferably not only record a single parameter, but rather a plurality of interrelated parameters, so that a cause of the fault can be concluded not only from the recorded values of the operating parameters, but also from a control deviation of the relationships between the operating parameters.

[008] The interface for reading out the content of the memory is preferably an interface to a data network, in particular to a telephone network. With the help of such an interface, it is possible to transfer the recorded data from the location of the device to a remote service center, where the evaluation can be carried out. Such an evaluation, the z. B. can be carried out by a computer-based expert system or by experienced technicians, allows a possible limitation of the possible causes of faults before the visit of a customer service representative at the location of the device, so that the employee can estimate in advance which spare parts may be required, and can take it with them so that the repair can probably be successfully completed with a single visit. In addition, such a preliminary analysis makes the work of the customer service representative on site more effective, since he systematically identifies the errors that have already been can check causes of causes. Since the customer service representative does not have to investigate possible causes of errors himself, a comparatively low level of experience is sufficient, which is particularly advantageous when repairing devices with new functions that have not yet reached a large market.

Of course, the interface could also be used to connect a diagnostic case to it, in which case the diagnostic case would have to be designed not only to read out the measured values continuously recorded by the at least one sensor, but also the content of the memory.

The interface to the data network should preferably be cordless in order to enable convenient use. This interface can e.g. are a terminal of a mobile radio network, or an infrared interface or a short-range radio interface, for example according to the Bluetooth standard, which communicates with a counter interface connected to a long-range data network for transmission to the service center.

The method according to the invention comprises the steps of periodically recording at least one operating parameter of the household appliance and recording the recorded value in a memory, reading out the memory in the event of a fault and concluding the cause of the fault from the parameter values read out.

If the amount of data of the values to be recorded is small, a memory could in principle be used, the capacity of which is sufficient for the amount of data accumulating during the expected service life of the device. However, the recorded parameter values should preferably be automatically deleted after a predetermined time in order to have storage space available for the most recent parameter values. It may be expedient to carry out this deletion in several steps, in that the recorded parameter values are initially only decimated after a first predetermined storage time and are only finally deleted at a later point in time. If desired, the decimation can be carried out in several steps.

Further features and advantages of the invention will become apparent from the following description of an embodiment with reference to the accompanying figure.

1 shows a schematic illustration of a refrigeration device as a first embodiment of the present invention.

The invention is explained below specifically in relation to a refrigeration device, but it goes without saying that it can also be used with one without significant modifications any other household appliance such as a washing machine or a dishwasher is applicable.

1 is a highly schematic illustration of a refrigeration device with a freezer compartment 1 and a normal refrigeration compartment 2 and, representing various possible functional groups of the refrigeration device that can be monitored, a compressor 3. A control electronics 4 controls the operation of the compressor 3 in a conventional manner of temperature measurement values recorded with the aid of temperature sensors 5, 6 in the freezer compartment 1 or the normal refrigerator compartment 2. A monitoring and diagnostic electronics 7 and the control electronics 4 are arranged here on two different circuit boards. This separation has the advantage that the operation of the refrigeration device can be controlled by conventional control electronics 4, not according to the invention, so that a uniform model of monitoring and diagnostic electronics 7 can be used for a large number of different types of refrigeration devices.

The monitoring and diagnostic electronics 7 are equipped with the same sensors for recording operating parameters as the control electronics 4, here with the temperature sensors 5, 6, and optionally with additional sensors, e.g. a temperature sensor 8, which is arranged on the compressor 3 for monitoring its temperature. If the control electronics 4 is implemented as a microcontroller system with a microcontroller and a working memory connected to the microcontroller via a bus, then the monitoring and diagnostic electronics 7 can also be connected to this bus in order to have values of read variables, logic flags or other operating parameters of the refrigeration device used by the control electronics 4 and in this way obtain data which enable a check of the correct functioning of the control electronics 4.

