Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba

Nobuichi Nishimura

Masahiro Imai

Yoshiyuki Makino

Satoru Matsumoto

Kazutoshi Tani

Hiroshi Nishimura

Yukio Suzuki

Toru Imai

Masayuki Aoki

Hiroshi Ikeda

Takamichi Sujaku

Fumihiro Imamura

Tooru Imai

Kazunori Ishii

Takayuki Hirano

Yoshio Okamura

Ryuho Narita

Hisao Kano

Takumi Ohno

Masahiko Wada

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 full automatic washing machine includes in an operation panel a display device together with power ON and OFF switches and a light-emitting diode serving as a pilot lamp. The display device is formed into the shape of a rectangular flat plate and has elasticity. The display device is constituted by a nematic curvilinear aligned phase (NCAP) liquid crystal panel and a reflecting plate. The display device includes a plurality of display sections for displaying a plurality of pieces of information about the washing operation. A membrane switch is disposed on the back of the display device. The membrane switch is turned on when the display device is depressed. The membrane switch has a plurality of key switches positioned so as to correspond to the display sections of the display device.

Washing machine with operation panel including display device and

An automatic washing machine includes a clutch float having external gear teeth. The clutch float is located around a shaft which is driven by an electric motor and to which an agitator is secured. The clutch float couples the shaft to an inner rotatable tub when its external gear teeth are engaged with internal gear teeth at the inner tub side in a dehydration step. The clutch float moves upwardly in subjection to buoyancy when water is supplied into the inner tub in a wash step. The external gear teeth of the clutch float are disengaged from the internal gear teeth so that the shaft is decoupled from the inner tub. The washing machine further includes a rotation restricting float which moves upwardly in subjection to the buoyancy in the wash step to couple the inner tub to an outer stationary tub and which decouples the inner tub from the outer tub in the dehydration step. A device delivers a position signal indicative of the position of the clutch float which is vertically movable. Based on the position signal, a control device controls the drive motor. The drive motor is of an outer rotor type and a motor control circuit is disposed in its stator.

Float-type clutch for automatic washing machine

A microwave oven includes a heating chamber, a plurality of cooking utensils detachably disposed in the heating chamber selectively in accordance with the cooking contents, a plurality of heat sources heating food placed on or contained in the cooking utensil and including a magnetron, an oven heater and a grill heater, optical sensors determining the cooking utensil disposed in the heating chamber, and a microcomputer. The cooking utensils include a glass dish, thawing gridiron, pot, upper and lower top plates, one-legged top plate, and gridiron. A microwave cooking mode is selected when the determination of the optical sensors indicates that neither upper nor lower top plate is present in the heating chamber. A heater cooking mode is selected when either upper or top plate is present. When the heater cooking mode is selected on the basis of presence of the upper top plate, either an oven mode or a grill mode is selected depending upon presence or absence of the gridiron. One of the heat sources in accordance with the selected cooking mode is controlled on the basis of a cooking program of the selected cooking mode by the microcomputer.

Microwave oven with automatic cooking mode selecting function

A heat cooking apparatus with a temperature operating system, wherein a microcomputer detects an abnormality of a temperature sensor and de-energizes the cooking apparatus to stop cooking while also producing a sensor fault pulse signal. Upon counting of a predetermined number of sensor fault pulse signals in a counter, the microcomputer generates a sensor defect signal to alert the user of the defective temperature sensor. Spurious fault conditions are ignored by resetting the counter upon proper operation of the sensor before reaching the predetermined number of sensor fault pulse signals.

Heat cooking apparatus with temperature operating system

Growing community of inventors

Ichinomiya, Japan

Nobuichi Nishimura