Electrolux Home Products, Inc.

Sean Florian Myers

Michael Paul Ricklefs

Steven John Joerger

Brian Douglas Ripley

Lee Allen Roose

William M Monson

An electronics enclosure and associated components form a self-contained, unitized assembly including control buttons and illuminated indicator elements, that can be mated as a single piece with an outer user interface control panel fascia. A front panel of the electronics enclosure provides a mounting location for various buttons and lighted indicators that will show through mating apertures provided in the control panel fascia. This may include light pipe collars and integral spring levers. Specially configured cup structures may be integrally molded at the ends of the spring levers to provide electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection. A mount of planar spring button pieces on the front enclosure panel, over the associated spring levers, results in an assembly incorporating two springs serving to bias the associated button to its return position, and eliminating any rattle or looseness of the parts.

Unitized appliance control panel assembly and components of the assembly

A control user interface for laundry appliances, such as a clothes dryer or washing machine, enables a user to control multiple modes of operation and a variable associated with at least one mode of operation by manipulating a single control element. In one arrangement, the variable is time and multiple time increments are associated with at least one mode of operation. One embodiment includes a rotatable single control knob. Upon detecting the rotation of the control knob, a determination is made whether the currently selected operation mode has associated operation times to be presented to the user. If no associated operation times are presented, the user interface display is updated to reflect the next mode of operation. The operation mode and operation times may be part of different display region within the dryer control user interface. Thus, multiple menus and submenus can be traversed and selected from using a single control knob, without the need for secondary buttons or a base cycle position to control the mode operation and time settings.

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Ames, IA, United States of America

Sean Florian Myers