Laundry appliance with capacitive laundry drying degree sensing function
AssigneeElectrolux Appliances Aktiebolog
InventorsFabio Vitali, Vincenzo Romeo
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A method for measuring the humidity of a laundry mass contained in a laundry treatment chamber of a laundry appliance. The method includes: providing a capacitor in the laundry appliance, said capacitor having, as part of the capacitor dielectric, the laundry mass; measuring a capacitance of said capacitor by means of an electronic circuitry electrically supplied by a supply voltage and a reference voltage. Providing a capacitor comprises: providing in the laundry appliance at least one conductive plate which forms a plate of said capacitor, and exploiting, as a second plate of said capacitor, routing lines distributing inside the laundry drying appliance said reference voltage.
Claims13
A method for measuring an amount of water in a laundry mass contained in a laundry treatment chamber of a laundry appliance, the method comprising:
- providing a capacitor in the laundry appliance, said capacitor having, as part of the capacitor dielectric, the laundry mass;
- measuring a capacitance of said capacitor by means of an electronic circuitry electrically supplied by a supply voltage and a reference voltage,
- wherein providing a capacitor comprises:
- providing in the laundry appliance at least one conductive plate which forms a plate of said capacitor, and
- exploiting, as a second plate of said capacitor, routing lines distributing inside the laundry appliance said reference voltage.
A laundry appliance comprising a laundry treatment chamber and an arrangement for measuring an amount of water in a laundry mass contained in the laundry treatment chamber, said arrangement comprising a capacitor having, as part of the capacitor dielectric, the laundry mass, and a capacitance sensing arrangement for measuring a capacitance of said capacitor, characterized in that said capacitance sensing arrangement comprises an electronic circuitry electrically supplied by a supply voltage and a reference voltage, and wherein said capacitor comprises at least one conductive plate which forms a plate of said capacitor, and a second plate being formed by routing lines distributing inside the laundry drying appliance said reference voltage.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.