Apparatus for redistributing an imbalance in a laundry treating appliance

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-9708741-B2
Application number	US-201514643447-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Mar 10, 2015
Priority date	Dec 10, 2010
Publication date	Jul 18, 2017
Grant date	Jul 18, 2017

Abstract

An apparatus for detecting an imbalance in the laundry load and effecting a redistribution of the imbalance by reducing the rotational speed of the treating chamber such that part of the load may redistribute while part of the load remains satellized, without ceasing rotation, and increasing the rotational speed back to a spin speed after redistribution.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. A laundry treating appliance, comprising:
a rotatable treating chamber for receiving laundry for treatment;
a motor operably coupled to the rotatable treating chamber to drivingly rotate the treating chamber; and
a controller operably coupled to the motor and having an imbalance reduction program in a form of a plurality of executable instructions stored in a memory of the controller to a) rotate the treating chamber at a spin speed, which is a rotational speed sufficient to satellize the laundry in the treating chamber, b) determine a presence of a imbalance in the laundry, c) reduce the rotational speed of the treating chamber without ceasing the rotation of the treating chamber when the presence of an imbalance is determined, d) monitor the magnitude of the imbalance in a frequency domain during the reducing of the rotational speed, and e)increase the rotational speed of the treating chamber to a spin speed in response to a reduction in the magnitude of the imbalance.

2. The laundry treating appliance of claim 1 wherein the controller further comprises a real-time frequency domain processing function for processing a signal from the motor indicative of a torque of the motor to monitor the magnitude of the imbalance in a frequency domain.

3. The laundry treating appliance of claim 2 wherein the controller monitors the processed signal at a frequency representative of the rotational speed of the treating chamber.

4. The laundry treating appliance of claim 3 wherein a reduction in the magnitude of the imbalance comprises a decrease in the magnitude at the frequency representative of the rotational speed of the treating chamber.

5. The laundry treating appliance of claim 4 wherein a reduction in the magnitude of the imbalance comprises the decrease in the magnitude at the frequency representative of the rotational speed of the treating chamber satisfying a predetermined threshold.

6. The laundry treating appliance of claim 1 further comprising a rotatable drum defining the treating chamber.

7. The laundry treating appliance of claim 6 wherein the motor is coupled to the drum.

Assignees

• Whirlpool Co

Inventors

• Ashrafzadeh Farhad
• Janke Brian P
• Richmond Peter J
• Silva Marcelo C
• Stanziola Teixeira Rodrigo

Classifications

• D06F37/203 Primary

  Textiles & Paper · mapped topic

• D06F33/02

  Textiles & Paper · mapped topic

• D06F2103/00

  Parameters monitored or detected for the control of domestic laundry washing machines, washer-dryers or laundry dryers · CPC title

• D06F34/28

  Arrangements for program selection, e.g. control panels therefor; Arrangements for indicating program parameters, e.g. the selected program or its progress · CPC title

• D06F34/16 Primary

  Imbalance · CPC title