The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jul. 16, 2002
Filed:
Jul. 10, 2000
Tomohiko Ikeda, Kusatsu, JP;
Katsuhito Nakagawa, Otsu, JP;
Akira Takenaka, Kameoka, JP;
Yoshitaka Tsunomoto, Otsu, JP;
Sanyo Electric Co., Ltd., Moriguchi, JP;
Abstract
The present invention proposes a washing machine having a simple-structured mechanism for correcting the balance of the drum. In an embodiment of the present invention, plural water-holding chambers are located at the back of the drum around the rotation axis. The water-holding chamber has an opening for introducing water from a water discharge port . At the start of an extracting operation, all the water-holding chambers are emptied by rotating the drum at low speed. After that, when the eccentric load due to an uneven distribution of the laundry is greater than an upper limit value, the drum is rotated at a preset speed and a water supply valve is opened. Thus, the water from the water discharge port is supplied into all the water-holding chambers, and the water is held in the water-holding chamber by the centrifugal force. After that, the speed of the drum is temporarily reduced at a time point corresponding to the position of the eccentric load, whereby a part of the water held by one or some of the water-holding chambers at or close to the position of the eccentric load is let to spill out from the chamber. After thus canceling the load unbalance of the drum around the rotation axis as a whole, the drum is rotated at high speed for extraction.