WO2007085408A1

WO2007085408A1 - Domestic clothes drier of the condensation type with improved hatch

Info

Publication number: WO2007085408A1
Application number: PCT/EP2007/000531
Authority: WO
Inventors: Ugo Favret; Flavio Noviello
Original assignee: Electrolux Home Products Corporation N.V.
Priority date: 2006-01-25
Filing date: 2007-01-23
Publication date: 2007-08-02
Also published as: ITPN20060003U1

Abstract

In order to provide a clothes drying machine with a hatch for access to the condenser, which has simple, reliable, safe and low-cost means which nsure that the hatch is hermetically closed and that this hermetic closure is maintained over time a domestic clothes drying machine especially comprising: an extractable container (1) able to contain the condensation water and be extracted from a respective housing (2) having a suitable opening (4) which can be closed by a respective hatch (5); - a seal (16) arranged between said hatch and internal parts of the machine; - a bolt (6) being arranged so that it can be selectively positioned in two conditions, said bolt having: - a first substantially flat surface (9) able to engage, when the bolt is extracted, with two substantially flat elements (10, 14) - a second substantially flat surface (12) which is inclined with respect to said first surface, wherein said first surface (9) of said bolt is inclined (i) also with respect to said two flat elements (10, 14).

Description

DOMESTIC CLOTHES DRIER OF THE CONDENSATION TYPE WITH IMPROVED HATCH

Description

The invention relates to an improved type of clothes drying machine, preferably of the domestic kind, able to perform drying cycles where the drying process is performed by means of a flow of hot air which is circulated inside the drum containing the laundry; according to the prior art, said hot air, after absorbing the moisture contained in the laundry, and said moisture is made to pass over a colder surface, i.e. a well-known condenser, so that said moisture is condensed, flowing into a suitable container arranged usually in the front zone of the machine .

Since said condenser requires maintenance and systematic cleaning in order to remove loose fibres, it is normally housed inside a suitable housing which may be accessed from the exterior via a hatch which can be opened by means of rotation; in some cases it is also possible to access said condensate container via said housing, whereas in other cases said container is arranged inside a respective drawer situated elsewhere in the machine.

Whatever the case, and with reference again to cleaning of the condenser, after opening said hatch and extracting and cleaning the condenser, the latter is inserted again into the associated housing which is finally closed again by closing the associated hatch.

These operations, although simple and easy, nevertheless have proved to have a weakness in that the hatch, since it has a closing system with a normal bolt, like that of an ordinary door, enters back inside its seat by means of simple pressure and, after a certain closing position of the hatch, returns into its rest position, i.e. extended position; therefore, even if the hatch is closed by pushing it in fully, after it is released it moves a short distance back outwards owing to the resilient reaction of the seal arranged between the perimetral edge of the hatch and the edge of its housing; since the condenser is situated precisely along the path for the flow of hot drying air, which obviously must be hermetically sealed, the result is that the slack movement of the hatch outwards, relative to the edge of the housing, causes it to lose the desired sealing effect, resulting in air escaping outside and in a consequent diminished overall drying performance .

In order to overcome this problem, various solutions have been devised; according to one of these solutions, a spring which automatically tends to close the hatch is provided; however, in order to be effective, this spring must be pre-tensioned and this means that the force setting needed to open the hatch and keep it open is fairly sensitive' and therefore makes operation thereof difficult, without mentioning the complications in terms of constructional design and the difficulties in providing this spring.

A second solution envisages that the seal is designed with large dimensions and is fairly soft so that the small forwards movement of the hatch can be easily compensated for without the formation of undesirable gaps through which the drying air freely escapes.

However, this solution also has the drawback that, after a certain period of time, the seal weakens and becomes stiff, also owing to the high temperature at which it is operating, with a reduction in its volume and elasticity; consequently, after a short period of time, gaps are again formed and allow the drying air to escape outside.

Consequently, this solution is also not reliable during normal use . It would therefore be desirable - and this forms the object of the present invention - to provide a clothes drying machine with a hatch for access to the condenser, which has simple, reliable, safe and low-cost means which ensure that the hatch is hermetically closed and that this hermetic closure is maintained over time .

