Drying and gas or vapor contact with solids – Apparatus – Combined
Patent
1994-10-21
1996-10-01
Kwon, John T.
Drying and gas or vapor contact with solids
Apparatus
Combined
34 97, F26B 1900
Patent
active
055601219
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The invention relates to an energy-efficient process for treating an object with hot air by directing hot air on the object from a hand-held device and to a hand-held device for performing that process.
Hand-held devices for directing a hot air flow on the object are known, e.g., as hand-held hair driers or hot air blowers. In particular, hairdressers working professionally with this type of hand-held device for treating a customer's hair with a flow of hot air must repeatedly interrupt the hot air flow treatment, for example, to comb the hair, install and remove curlers, or to part or arrange hair. In particular during brief interruptions in treatment the hand-held device continues to run--for reasons of convenience--with the heat output set to approximately 500 to 1500 watts so that the hot air flows uselessly past the hair. In order to make better use of energy, it would be necessary to switch the hand-held devices on and off manually which is very cumbersome in practice and is therefore not done.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide a process for treating an object with hot air by directing hot air on the object from a hand-held heating device which conserves energy in a convenient manner during interruptions in the treatment.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a hand-held device for producing a hot air flow to be directed on an object which conserves energy in a convenient manner during interruptions in treatment.
According to the invention, the process for treating an object with a flow of hot air produced by the hand-held device of the above-described type having a blower generating an air flow and a heating device for heating the air flow generated by the blower, includes the steps of: a predetermined heat output value when an interruption in the treating of the object with the hot air is occurring; and predetermined heat output value when the interruption in the treating is not occurring.
In a preferred embodiment of the process according to the invention the blower is switched off when the automatically at least reducing the heat output of the heating device occurs and switched on when the automatically restoring the heat output of the hand-held device occurs or is completed.
In another preferred embodiment of the process according to the invention the automatically at least reducing the heat output consists of turning off the heating device.
According to the invention an "interruption" in the treating of the object occurs when the flow of the hot air does not reach the object to be heated and/or a distance between the hand-held device and the object to be heated exceeds a predetermined threshold spacing. The process of the invention thus determines whether or not an interruption is occurring or not by determining if the flow of the hot air is not reaching the object to be treated and/or if the distance between the hand-held device and the object to be treated exceeds a predetermined threshold spacing.
The hand-held device according to the invention for treating an object with a flow of hot air comprises a blower for producing an air flow; a heating device for heating the flow of air from the blower to make a hot air flow; means for automatically at least reducing a heat output of the heating device from a predetermined heat output value when an interruption in the treating of the object with the hot air is occurring; and means for automatically restoring the heat output of the hand-held device to the predetermined heat output value when the interruption in the treating is not occurring.
In a preferred embodiment of the invention a connecting switch is provided electrically connecting the blower and the heating device and an on-off switch is connected between the connecting switch and the blower.
The hand-held device according to the invention advantageously includes means for detecting that the flow of the hot air does not reach the object. This means for detecting can comprise a light transmitter havin
REFERENCES:
patent: 5231770 (1993-08-01), Fertig
patent: 5438763 (1995-08-01), Yang
Fertig Werner
Schramm Robert
Seja Frank
Kwon John T.
Striker Michael J.
Wella Aktiengesellschaft
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