Patent Application
20160213219
This disclosure relates generally to dishwashers, and more particularly, to hydraulically-driven dishwasher diverters.
Dishwasher diverters direct fluid to different portions of the dishwasher at different times, usually in a cyclical manner, to wash items placed at different locations within the dishwasher during operation of the dishwasher. Conventional diverters are driven by a motor and a gear train.
Hydraulically-driven dishwasher diverters are disclosed herein. An example hydraulically-driven dishwasher diverter includes a diverter housing having a plurality of wash zone openings defined therethrough corresponding to respective wash zones of a dishwasher, and a rotating cylindrical diverter valve including a valve outlet to fluidly couple a fluid flowing through the cylindrical diverter valve through one of the wash zone openings, a flexible portion adjacent the valve outlet to seal another one of the wash zone openings in response to fluid pressure in the cylindrical diverter valve while the valve outlet is fluidly flowing the fluid through the one of the wash zone openings
As is well known, many conventional dishwashers have a spray system having more than one spray zone or spray arm for spraying a fluid inside the treating chamber of a dishwasher during a cycle of operation. In some examples, a wash system includes a lower spray arm assembly, a mid-level spray arm assembly, and an upper spray arm assembly. The upper spray arm, the mid-level spray arm, and the lower spray are located, respectively, above an upper dish rack, beneath the upper dish rack, and beneath a lower dish rack. Another spray assembly may be located adjacent the lower dish rack toward the rear of a treating chamber, and includes a vertically oriented distribution header or spray manifold. Example spray manifolds are set forth in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 7,594,513 issued Sep. 29, 2009, and titled “Multiple Wash Zone Dishwasher,” which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety. A recirculation system recirculates fluid from a sump to the spray system. The sump collects the fluid sprayed in the treating chamber, and a pump draws the fluid from the sump and pumps it to the spray arms and/or spray assemblies for selective spraying. The recirculation system includes a diverter that sends the fluid to the sprays zones and/or spray arms at different times in, for example, a round-robin fashion.
Conventional dishwasher diverters are implemented as a part of a sump assembly. Some designs utilize a disk that rotates through four wash zone positions. The disk being rotated by a motor and gear train beneath the sump. Such designs require an extra motor and are not easily scaled to support more wash zones. To increase the number of wash zones requires a larger motor and disk. However, it is also desirable to also implement larger wash compartments, which constrains the size of the sump and the diverter motor.
To overcome at least these problems, hydraulically-driven diverters are disclosed herein. The example diverters disclosed herein have a cylindrical diverter valve split into longitudinal sections or segments. Each segment has a valve outlet. The valve outlets are spaced apart around the cylindrical diverter valve such that fluid flows or is diverted to only one wash zone at a time. Additionally or alternatively, the valve outlets may be spaced apart around the cylindrical diverter valve such that fluid flows to two or more wash zones at the same time. The example cylindrical diverter valves disclosed herein are flexible, and fluid pressure inside the cylindrical diverter valve forces the walls of the cylindrical diverter valve adjacent the valve outlets to flex outward against other wash zone openings, effectively sealing them. In disclosed examples, the cylindrical diverter valve is powered by a turbine in a flow stream that is turned by passing fluid flow. The turbine rotates a worm gear that turns the cylindrical diverter valve. The position of the cylindrical diverter valve is controlled by a solenoid that indexes a gear on an end of the cylindrical diverter valve, preventing it from moving when a position change is not desired.
As used herein, terms such as up, down, top, bottom, side, end, front, back, etc. are used with reference to the normal or currently considered orientation of an item, member, assembly, element, etc. If any of these is considered with respect to another orientation, it should be understood that such terms need to be correspondingly modified.
The particular implementations shown and described herein are illustrative examples and are not intended to otherwise limit the scope of this disclosure in any way. For the sake of brevity, conventional electronics, control systems, software development, and other functional aspects of the systems (and components of the individual operating components of the systems) may not be described in detail. Furthermore, the connecting lines, or connectors shown in the various figures presented are intended to represent exemplary functional relationships and/or physical or logical couplings between the various elements. It should be noted that many alternative or additional functional relationships, physical connections or logical connections may be present in a practical device. Moreover, no item or component is essential to the practice of the embodiments unless the element is specifically described as “essential” or “critical”.
In general, identical elements are illustrated with identical reference numerals in the figures; however, for brevity the description of identically numbered elements is not repeated. In some instances identical reference numerals are omitted when their inclusion could reduce clarity and/or comprehension.
Reference will now be made in detail to embodiments of this disclosure, examples of which are illustrated in the accompanying drawings. The embodiments are described below by referring to the drawings, wherein like reference numerals refer to like elements.
In
It should be appreciated that the door assembly 118 may be secured to the lower front edge of the chassis 112 or to the lower front edge of the tub 114 via a hinge assembly (not shown) configured to pivot the door assembly 118. When the door assembly 118 is closed, user access to the treating chamber 116 is prevented, whereas user access to the treating chamber 116 is permitted when the door assembly 118 is open.
Dish holders, illustrated in the form of upper and lower dish racks 126, 128, are located within the treating chamber 116 and receive dishes for washing. The upper and lower racks 126, 128 are typically mounted for slidable movement in and out of the treating chamber 116 for ease of loading and unloading. Other dish holders may be provided, such as a silverware basket. As used in this description, the term “dish(es)” is intended to be generic to any item, single or plural, that may be treated in the dishwasher 100, including, without limitation, dishes, plates, pots, bowls, pans, glassware, silverware, any other washable item.