This object is achieved with a particular kind of clothes drying machine of the condensation type provided with a hatch for the compartment housing the moisture condenser, which are described by way of a non-limiting example with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:

- Fig. 1 shows a perspective view of a front side of a clothes drying machine provided with a hatch for extracting the condensate container, according to the prior art;

- Fig. 2 shows a corresponding view along a horizontal flat cross-section of the hatch and the compartment in which this condenser is housed;

- Fig. 3 shows in symbolic form a view similar to that of Fig. 2 , but with the hatch provided with a bolt according to the invention;

- Fig. 4 shows an alternative and preferred form of a bolt according to the invention;

- Figs. 5 and 6 show respective variations of embodiment of the invention, in which the bolt is of the known type but the contact surface acted on by the latter after closing of the hatch is suitably modified.

With reference to Fig. 1, a clothes drying machine according to the invention comprises a rotating drum (not shown) which contains the laundry to be dried and which is passed through by a hot air flow; the moisture, which is produced with means which do not concern the present invention, is condensed by a suitable condenser 1 which is normally housed inside a suitable housing 2, the opening 4 of which is arranged on the bottom front wall 3 of the machine which can be closed by a suitable hatch 5.

The hatch can be operated in a known manner and comprises a bolt 6 which can be inserted inside a respective seat 7 from inside which a spring 8 operates so as to press and keep the bolt extracted.

The present description illustrates below a first embodiment in which the bolt is contained inside the hatch and engages in a suitable part of the front wall in which said opening 4 is formed; however, it is understood that the invention is perfectly interchangeable in the sense that the bolt, and obviously the associated seat 7 and spring 8, may be arranged on said front wall and therefore the bolt 6 acts on a corresponding portion of the hatch, as will become clear from the remainder of the description.

According to the prior art (see Fig. 2) the bolt is delimited externally by two surfaces, a first surface 9 of which is one which, when the hatch is in a stable closed position, comes into contact with a corresponding first flat element or portion 10 of the front wall, integral with the latter.

The second surface 12 of the bolt is inclined with respect to said first surface, from which it is separated by the common external edge 13.

A second flat element 14 delimits one side of said seat so that, when the hatch is closed and the bolt is extracted, the latter, sliding on said second flat element 14 which partly delimits its seat, extends towards said first element 10, engaging with it . Since said two flat elements 10 and 14 are also arranged in the same plane, when the bolt is extracted its first surface 9 is arranged partly alongside the first flat element 10 and remains partly alongside said second surface 14.

The bolt is thus prevented from being displaced outwards (i.e. in this case towards the user) and, in doing so, also prevents the release of the entire hatch.

A seal 16 is arranged between said hatch and the inner region of the machine and prevents the drying air from escaping outside through the gap at the edges of the hatch and in particular through the passage between said flat elements 10 and 14.

According to the invention, which is shown schematically in Fig. 3, the first surface 9 is also inclined with respect to said two flat elements 10 and 14 at an angle "i", but in the opposite direction to the inclination of the second surface 12.

Owing to this form the result is that the hatch closing mechanism, i.e. the way in which the bolt is pushed inside its seat and is released after closing, is the same.

However, after the bolt has returned into its extended position, its first surface 9 is inclined with respect to the first flat element 10; since, however, the bolt is pressed outwards, i.e. laterally, by the spring 8, the interference thus produced between said surface 9 and said first flat element 10 produces, as a result of a reaction effect which can be easily imagined and ascertained, a thrust which biases the hatch inwards, i.e. causes pressing of said seal 16 between its seats, thus preventing the loss of drying air externally. It is also evident that by means of suitable calibration both of the spring 8 and of the inclination "i" of said first surface 9 it is possible to achieve an optimum balance between these factors, i.e. a fairly limited reactive force of the spring, so as not to create an excessive resistance for closing of the door, but a high enough force to ensure that the door is effectively closed and remains in this condition.

