Tankless electric water heater
AssigneeEnergy Saving Products of Tennesse, Inc.
InventorsHarry Eddas, David O. Hanon
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An instantaneous fluid heater having a fluid heating chamber including therein a plurality of electrical heating elements. The supply of electrical power to the respective ones of the electrical heating elements is controlled by a solid state switch which is gated by a zero crossing trigger device to supply power to the heating elements. Each of the trigger devices includes means for comparing a control potential and ramp signal potential coupled to them to selectively gate the solid state switches to energize the heatiing elements in response to the comparison of the potentials. In this fashion, all of the heating elements are not turned on at the same time, and undesirable light flickering and unacceptable disturbances in the line voltage is eliminated.
Claims6
An instantaneous fluid heater comprising:
- a fluid heating chamber having a fluid inlet and a discharge end, a discharge chamber coupled to said discharge end, said fluid inlet and said discharge chamber being positioned such that incoming fluid under pressure flows through said chamber from said fluid inlet to said discharge chamber;
- a plurality of electrical heating elements mounted within said chamber in a position for heating said fluids as it flows through said chamber;
- a plurality of solid state switches, each independently controlling the supply of electrical power to a separate one of said heating elements;
- a plurality of zero crossing trigger devices coupled respectively to a separate one of said solid state switches for gating said solid state switches to supply power to said heating elements;
- sensor means at the discharge end of said chamber for sensing the temperature of the fluid flowing out of said chamber and for providing a control potential corresponding to the degree of need for heating energy to each of the respective ones of said trigger devices;
- means for providing a ramp signal potential to each of the respective ones of said zero crossing trigger devices;
- means for superimposing a different, fixed potential to each of said ramp signal potentials whereby said ramp signal potentials provided to each of said respective ones of said zero crossing trigger devices are offset by a different, fixed potential;
- each of said zero crossing trigger devices including means for comparing said control potential and said ramp signal potential and causing said respective zero crossing trigger devices to selectively gate said solid state switches to energize said heating elements in response to the comparison of said potentials.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.