Refrigeration – Automatic control – Diverse – cascade or compound refrigeration-producing system
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-11
2002-08-20
Esquivel, Denise L. (Department: 3744)
Refrigeration
Automatic control
Diverse, cascade or compound refrigeration-producing system
C062S230000, C062S158000, C062S228500
Reexamination Certificate
active
06434957
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an air-conditioning apparatus that performs indoor air-conditioning.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
There are various types of conventional air-conditioning apparatus such as an air-conditioning apparatus incorporating an indoor unit and outdoor unit as one body and a separate type air-conditioning apparatus with an indoor unit separate from an outdoor unit. Here, this separate type air-conditioning apparatus will be explained as a specific example below.
As shown in
FIG. 15
, a conventional separate type air-conditioning apparatus capable of air-conditioning operation is configured by an indoor unit
1
, an outdoor unit
2
and indoor and outdoor connecting electric wires
3
that electrically connect the indoor and outdoor units. This indoor unit
1
is configured by a main switch
4
, an indoor electronic control apparatus
5
, an indoor fan motor
6
such as a transistor motor and an indoor upper/lower blade drive louver motor
7
. On the other hand, the outdoor unit
2
is configured by an outdoor electronic control apparatus
8
, a four-way valve
9
that switches the path of a coolant according to a cooling cycle and heating cycle, an outdoor fan motor
10
such as an induction motor and a compressor
11
that compresses the coolant.
The operation of this separate type air-conditioning apparatus will be explained below. The indoor unit
1
is connected with a commercial power supply
12
and when the main unit switch
4
of the indoor unit
1
is turned on, power is supplied to the indoor electronic control apparatus
5
and a control operation is started, making the indoor fan motor
6
and louver motor
7
run and starting to circulate the indoor air through an indoor heat exchanger (not shown in the figure). Here, when the user instructs the start of operation through signal input, the indoor electronic control apparatus
5
controls a main relay (not shown in the figure) to close the circuit and supply the commercial power supply
12
to the outdoor unit
2
. At this time, power is supplied from the commercial power supply
12
to the outdoor electronic control apparatus
8
, which makes the outdoor electronic control apparatus
8
start a control operation, applies a specified voltage to the compressor
11
, makes the compressor
11
start to run, connects the commercial power supply
12
also to the outdoor fan motor
10
, starting, as a result, to blow the outdoor air into an outdoor heat exchanger (not shown in the figure). Under the instruction of the outdoor electronic control apparatus
8
, the four-way valve
9
that switches the path of the coolant is in the position to flow the coolant through the cooling cycle path when the commercial power supply
12
is not connected. In this condition, the air-conditioning apparatus starts a cooling operation.
Next, when the user instructs a heating operation through signal input, the outdoor electronic control apparatus
8
connects the commercial power supply
12
to the four-way valve
9
. This operation switches the coolant path to a heating cycle and a heating operation starts. At this time, the outdoor fan motor
10
blows the outdoor air into the outdoor heat exchanger and heat of the outdoor air is introduced to the coolant by the outdoor heat exchanger and the coolant is vaporized, compressed by the compressor
11
and sent to the indoor heat exchanger.
For example, if the indoor unit
1
and outdoor unit
2
which are performing a cooling operation or heating operation as described above are stopped due to a power failure and recovered from this power failure, the indoor electronic apparatus
5
restarts the system in a specified time to keep a pressure balance of the compressor
11
so that the system automatically recovers in its operation mode before the power failure.
However, the conventional air-conditioning apparatus has a uniformly set specified time to keep a pressure balance of the compressor, and therefore if in a household, factory or office where a plurality of the aforementioned air-conditioning apparatuses with auto recovery control, these air-conditioning apparatuses are stopped due to a power failure and then recovered from the power failure and restarted by auto recovery control, the plurality of the air-conditioning apparatuses are restarted when it is detected that the specified time has elapsed, which provokes a problem that due to an instantaneous voltage drop of the commercial power supply the air-conditioning apparatuses are stopped again.
DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the present invention to provide an air-conditioning apparatus operation control method and an air-conditioning apparatus that will prevent a plurality of air-conditioning apparatuses from simultaneously restarting upon automatic recovery after a recovery of power and from being stopped again due to a voltage drop. To attain this object, the air-conditioning apparatus operation control method of the present invention makes a plurality of air-conditioning apparatuses discretely restart upon recovery of power, and in particular discretely restart with random delay times, thereby making it possible to prevent the air-conditioning apparatuses from stopping again due to a voltage drop caused when the plurality of air-conditioning apparatuses simultaneously restart at the time of automatic recovery after the recovery of power.
When a plurality of air-conditioning apparatuses stopped by a power failure are automatically recovered in an operation mode before the power failure, the operation control method of the present invention adopts an air-conditioning apparatus operation control method that makes the plurality of air-conditioning apparatuses restart discretely with different delay times or delay times varying among a number of groups of air-conditioning apparatuses at the time of recovery of power, making it possible to prevent the air-conditioning apparatuses from stopping again due to a voltage drop when the plurality of air-conditioning apparatuses simultaneously restart at the time of automatic recovery after the recovery of power.
Moreover, this operation control method adopts a method of randomly generating and deciding delay times until a restart of air-conditioning apparatuses and restarting those air-conditioning apparatuses with these decided delay times, providing an extremely high probability of discretely restarting a plurality of air-conditioning apparatuses.
Furthermore, when a plurality of air-conditioning apparatuses stopped by a power failure are automatically recovered in an operation mode before the power failure after recovery of power, this operation control method adopts an air-conditioning apparatus operation control method that decides delay times until a restart according to each corresponding air-conditioning load before the power failure or the operation state before the power failure, and restarts the air-conditioning apparatuses with the decided delay times, providing an extremely high probability of discretely restarting a plurality of air-conditioning apparatuses and providing an extremely high probability of avoiding a case where the air-conditioning apparatuses are stopped again due to a voltage drop when all air-conditioning apparatuses simultaneously restart.
Furthermore, this operation control method adopts an air-conditioning apparatus operation control method that decides again a delay time by further adding a randomly generated time to the delay time until the restart decided according to each own air-conditioning load before the power failure or operation state before the power failure and restarts the air-conditioning apparatuses with this delay time.
Furthermore, this operation control method is a method of changing delay times according to the length of power failure period, making it possible to effectively use the power failure period and shorten the time after the recovery of power of separate type air-conditioning apparatuses until their restart.
The air-conditioning apparatus of a first embodiment of the
Nishizuka Toshiharu
Oie Naoko
Tabata Daisuke
Takeda Yuji
Esquivel Denise L.
Matsushita Electric - Industrial Co., Ltd.
Norman Marc
Parkhurst & Wendel LLP
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