As clarified further above, the description of the invention relates to an embodiment with the bolt within the hatch, but obviously the solution is completely reversible, as schematically shown in Fig. 4, in which the same reference numbers as in the previous figures are used to identify corresponding parts, it being considered that this does not create any doubt or ambiguity for the person skilled in the art .

Moreover it must also be clarified that Claims 1 and 2 have been defined in general form precisely in order to embrace said two possible interchangeable embodiments of the invention.

It has been found in fact that the preferred embodiment, in order to improve the constructional ease and simplicity, is that where the bolt and the associated devices are arranged not in the hatch, but in the front wall of the machine.

With reference to Fig. 5 a variation of embodiment of the invention is shown: in fact, if instead of mounting a bolt 6 having also said surface 9 inclined with respect to the two elements 10 and 14, a bolt of the traditional type is instead mounted, and the element 10 which forms the contact surface with which said bolt co-operates is instead inclined, as shown in Fig. 5, an entirely equivalent effect is obtained, whereby the hatch 5, after it has been closed, is drawn back inwards when the said hatch is in the closed position. Basically the two embodiments of Figures 3 and 5 are equivalent from a functional point of view, even though not in terms of their constructional forms.

Obviously, in this case also an interchangeable and preferred embodiment exists, as shown in Fig. 6, in which the bolt is shown incorporated in the machine structure, and its two surfaces 9 and 12 therefore move with respect to the structure of the latter; in this case the element 10 which forms the contact surface for the bolt is incorporated in the said hatch (the same numbering has been given to the functional part corresponding to that described above because it is considered that this will make understanding simpler and easier, rather than giving rise to ambiguity) .

Only for the purpose of better explaining operation of this latter embodiment and with reference still to Fig. 6, it is commented that the force pulling the hatch inwards is generated by the inwardly directed component ¹¹Fl" of the overall force "F" which said edge 13 of the bolt imparts to the hatch, obviously after the said hatch has passed beyond that position where the bolt starts to engage with the inclined surface 10 of the hatch 5.

Claims

1. Domestic clothes drying machine comprising:

- a rotating drum for containing and drying fabrics; - means able to cause circulation of a drying air flow through said drum;

- means able to cause condensation of the moisture contained in said drying air;

- an extractable container (1) able to contain the condensation water and be extracted from a respective housing (2) arranged close to the front wall (3) of the machine;

- said housing being accessible from said front wall through a suitable opening (4) which can be closed by a respective hatch (5) ;

- a seal (16) arranged between said hatch and internal parts of the machine,-

- a bolt (6) being arranged so that it can be selectively positioned in two conditions, by means of a substantially rectilinear movement, where in the first condition said bolt extends outside of the respective seat (7) and in the second condition it is inserted inside it, said bolt comprising resilient means (8) able to bias said bolt into said first condition where the bolt is extracted, said bolt having:

- a first substantially flat surface (9) able to engage, when the bolt is extracted, with two substantially flat elements (10, 14) which are respectively integral with the seat of said bolt and with that part of said machine with which it engages;

- a second substantially flat surface (12) which is inclined with respect to said first surface and with which it shares a common side (13) which forms the outer edge of the bolt, said bolt being able to be operated by the interference of said second surface (12) either with parts of said hatch or with parts of said front wall during closing of the hatch, characterized in that said first surface (9) of said bolt is inclined (i) also with respect to said two flat elements (10, 14) .

2. Machine according to Claim 1, characterized in that said inclination (i) of said first surface (9) is such that, when the hatch is closed and said bolt is extracted, it further biases said hatch into its fully closed position (towards the inside) by means of the pressure of said first surface against the surface of said two flat elements (10, 14) which is not integral with said seat (7) of the bolt .

3. Machine according to Claim 1 or 2, characterized in that said bolt, said seat (7) and said resilient means (8) are incorporated in and/or integral with said front wall .

4. Machine according to Claim 1 or 2 , characterized in that said flat element (14) integral with the part of said machine which engages with said bolt is inclined with respect to said flat element (10) integral with the seat (7) of said bolt.

5. Machine according to Claim 4, characterized in that said bolt, said seat (7) and said resilient means (8) are incorporated in and/or integral with said front wall .