Matsushita Electric Works, Ltd.

Panasonic Electric Works Co., Ltd.

Fuji Ceramics Corporation

Itaru Saida

Kengo Ito

Hisashi Kitamura

Akinobu Mizuta

Takashi Nakagawa

Kenji Kamada

Kiyoshi Takashima

Hiroyuki Takano

Masayuki Hayashi

Hideaki Abe

Motoharu Muto

Kozo Kawai

Shinji Nishimura

Mahito Nunomura

Shosuke Akisada

Hiromitu Inoue

Hidetoshi Nakasone

Koji Ito

Akihiro Tsujita

Seiji Nabeshima

Kazuhiro Iga

Hiromitsu Miyata

A hair iron can give hair a sufficient amount of negative ions. The hair iron has a grip, and a hair-care section connected to the grip, having a heater for generating heat to hair for hair dressing. Further, it has a negative ion generator which generates negative ions due to discharge around an electrode therein to emit them toward hair held by the hair-care section. The hair-care section has a bar-like shape, and the heater is fixed to an outer surface of the bar-like shape. Then, by winding hair to the hair care section in the hair iron, hair dressing can be performed efficiently.

Hair iron

A hair setting instrument is provided which can set hair easily by supplying charges through a separate path. In concrete, the hair setting instrument comprises a mechanism for setting hair of a user, and an electrostatic charger which supplies charges to a body of the user for electrostatic charges generated by a movement for setting the hair. The electrostatic charger has a charging circuit which generates a predetermined voltage, and a charging plate electrically connected to the charging circuit. Wide spreading of the hair, electrostatic cling to the face or the like, dry hair, and the damage to the hair due to charging can be prevented. Further, for example, the body of hair can be decreased by supplying negative charges when the hair is charged with positive electrostatic charges.

Hair setting device

A hair dryer is provided, which includes a housing having an air outlet, fan disposed in the housing, a pair of air flow channels extending toward the air outlet in the housing, a partition wall for separating the channels from each other, heater disposed in only one of the channels, and a minus-ion generator disposed in the other channel. The partition wall is formed by a tubular member, which is disposed in the housing such that one of the channels is provided by an inner space of the tubular member, and the other channel is provided by a clearance between an inner surface of the housing and an outer surface of the tubular member. Therefore, it is possible to simultaneously provide a cold air flow with minus ions and a hot air flow from the air outlet, and thereby efficiently perform hair styling.

Hair dryer with minus ion generator

An ion generating unit is made compact, yet avoids the undesired arc discharge for successfully generating the ions. The ion generating unit includes a dielectric base having a length and carrying a needle electrode and a ground electrode. The needle electrode has a pointed tip and is adapted to receive a high electric voltage relative to the ground electrode for electrically charging particles present in the surrounding air. The dielectric base being a polyhedron having multiple faces including a first face and a second face which are different from each other and have the length of the dielectric base. The needle electrode is mounted on or in a closely adjacent relation to the first face, and has its pointed tip directing forwardly along the length of the dielectric base with the pointed tip receded from the front end of the base. The ground electrode is mounted at the front end of the base in longitudinally spaced relation with the pointed tip. The ground electrode include anchor ends only by which the ground electrode is secured to the base. The anchor ends are fixed to the second face of the base, but not to the first face. Thus, the creepage distance between the electrodes extends over the first face and also the second face of the dielectric base, thereby being given an elongated distance relative to the air path between the electrodes for successfully generating the ions.

Ion generating unit

An ion generator includes a needle electrode and a ground electrode cooperable with the needle electrode to generate a corona discharge in the air to produce ions. The ground electrode is disposed so as to surround an imaginary extension of a longitudinal axis of the needle electrode and has a portion thereof depleted to provide a split region defined therein. A hairbrush utilizing the ion generator is also disclosed.

Ion generator and hairbrush using the same

An apparatus for applying ionized particles is disclosed. The apparatus includes an ionized particle emitter for emitting ionized particles against an object; and an electric potential maintainer for maintaining electric potential of the object at a predetermined level such that the ionized particles emitted against the object by the ionized particle emitter are continuously attracted to the object while the electric potential is maintained. A method for applying ionized particles is also disclosed. The method includes emitting ionized particles against an object, and maintaining electric potential of the object at a predetermined level such that the ionized particles are continuously attracted to the object.

Apparatus for applying ionized particles and method for applying ionized particles

An alternating-current electric power controlling apparatus including a switch and a controller. The switch is configured to be turned on or off to connect or disconnect an alternating-current electric power source and an electric load. The controller is configured to control the switch to turn on or off to adjust supply of electric power from the alternating-current electric power source to the electric load. The switch is configured to be turned on or off when an electric power amplitude is substantially equal to 0.

Alternating-current electric power controlling apparatus and method for controlling supply of alternating-current electric power to electric load

An ultrasonic wave applying apparatus which is safe and convenient for use. The apparatus includes an hand-held applicator having a vibration element which is, in use, contact with a skin of a user to apply ultrasonic waves to the skin, a power source providing a DC voltage, an oscillator circuit which is energized by the DC voltage from the power source to generate an oscillating output for driving the vibration element, and a load detecting circuit which monitors whether the vibration element is loaded such as by contact with the skin and provides a load detection signal when the vibration element is so loaded. In addition, a motion detecting circuit is provided to monitor whether the vibration element is moving and give a motion detection signal when the vibration element is so moving. A control circuit is connected to the load detecting circuit and the motion detecting circuit for controlling the driving circuit to reduce the oscillating output being fed to the ultrasonic vibration element when the load detection signal is not received within a predetermined first time period or when the motion detection signal is not continuous over a critical time duration within a predetermined second time period even in the presence of the load detection signal being detected within the first time period.

Ultrasonic wave applying apparatus

Growing community of inventors

Hikone, Japan

Itaru Saida