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US 12,611,084 B2Granted
Dish washer
AssigneeLG Electronics Inc.
InventorsMinhyuk Lee, Sung Hun Lee, Daegyu Kim
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A dish washer senses an amount of change in a level of a detergent via a floater that moves in a vertical direction based on the level of the detergent and a detergent level sensor that senses a location in the vertical direction of the floater, and effectively identifies a viscosity of the detergent stored in a detergent supply based on the amount of change in the level to simplify a structure, improve space utilization, and reduce a manufacturing cost by eliminating a separate electrode sensor or level sensor to identify the viscosity of the detergent.
Claims12
A dish washer comprising:
- a tub that defines a washing space therein;
- a detergent supply comprising (i) a container configured to store detergent to be provided to the washing space and (ii) a detergent pump configured to supply the detergent in the container to the washing space;
- and
- a controller configured to control the detergent pump,
- wherein the container comprises:
- a floater disposed inside the container and configured to move along a vertical direction based on a level of the detergent in the container, and
- a detergent level sensor configured to sense a vertical location of the floater in the vertical direction and to generate an output signal corresponding to the vertical location of the floater, and
- wherein the controller is configured to:
- determine an amount of change of the level of the detergent in the container based on the detergent level sensor sensing the level of the detergent during operation of the detergent pump, and
- determine a viscosity of the detergent based on the amount of change of the level of the detergent.
7 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.