Touch-sensitive operating panel for cooking zones

Details Touch-sensitive operating panel for cooking zones Touch-sensitive operating panel for cooking zones

2002-02-01

2003-12-16

Jeffery, John A. (Department: 3742)

Electric heating

Heating devices

With power supply and voltage or current regulation or...

C219S508000, C219S487000, C219S445100, C219S457100

Reexamination Certificate

active

06664519

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The invention concerns an operating panel in the form of a touch switch, including a digital cooking stage display for a cooker top having a plurality of cooking zones, as is on the market in the form of the system referred to as “DIEHL TC 2” or in the form of the system referred to as “EGO Touch Control G II”.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Such operating panels essentially comprise an opening-free and opaquely coloured insulating plate which is arranged in front of the cooking zones in the cooker panel or beside the cooking zones in the region of the pan support and working surface of a cooker, wherein arranged below the insulating plate are contact-less switches in the form of proximity or capacitor sensors and opto-electronic display lamps in the form of punctiform or seven-segment light emitting diodes. When integrated into the cooker hob a region of the glass ceramic hob thereof also serves as the operating panel. To provide for a meaningful association between the switching and display locations of such a complexly integrated operating panel on the one hand and the cooking zones in the cooker hob on the other hand, a switching location with a display location closely adjacent thereto is geometrically associated with each cooking zone, in the operating panel. For the situation which usually occurs, involving a cooker hob with four cooking zones, it is usual to arrange four switching locations at the corners of a square and, directly beside them, to provide four display locations in the form of simple light points or in the form of single-digit seven-segment alternate figure representations. As a circuit board extending under the glass plate member of the operating panel parallel thereto, besides the above-mentioned elements, must also include further switching and display elements, in particular for change-over switching operations and for indicating residual heat and possibly also for time control functions, and as weak-current circuits for the control and display procedures and relay-switched heavy-current circuits for the power consumers, wherein such circuits are interwoven with each other from the point of view of the circuitry involved, have to be disentangled in order to maintain given insulation spacings for safety reasons, it is impossible in the previous art to dispose all the above-mentioned circuit components and the circuit wiring thereof on a circuit board corresponding to the dimensions of the operating panel, not even when the conductor tracks are disposed on both sides. Therefore, operating panels of that kind generally involve a sandwich structure comprising two circuit boards which extend in mutually spaced parallel relationship, which involves a corresponding alternate connecting complication and expenditure and a need for appropriate installation depth, which gives rise to high production and testing costs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In consideration of those factors the object of the present invention is to simplify the operating panel, in particular for a four-zone cooker hob which is usually to be encountered, in such a way as to permit a noticeable reduction in the circuitry complication and expenditure in terms of switching and display control and the arrangement thereof on a single board.
In accordance with the essential combination of features set out in the main claim, in accordance with the invention that object is attained in that only one single cooking stage switching location for a plurality of usually four cooking zones is provided in the operating panel. In that way it is surprisingly possible to save on half the expensive circuit board area because, by virtue of simplified control circuits and correspondingly simplified conductor track intermingly, the circuitry structure is now made possible in one circuit board plane, which, with comparable functionality, in comparison with the above-described sandwich structure in accordance with the state of the art, results in a saving of approximately 20% each on manufacturing and testing costs. That is highly remarkable having regard to the enormous price pressure applied to the development of large-scale domestic appliances, of which on the other hand consumers expect ever more extensive functionality.


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