Panasonic Corporation

Masamichi Komada

Keiko Isoda

Hiroshi Tominaga

Fumitaka Ogasawara

Kuniaki Sakakibara

Koji Niiyama

Seiji Nakamura

Tadaaki Itou

An induction heating device according to the present invention includes an infrared ray sensor for detecting infrared rays radiated from a cooking container through a top plate, a light emitting device which is placed near the infrared ray sensor and emits light to the back surface of the top plate, and a heating control unit which controls a high-frequency current through a heating coil for controlling the heating of the cooking container. When the heating control unit has stopped the heating of the cooking container, and a predetermined time elapses at the heating-stopped state, the light emitting device is controlled to stop the light emission therefrom. This can improve durability of the light emitting device, which enables maintaining a function of clearly indicating a position at which the cooking container should be placed and a function of detecting failures in the infrared ray sensor, which are roles of the light emitting device.

Induction heating cooker including an infrared ray sensor and detecting whether there is a failure in the infrared ray sensor

There is provided an induction cooker capable of detecting failures in an infrared ray sensor with excellent accuracy. The induction cooker includes an infrared-ray detection unit () which includes an infrared-ray incidence section () to detect an infrared ray entering the infrared-ray incidence section, the infrared ray being radiated from a bottom surface of a pan, passing through a top plate, and entering the infrared-ray incidence section; a infrared-ray temperature calculation unit () operable to calculate a temperature of the bottom surface of the pan based on an output of the infrared-ray detection unit; a light emitting unit () which is provided below the top plate and emits light with a first luminance for indicating a position of the infrared-ray incidence section (); and a failure detection unit () operable to detect failures in the infrared-ray detection unit based on an amount of a change of an output of the infrared-ray temperature calculation unit which is based on an output of the light emitting unit. The failure detection unit () controls the light emitting unit to emit light with a second luminance higher than the first luminance and detects failures in the infrared-ray detection unit based on whether or not an amount of an increase in the output of the temperature calculation unit falls within a predetermined range.

Induction cooker

An induction cooker includes a top plate () for placing an object to be heated thereon, a heating mode selection key () for allowing the user to select one control mode for heating the object to be heated between a manual heating mode in which the heat output is set by the user by using an output adjusting key () and at least another control mode in which the heat output is controlled automatically, and a heating off/on key () for starting to heat the object to be heated. In the standby mode, the controller starts heating only when the user operates the heating mode selection key () to change the mode to the cooking menu selection mode before operating the heating off/on key (). When a predetermined time has elapsed in the cooking menu selection mode without a change in a selected control mode, the mode is changed to the standby mode. This prevents heating from occurring when the user inadvertently presses the heating off/on key () while the heating is not going on, thus providing the induction cooker with a high degree of safety and increased user-friendliness.

A cooking device includes, on its upper surface, an operation unit and a display unit. The operation unit includes a mode selection key for selecting one of a plurality of control modes, output increasing/decreasing keys for increasing and decreasing a set output and a set temperature, and time increasing/decreasing keys for increasing and decreasing heating. The mode selection key is separated from the time increasing/decreasing keys on the opposite side of the output increasing/decreasing keys. The display unit includes a numerical value display section for displaying a numerical value of a set value in the selected control mode, an output display section for displaying the set value for heating output, and a mode display section for displaying a cooking mode selected by using the mode selection key. The numerical value display section is separated from the mode display section on the opposite side of the output display section.

Cooking device

There is provided a cooking device capable of preventing heating operations from being unintentionally turned on and off and the setting of heating operations from being changed even when water droplets are scattered around touch switches or the vicinity of the touch switches is wiped with a damp cloth or the like. Left and right cancel electrodes () are provided near the key electrodes between the positions of left and right heating coils () and the positions of the key electrodes (). A control unit () changes over between validity and invalidity of inputting through the key electrodes based on whether or not a change of capacitances of the left and right cancel electrodes () is equal to or more than a predetermined amount.

A heating cooking device includes a top plate, a heating unit, a touch key including a first electrode and a second electrode, an input unit for applying an alternating current (AC) voltage to the second electrode and for outputting a voltage changing according to a change of the AC voltage when the first electrode is pushed, a detector for outputting a first signal if the voltage output from the input unit changes from the reference value to the first value, an operation judging unit for outputting a second signal according to a rate of change of the voltage output from the input unit, and a controller operable to perform control of the heating unit based on the first and second signals. The controller is operable to perform control of energization of the heating unit if the controller does not receive the second signal after receiving the first signal, and not to perform the control of the energization of the heating unit if the controller receives the second signal after receiving the first signal.

When a timer period reaches an increase-stopping-time during the long-push state of a timer key, increase of the timer period is stopped once. Accordingly, even though a long-push state is continued due to a fault of the timer key, the indication of the timer period is not repeated.

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Hyogo, Japan

Masamichi Komada