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:
Apr. 21, 2015
Filed:
Mar. 31, 2009
Kenji Ashida, Osaka, JP;
Kenji Ashida, Osaka, JP;
Sharp Kabushiki Kaisha, Osaka, JP;
Abstract
An air conditioner includes a refrigerating cycle including a compressor () compressing a refrigerant, an indoor heat exchanger () exchanging heat between the refrigerant and indoor air, a pressure-reducing expansion valve () reducing pressure of and expanding the refrigerant, and an outdoor heat exchanger () exchanging heat between the refrigerant and outdoor air. The air conditioner further has a base plate () arranged below the outdoor heat exchanger () and having a drain outlet () formed at a position opposing an undersurface of the outdoor heat exchanger (). Between the outdoor heat exchanger () and the base plate (), a freeze prevention pipe () is disposed in a manner, in plan view, to at least partially pass inside the region of the drain outlet (). The freeze prevention pipe () is connected between the outdoor heat exchanger () and the indoor heat exchanger (). With such a configuration, discharge of drain water can be maintained by preventing drain water from freezing or by thawing frozen drain water, while achieving lower power consumption.