Indoor equipment and air conditioner

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-10690370-B2
Application number	US-201415511415-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Sep 26, 2014
Priority date	Sep 26, 2014
Publication date	Jun 23, 2020
Grant date	Jun 23, 2020

Abstract

The present invention includes a plurality of fan motors, first and second inverters for individually driving the fan motors, respectively, and one and a common control unit that performs a control arithmetic for each of the fan motors and generates an individual driving signal given to each of the inverters.

First claim

The invention claimed is:

1. An indoor equipment of an air conditioner, comprising:
an indoor heat exchanger;
a plurality of indoor equipment fans, including a first indoor equipment fan and a second indoor equipment fan, wherein the first indoor equipment fan includes a first fan motor and the second indoor equipment fan includes a second fan motor, and wherein the first indoor equipment fan and the second indoor equipment fan send air with which heat has been exchanged by the indoor heat exchanger to an air-conditioning target space in a room;
a plurality of power converters, including a first inverter and a second inverter, for individually driving the first fan motor and the second fan motor, respectively, wherein the first inverter is configured to drive the first motor to change numbers of rotations of the first motor to adjust volumes of air sent from the first equipment fan, and the second inverter is configured to drive the second motor to change numbers of rotations of the second motor to adjust volumes of air sent from the second equipment fan, wherein each of the first inverter and the second inverter includes upper-arm switching elements and lower-arm switching elements; and
a controller configured to control each of the first fan motor and the second fan motor and to generate an individual driving signal given to each of the first inverter and the second inverter, wherein
the controller comprises:
a first control-arithmetic circuitry configured to control the first fan motor;
a second control-arithmetic circuitry configured to control the second fan motor;
a speed-command-value generation circuitry configured to generate a first speed command value for the first fan motor and a second speed command value for the second fan motor; and

a carrier-signal generation circuitry configured to generate a carrier signal for generating a first driving signal to drive the switching elements of the first inverter and a carrier signal for generating a driving signal to drive the switching elements of the second inverter,
each of the first control-arithmetic circuitry and the second control-arithmetic circuitry includes a rotor-rotational-position and execution-speed arithmetic circuitry, a speed control circuitry, and a driving-signal generation circuitry, and
when at least one of the first fan motor and the second fan motor is in a driving state and at least one of the fan motors other than the fan motor in the driving state is in a free-run state caused by interference of airflows in the air-conditioning target space, the controller drives at least one of switching elements of the first inverter and the second inverter connected to the fan motor in the free-run state to apply a braking force to the fan motor in the free-run state and thereafter starts the fan motor.

2. The indoor equipment according to claim 1 , wherein switching elements that apply the braking force to the fan motor in the free-run state at a time of starting at least one of the first fan motor and the second fan motor are the lower-arm switching elements in the power converter.

3. The indoor equipment according to claim 1 , wherein switching elements that apply the braking force to the fan motor in the free-run state at a time of starting at least one of the first fan motor and the second fan motor are the upper-arm switching elements in the power converter.

4. The indoor equipment according to according to claim 1 , wherein the first fan motor and the second fan motor are permanent-magnet synchronous motors.

5. An air conditioner comprising the indoor equipment according to claim 1 .

Assignees

• Mitsubishi Electric Corp

Inventors

• Uemura Keisuke
• Hatakeyama Kazunori
• Shinomoto Yosuke
• Kashima Mitsuo
• Matsumoto Takashi

Classifications

• F24F11/74 Primary

  for controlling air flow rate or air velocity · CPC title

• F24F1/0033

  having two or more fans · CPC title

• H02P27/08

  with pulse width modulation · CPC title

• H02P5/74

  controlling two or more AC dynamo-electric motors (H02P5/46, H02P5/60 take precedence) · CPC title

• F24F11/89

  Arrangement or mounting of control or safety devices · CPC title