Matsushita Electric Industrial Co., Ltd.

Panasonic Corporation

Masaharu Ebihara

Masatoshi Takahashi

Tsunehiko Todoroki

Daisuke Kawazoe

Katsumi Fukuda

Jun Akiyama

Narito Yamaguchi

Taii Tsuji

Tadahiko Hayakumo

Masaru Yonezawa

Hideaki Nakagawa

Takashi Sugio

Tsutomu Shimizu

Masahiro Bamba

Hiroyuki Daimon

An air conditioner with a direction changing device enabling safe handling of condensed water without causing reduction in direction changing capacity in a cooling-mode operation is provided. The air conditioner comprises a main body, air conditioning members provided in the main body for achieving a function of conditioning the air, an outlet grille located in a front side of the main body for directing air from inside the main body to outside the main body and a lateral flap placed in an opening of the outlet grille for changing the direction of air in the lateral direction. A part of the lateral flap is held by a mounting shaft. The lateral flap can be pivotally moved in the lateral direction about the mounting shaft. A convex portion is provided in a downwind end of the lateral flap. When the end portion of the lateral flap is moved either in the right or left direction, condensed water adhered to the lateral flap is gathered at the convex portion, then the condensed water gathered at the convex portion is transferred to a wall of the outlet grille, and flows out of a room through the main body of air conditioner.

Air conditioner

The disclosure is directed to an air flow direction control device for an air conditioner such as a room air conditioner, which includes a discharge direction changing blade for controlling air flow discharge direction, a shape memory alloy or SMA member for rotating the blade in one direction and a bias spring for urging the blade in the other direction, a lever arm urged to contact a shaft of the blade and a releasing mechanism for releasing the lever arm from its contact with the shaft. According to the present invention, the blasted air temperature detecting unit, motor for driving the blade, control unit for controlling and driving the motor, etc. conventionally required may be dispensed with for reduction in cost, and furthermore, it becomes possible to properly alter the air flow discharging direction according to the temperatures of the blasted air.

Discharge direction control device for air conditioner

Growing community of inventors

Shiga, Japan

Masaharu Ebihara