An EEPROM 9 is connected to the monitoring and diagnostic electronics 7, in which the monitoring and diagnostic electronics 7 enters the data recorded at regular time intervals. The storage capacity of the EEPROM 9 is, depending on the frequency with which the data is recorded, and its scope so dimensioned that data recorded in a period of one to several days can be recorded therein. If the parameter values are recorded every two minutes, for example, with suitable data compression, an EEPROM 9 of 512 Kbytes is sufficient to record all diagnostics-relevant operating parameters of a refrigerator over a period of 30 days. er-.

[019] The EEPROM 9 can be constructed from a plurality of memory components attached to a common printed circuit board. In this case, the same printed circuit board can be used with a plurality of receiving spaces prepared for the memory modules for a large number of different models of household appliances; Depending on the number of parameters to be recorded on different models of household appliances, their storage requirements and the desired temporal resolution or storage duration, a different number of these recording locations can be equipped with memory modules on the finished device.

Instead of an EEPROM, a battery-buffered RAM can also be used to store the parameter values.

Data that are older than 30 days are no longer considered relevant for the fault diagnosis and are overwritten with new data page by page. If storage over longer periods of time is desired, it can also be provided that the monitoring electronics 7 first read old data from the EEPROM 9 after a predetermined storage time, decimate them by rejecting the data from n-1 measurement times and only that of the n -th time, by overwriting even older data.

[022] The monitoring electronics 7 can be equipped with a user interface which enables a user to specify certain areas of the content of the EEPROM 9 for certain monitoring periods which are to be excluded from decimation and deletion, for example because they document the occurrence of an intermittent error.

The monitoring electronics 7 is connected to a cordless interface, here an infrared interface 10, via which it can receive a query request from an external reader (not shown) and in response to this request, the content of the EEPROM 9 via the interface 10 to the Outputs reader. The reading device can be, for example, the laptop of a customer service representative equipped with a complementary interface, which visualizes the received data and thus makes it easier for the customer service representative to identify deviations from this data. The reading device can also be a user's computer, which is equipped on the one hand with an interface complementary to the IR interface 10 and on the other hand with an interface to a telephone network via which it transmits the data received from the monitoring electronics 7 to a remote service center. This data enables the service center Conclusion about the cause of the fault. However, instead of using the IR interface 10, the refrigerator can itself be directly equipped with an interface to a telephone network, to a local data network of the user or the like. In the context of the increasing networking of household appliances with one another or with the Internet, more and more devices will be equipped with such interfaces, so that the present invention can be implemented on such devices with minimal cost and at the same time a high degree of comfort.

Claims

Expectations

[001] Household appliance with at least one sensor (5, 6, 8) for detecting at least one operating parameter of the household appliance, a memory (9) permanently connected to the sensor (5, 6, 8) for periodic recording of the sensor (5, 6, 8) recorded value of the operating parameter and a first interface (10, 13) for reading out the content of the memory.

Domestic appliance according to claim 1, wherein the first interface (13) is an interface to a data network, in particular to a telephone network.

[003] Shark holding device according to claim 1 or 2, wherein the first interface (10) is cordless.

Household appliance according to one of the preceding claims, wherein the memory (9) in a housing of the shark holding device! is.

[005] Household appliance according to one of the preceding claims, characterized in that it is a refrigerator, a dishwasher or a washing machine.

Method for determining a cause of a fault on a Haisbalts device, comprising the steps of: periodically recording at least one operating parameter of the household appliance and recording the recorded value in a memory (9) at least during normal operation of the hashing device; Reading the memory (9) in the event of a fault; Infer the cause of the fault from the read parameter values.

Method according to Claim 6, in which the recorded parameter values are deleted after a predetermined storage time and the memory (9) which becomes free is overwritten.

Method according to claim 6, in which the signed parameter values are decimated after a first predetermined storage time and are deleted after a second predetermined storage time.

[009] Method according to one of claims 6 to 8, characterized in that the recorded parameter values for carrying out step c) are transmitted to a control center.