Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Hiroshi Ikeda

Masahiro Imai

Yosiyuki Makino

Yoshiyuki Makino

Fumihiro Imamura

Satoru Matsumoto

Koji Sakui

Yohji Watanabe

Kazunobu Nagai

Naoki Shibukawa

Osamu Higa

Nobuichi Nishimura

Tetsukazu Tanaka

Norio Sakai

Ryozo Udagawa

Takahiro Nishimura

Yoshiyuku Makino

A steam turbine includes two or more rotating blades and a diaphragm outer ring. Each of the rotating blades includes a tip cover, moisture-trapping grooves, a droplet ejection hole, and a drain guide groove. The tip cover is provided to a tip of each of the rotating blades and is connected in contact with another tip cover adjacent to the tip cover. The moisture-trapping grooves are formed in a longitudinal direction of each of the rotating blades. The droplet ejection hole is to connect an outside of the tip cover on a side of the diaphragm outer ring with an inside of the tip cover. The drain guide groove is to connect ends of the moisture-trapping grooves on the side of the tip cover with the droplet ejection hole. The diaphragm outer ring includes a drain pocket which faces the droplet ejection hole.

Steam turbine

A remote control system for a laundry appliance which includes a remote control device externally accessible via a communication network, the remote control device including a data base storing coping information used to cope with an abnormal condition occurring during operation of the laundry appliance, a laundry appliance control device connected via the communication network to the remote control device so as to transmit information about an abnormal condition via the communication network to the remote control device when the abnormal condition has occurred in the laundry appliance, and an analyzer for analyzing the coping information corresponding to the abnormal condition in the laundry appliance to infer a cause of the abnormal condition of the laundry appliance. When the analyzer analyzes a plurality of pieces of the analytic information, a higher priority is given to the analytic information corresponding to a cause of the abnormal condition with a larger number of times of occurrence.

Remote control of laundry appliance

A full-automatic washing machine includes an outer tub, a rotatable tub rotatably mounted in the outer tub, an agitator rotatably mounted in the rotatable tub, and a brushless motor for direct driving at least one of the rotatable tub and the agitator. The brushless motor including windings of a plurality of phases and a rotor. Also, the washing machine includes rotor position detecting elements to detect a rotational position of the rotor. The rotor position detecting element are less in number than the phases of the motor. An energizing signal forming element to generate a sinusoidal energizing signal for each of the phases based on the detected rotational position of the rotor. Last, a driving element to energize the windings of the phases based on the energizing signals.

Control device capable of supplying sinusoidal power to brushless motor

A full-automatic washing machine with an electric motor for driving an agitator and a dehydration tub includes an inverter main circuit including a plurality of switching elements connected to windings of a plurality of phases of the motor respectively, and a control device for driving the switching elements of the inverter main circuit. The control device executes an increase rate changing control in which a rotational speed of the motor is changed among a plurality of increase rates during drive of the motor in at least one of operation steps between a wash step and a final dehydration step before the motor reaches a final target speed.

Motor speed control for washing machine

A clothes dryer includes a drum for accommodating clothes to be dried, a heater and a fan for supplying hot air into the drum in a drying operation, and a temperature sensor sensing the temperature in the drum. A drying operation includes a drying step in which hot air is supplied into the drum and a cooling step in which the heater is deenergized. An intermittent operation is initiated upon completion of the drying operation. The intermittent operation is completed when the temperature sensed by the temperature sensor has reached a predetermined value set for preventing occurrence of creases in the clothes.

Clothes dryer automatically determining a period of crease-preventing,

An operation control device for a washing machine incorporating electrical equipment such as a motor and electromagnetic valves includes a sub microcomputer for controlling the electrical equipment incorporated in the washing machine and a host microcomputer supplying control commands to the sub microcomputer to control the same. The host microcomputer determines whether or not a control sequence of the washing machine has reached a stage where the incorporated electrical equipment are to be controlled by the sub microcomputer and then, supplies a reset signal to the sub microcomputer to reset the same when a result of the determination signifies a negative.

Operation control device for washing machines

A clothes washing machine includes an agitator driven for agitating clothes to be washed, a dc brushless motor for driving the agitator and a microcomputer-based control device. A voltage applied to the motor can be varied in accordance with a voltage value command delivered from the control device. The number of revolution of the motor is detected and compared with a reference number of revolution for determination of whether the motor is locked or not. When the control device sequentially detects at a predetermined number of times that the number of revolution of the motor is equal to or below the reference number of revolution or below, it is determined that the motor is locked.

Clothes washing machine

A dehydrator includes a dehydration basket for containing clothes to be dehydrated, a variable speed motor such as a dc brushless motor for driving the dehydration basket so that the basket is rotated for dehydrating the clothes, and a microcomputer-based control device controlling rotational speed of the motor so that the rotational speed of the motor is increased stepwise when a dehydration operation is initiated.

Dehydrator

A semiconductor integrated circuit device including a power supply voltage converter and internal circuits. The converter converts an external power supply voltage to an internal power supply voltage of a predetermined value. The internal circuits are driven by the internal power supply voltage. The internal circuits include a clock generator. The converter comprises a reference voltage generator, an output circuit for lowering the external power supply voltage, thereby outputting the internal power supply voltage, and an error signal amplifier for comparing the internal power supply voltage with the reference voltage generated by the reference voltage generator and for controlling the conductance of the output circuit to make the compared voltages equal. The error signal amplifier includes a control signal generator for generating control signals in response to the clock pulses output by the clock generator, and a current control circuit for changing, in accordance with the control signals, the current supplied from an external power supply to the error signal amplifier.

Semiconductor integrated circuit device

A power supply system for supplying a load current to a load including a serially connected circuit of a controlled rectifier, a switch and a capacitor. A diode is connected in parallel with the capacitor or with a serially connected circuit of the switch and the capacitor and a control circuit. Which controls the controlled rectifier such that when a first voltage between the capacitor is larger than or equal to a specified voltage the controlled rectifier is operated as bypass pair mode and when the first voltage is below the specified voltage the controlled rectifier is operated as current control mode. A method for starting a power supply system is also disclosed.

Growing community of inventors

Seto, Japan

Hiroshi Ikeda