Line type luminous device and induction heating cooker employing same
AssigneeMatsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.
InventorsTetsuya Kaji, Katsuyuki Aihara, Yoshio Kinoshita
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Abstract
A luminous device includes one or more line-shaped luminous units each including an elongated light guide, one or more light sources, and a reflective layer. The light guide has a generally flat luminous surface for emitting light and another surface disposed away from the luminous surface. The light source serves to provide light into the light guide. The reflective layer is disposed on the above-mentioned another surface of the light guide. The light guide may have a ring shape. Since the luminous device produces a continuous line-shaped luminous image, e.g., a ring-shaped luminous image, it may be used for clearly indicating a heating range of an induction heating cooker.
Claims16
An induction heating cooker incorporating therein a luminous device, the luminous device comprising one or more line-shaped luminous units, each luminous unit including:
- an elongated light guide having a generally flat luminous surface for emitting light and another surface disposed opposite to the luminous surface;
- one or more light sources for providing light into the light guide;
- and
- a reflective layer disposed on said another surface of the light guide,
- wherein the induction heating cooker comprises:
- a light transmitting top plate disposed on a case;
- a heating region disposed on the top plate;
- and
- an induction heating coil disposed under the top plate corresponding to the position of the heating region,
- wherein the light guide is of a ring shape,
- wherein each luminous unit includes two light sources, and light provided by the two light sources propagate in the light guide along two opposite directions,
- wherein each of the light sources is disposed inside an inner circumference of the light guide or outside an outer circumference thereof,
- wherein the luminous device is arranged under the top plate along an outer circumference of the induction heating coil and the luminous device emits light toward the top plate along the whole part or portions of the outer circumference.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.