Toto Ltd.

Yoshiyuki Kaneko

Toshiyuki Murahashi

Tadahiro Honda

Tatsumi Hamanaka

Takatoshi Kawabata

Mitsuyoshi Seki

Hiroyuki Iwashita

Makoto Hatakeyama

Hideyuki Matsui

Kenichi Hashimoto

Tetsuro Kamiyoshi

A faucet apparatus includes a rotating operation unit that rotationally operates water spouting and shutting off operations, and a flow adjustment operation and a temperature adjustment operation of hot and cold water, an acceleration sensor that detects an attitude and a rotating movement of the rotating operation unit, and a control unit. The rotating operation unit moves without striding across a horizontal plane at a time of performing a rotating operation from a first operation position to a second operation position around a predetermined rotation axis in the water spouting state. The acceleration sensor is set in a state where a rotation axis at a time of rotating within a predetermined plane in response to the flow adjustment operation and temperature adjustment operation of the hot and cold water does not coincide with a gravity direction axis.

Faucet apparatus

A touch detection device capable of operation by a light touch, and of preventing false operations even when used in water handling equipment includes a sensing portion for sensing contact by a target object; a vibration excitation element attached to this sensing portion, a drive circuit for exciting vibration in the sensing portion, and a contact determining circuit for determining whether a target object is contacting a sensing portion based on vibration of the sensing portion after stopping the application of an AC voltage to the vibration excitation element by this drive circuit.

Touch detection device used in water handling equipment, and faucet apparatus including the same

A controller apparatus for a faucet, for controlling the faucet using energy created by electric power generation, wherein all components used therein keep necessary performance thereof for a long period of time and wherein no components require exchange thereof until the product service-life of the faucet apparatus is reached, thereby realizing true maintenance-free apparatus. The controller apparatus for a faucet comprises a capacitor; a voltage conversion means for converting the capacitor voltage to a predetermined voltage; a faucet controller circuit operated with electricity supplied from the voltage conversion means; and an electromagnetic valve for opening or closing a flow passage by said faucet controller circuit. The controller apparatus for a faucet further comprises an electric power generation means and a primary battery, and the capacitor is charged with either of an output of the electric power generation means and the primary battery.

Faucet controller

An automatic faucet control device including an electromagnetic valve for opening and closing a flow channel of a faucet, a ray emitting device () for emitting infrared rays to a target to be detected, a ray receiving device () for receiving the infrared rays reflected by the target, a sensing decision device for the deciding presence or absence of the target by an output from the ray receiving device (), and an electromagnetic valve controller for controlling the electromagnetic valve based on a signal from the sensing decision device. The ray emitting device () has a first polarizing plate () allowing a polarized light component to be transmitted, and the ray receiving device () has a second polarizing plate () for allowing a polarized light component different from the rays transmitted through the first polarizing plate () to be transmitted therethrough.

Automatic faucet control device and control method

Automatic faucet

In an automatic faucet having a hand sensor S to start and stop discharging water automatically, only hands can be detected accurately without detecting a washbowl (chinaware) and water stream erroneously. The sensor S comprises a light emitter and a light receiver. The directional axis d of a detection region (in which the light emitting region of the light emitter and the light receiving region of the light receiver are overlapped with each other) intersects the discharged water stream, and further the intersection angle between both is adjusted less than 70 degrees, irrespective of the flow rate of the discharged water. The reflected light levels detected by the light receiver are sampled periodically to calculate an average value and a variance value on the basis of at least eight most updated sampled data. Water discharge is started and stopped on the basis of the calculated average value and the variance value.

Growing community of inventors

Kitakyushu, Japan

Yoshiyuki Kaneko