Progress indicator for a washing machine
AssigneeSharp Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorsKoji Kikuchi, Takatomo Matsumi, Kazutoshi Takimoto
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A progress indicator for a washing machine comprises display means having six light-emitting elements to indicate which stage of a washing or rinsing cycle the machine is in. The display means are controlled by signals outputted from detectors of turbidity and the amount of water in the tank. Although the operation is not temporally controlled, say, but a timer, this indicator can accurately display the progress of operation.
Claims9
In a washing machine which contains detectors for monitoring conditions therein during an operating cycle such as washing, rinsing and spinning and is adapted to determine the time to end said cycle on the basis of output signals indicative of said conditions from said detectors, a progress indicator comprising
- a display means for displaying progress of operation of said washing machine, and
- a display control means adapted to switch the display pattern of said display means in a step-wise manner directly in response to said output signals.
A washing machine comprising
- a tank containing water,
- detector means for measuring water conditions in said tank during an operation cycle of said washing machine such as washing, rinsing and spinning, inclusive of initial water conditions at an initial time during said operation cycle and outputting a signal indicative of said measured water conditions,
- a display means for displaying progress of operation of said washing machine in said operation cycle, and
- control means for calculating a termination time of said operation cycle on the basis of said signal indicative of said initial water conditions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.