A spray system is provided for spraying liquid in the treating chamber 116 and is provided in the form of a first lower spray assembly 134, a second lower spray assembly 136, a rotating mid-level spray arm assembly 138, and/or an upper spray arm assembly 140. Upper sprayer 140, mid-level rotatable sprayer 138 and lower rotatable sprayer 134 are located, respectively, above the upper rack 126, beneath the upper rack 126, and beneath the lower rack 124 and are illustrated as rotating spray arms. The second lower spray assembly 136 is illustrated as being located adjacent the lower dish rack 128 toward the rear of the treating chamber 116. The second lower spray assembly 136 is illustrated as including a vertically oriented distribution header or spray manifold 144. Such a spray manifold is set forth in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 7,594,513, issued Sep. 29, 2009, and titled “Multiple Wash Zone Dishwasher,” which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
A recirculation system is provided for recirculating liquid from the treating chamber 116 to the spray system. The example recirculation system includes a sump 130 and a pump assembly 131. The sump 130 collects the liquid sprayed in the treating chamber 116 and may be formed by a sloped or recess portion of a bottom wall of the tub 114. The pump assembly 131 may include both a drain pump 132 and a recirculation pump 133. The drain pump 132 may draw liquid from the sump 130 and pump the liquid out of the dishwasher 100 to a household drain line (not shown). The recirculation pump 133 may draw liquid from the sump 130 pump the liquid to a diverter 200 constructed in accordance with the teachings of this disclosure. The example diverter 200 is hydraulically operated responsive to water pumped to the diverter 200 by the recirculation pump 133. The diverter 200 simultaneously or selectively diverts the liquid through respective supply tubes 142 to the assemblies 134, 136, 138, 140 for selective spraying. In the example of
A heating system including a heater 146 may be located within the sump 130 for heating the liquid contained in the sump 130.
A controller 150 may also be included in the dishwasher 100, which may be operably coupled with various components of the dishwasher 100 to implement a cycle of operation. The controller 150 may be located within the door 118 as illustrated, or it may alternatively be located somewhere within the chassis 112. The controller 150 may also be operably coupled with a control panel or user interface 156 for receiving user-selected inputs and communicating information to the user. The user interface 156 may include operational controls such as dials, lights, switches, and displays enabling a user to input commands, such as a cycle of operation, to the controller 150 and receive information.
As illustrated schematically in
The memory 152 may be used for storing control software that may be executed by the CPU 154 in completing a cycle of operation using the dishwasher 100 and any additional software. For example, the memory 152 may store one or more pre-programmed cycles of operation that may be selected by a user and completed by the dishwasher 100. The memory 152 may include volatile memory such as synchronous dynamic random access memory (SDRAM), a dynamic random access memory (DRAM), RAMBUS® dynamic random access memory (RDRAM) and/or any other type of random access memory (RAM) device(s); and/or non-volatile memory such as flash memory(-ies), or flash memory device(s).
The controller 150 may also receive input from one or more sensors 158. Non-limiting examples of sensors that may be communicably coupled with the controller 150 include a temperature sensor and turbidity sensor to determine the soil load associated with a selected grouping of dishes, such as the dishes associated with a particular area of the treating chamber.
Fluid flows in through the inlet 14 and then flows into a cylindrical diverter valve 20. The fluid may be directed into the inlet 14 by, for example, a recirculation pump (not shown). A turbine 22 is positioned in the fluid flow, and rotates in response to the fluid flow. Rotation of the turbine 22 operates a worm gear assembly 24, such that rotation of the turbine 22 causes the cylindrical diverter valve 20 to rotate. In the illustrated examples, the inlet 14 is perpendicular to the cylindrical diverter valve 20. The worm gear assembly 24 accommodates the right angle positioning of the inlet 14 and cylindrical diverter valve 20, and gears down the rotational rate of the cylindrical diverter valve 20 relative to the spin rate of the turbine 22.
As clearly shown in at least
Consider a first rational position of the cylindrical diverter valve 20 shown in
Consider another rational position of the cylindrical diverter valve 20 shown in
Referring to
Referring again to
Referring yet again to
Due to the valve outlets 36-38, each of the example segments 34-36 have a C-shaped structure, as shown in
The valve outlets 38-40 are spaced apart around the cylindrical diverter valve such that fluid flows or is diverted to only one wash zone at a time. It will be understood that the locations of the valve outlets 38-40 can be selected to control a sequence of water flowing through the wash zone openings. Additionally or alternatively, the valve outlets 38-40 may be spaced apart around the cylindrical diverter valve such that fluid flows to two or more wash zones at the same time. Further still, a diverter valve can have other numbers of segments, and the housing can have other numbers of wash zone openings.
While the valve outlets 38-40 shown in the figures are rectangles or slots, other shapes such as squares, circles, ovoids, etc. may be used.
As used herein, the singular forms “a,” “an” and “the” do not exclude the plural reference unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. Further, conjunctions such as “and,” “or,” and “and/or” used herein are inclusive unless the context clearly dictates otherwise. For example, “A and/or B” includes A alone, B alone, and A with B; “A or B” includes A with B, and “A and B” includes A alone, and B alone. Moreover, no item or component is essential to the practice of the embodiments disclosed herein unless the element is specifically described as “essential” or “critical”.
Although certain examples have been described herein, the scope of coverage of this patent is not limited thereto. On the contrary, this patent covers all methods, apparatus and articles of manufacture fairly falling within the scope of the claims of this patent.
