JP2000166818A - Seating sensor of private part cleaning device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an electrostatic capacity type sensor of a private part cleaning device which can sense the seating of a human body on a toilet seat at well as being inexpensive. SOLUTION: The electrostatic capacity type seating sensor 30 of a private part cleaning device for cleaning private parts of a human body by spraying leaning water from a nozzle by operating an operation unit 28 has a construction, such that one of electrodes 32 is provided within a toilet seat 14, while the other electrode 44 is provided in the operation unit 28 to sense whether or not a humane body is seated on the toilet seat 14, based on an increment in electrostatic capacity between the electrodes 32, 44 when a human body is seated on the seat 14 and brought into contact with the operation unit 28.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a seating sensor for a local washing apparatus for washing a local part of a human body by injecting washing water from a nozzle, and more particularly to a capacitance type seating sensor.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a local washing apparatus provided in a toilet and washing a local part of a human body by injecting washing water from a nozzle, conventionally, a seating sensor for detecting the seating of a human body on a toilet is provided.
When both the detection of the seating of the human body on the toilet seat by the seating sensor and the operation for the washing operation in the operation unit are performed, the washing water is jetted from the nozzles.

[0003] This is disadvantageous in that, for example, when the operation unit is operated without sitting on the toilet seat due to mischief or the like, washing water is sprayed from the nozzle and wets the floor around the toilet. This is to prevent it.

[0004] As a seating sensor of this local cleaning device, a capacitance-type seating sensor that detects the presence or absence of seating by sensing a change in capacitance due to the seating of a human body on a toilet seat has been known.

FIG. 4 shows the configuration of this capacitance type seating sensor. In the figure, reference numeral 200 denotes a toilet, 202 denotes a washing tank, and 204 denotes a toilet seat. 206 is a nozzle of the local cleaning device, 208 is a capacitance-type seating sensor,
Electrode 210 embedded in toilet seat 204 and sensor circuit 2
12 are provided.

In the case of the capacitance type seating sensor 208, when a human body is seated on the toilet seat 204, C ₁ and C ₂ between the electrode 210 and the ground greatly change. The presence or absence of a human body sitting on the toilet seat 204 is detected.

[0007] Incidentally, the capacitance between the human and the _{C 1} is the toilet seat 204 or inner electrode 210 that in FIG, _{C 2} is the capacitance between the human and the earth, _{C 3} is between the sensor circuit 212 and the earth It is capacitance.

[0008]

However, in the case of this type of conventional capacitance type seating sensor, the size of C ₂ and C ₃ depends on the construction of the toilet (building of the house), for example, the toilet is directly in contact with the ground. Because it changes between the first floor and the second and third floors in contact with each other, or changes between adults and children (for children, feet do not reach the floor enough)
There has been a problem that the detection of seating tends to be unstable.

For this reason, conventionally, it is customary to provide a complicated correction circuit, but if such a complicated correction circuit is provided, the cost will increase accordingly. Further, even if such a correction circuit is provided, it is still difficult to say that the detection of seating is sufficiently stable.

[0010]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION A seating sensor for a local cleaning apparatus according to the present invention has been devised to solve such a problem. According to the first aspect of the present invention, there is provided an electrostatic capacitance type seating sensor for a local cleaning device that cleans a human body by spraying cleaning water from a nozzle by operating an operation unit. And the other electrode is provided on the operation unit, based on the non-seated state of the toilet seat and a change in capacitance between the electrodes when a human body is seated on the toilet seat and touches the operation unit. It is characterized in that the presence or absence of sitting on the toilet seat is detected.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, in the seating sensor of the local cleaning device according to the first aspect, a conductive layer is formed on a back surface of a sheet constituting an operation surface of the operation unit to serve as the other electrode. It is characterized by the following.

[0012]

According to the first aspect of the present invention, electrodes are provided in the interior of the toilet seat and in the operation section, respectively, when the user is seated on the toilet seat and touches the operation section. It is designed to detect seating on the toilet seat based on the increase and decrease in the capacitance between the electrodes.In the case of this capacitance-type seating sensor, the structure of the toilet and the effect of the user, It is not affected by whether the person is an adult or a child whose feet do not sufficiently touch the floor, and the seating of the human body on the toilet seat can be stably detected. According to the first aspect, the seating sensor can be configured at low cost.

The seating sensor according to the present invention does not detect the human body immediately upon sitting on the toilet seat and turn on the seat, and does not detect the human body when sitting on the toilet seat and operating the operation unit. Detects human body sitting. In this sense, the function is slightly different from that of the conventional seat sensor.

However, the purpose of detecting the seating of the human body on the toilet seat in the first place is to prevent the washing water from being sprayed from the nozzle by the operation of the operation unit without the human body sitting on the toilet seat as described above. For this reason, the seating sensor of the present invention can sufficiently achieve its purpose in this sense.

Here, the electrode on the operation section side can be formed as an electrode by forming a conductive layer on the back surface of the sheet constituting the operation surface of the operation section. By doing so, the other electrode of the capacitance-type seating sensor can be easily formed on the operation unit.

[0016]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. In FIG. 1, 10 is a toilet bowl, 12 is a toilet body, 14 is a toilet seat, 16 is a toilet lid, and 18 is a toilet body 1.
2 is a washing tank placed on the rear upper surface of the washing tank.

Reference numeral 20 denotes a local cleaning device for cleaning a local part of a human body by spraying cleaning water from a nozzle 22. The main body box 24 has various built-in mechanisms for performing predetermined operations. . The main body box 24 includes the toilet body 1
2 has a sleeve portion 26 extending laterally, and an operation portion 28 is provided on an upper portion thereof.

As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the local cleaning device 20 is provided with a seat sensor 30 for detecting the seating of a human body on the toilet seat 14. The seating sensor 30 is a capacitance-type seating sensor, and one electrode 32 is embedded in the toilet seat 14 together with a toilet seat heater 34 and a thermistor 36 for detecting a toilet seat temperature. Here, the one electrode 32 is made of an aluminum foil provided inside the toilet seat 14 in this example.

As shown in FIG. 2A, the operation unit 28
Has various operation keys 38, and these operation keys 3
Various operations are performed based on the operation of FIG. FIG. 2B shows a cross-sectional configuration of the operation unit 28. As shown in the drawing, an opening is formed in the casing member 40 of the main body box 24, and a resin flexible sheet 42 constituting an operation surface of the operation section 28 is provided in the opening. The other electrode 44 of the capacitance type seating sensor 30 is formed on the back surface. Here the electrode 44
Is formed of a conductive sheet or a paint layer adhered to the back surface of the sheet 42. A lead wire 46 extends from the electrode 44. As shown in FIG. 3, this electrode 44 is electrically connected to one electrode 32 provided inside the toilet seat 14 via a lead wire 46 via a sensor circuit 48. The flexible sheet 42 has a small thickness of 1 mm or less.

As shown in FIG. 2B, the operation unit 2
8 has a switch 52 corresponding to various operation keys 38 on a substrate 50, and the switch 52 is operated by an operation member 54 by a pressing operation of the operation key 38.

In the seating sensor 30 of this embodiment, the capacitance between the electrode 32 in the toilet seat 14 and the electrode 44 of the operation unit 28 is extremely small when no human body is seated on the toilet seat 14,
The seat sensor 30 is off.

On the other hand, when the human body is seated on the toilet seat 14 and the operation unit 28 is operated to operate the local cleaning device 20, that is, when the operator touches the operation unit 28, the electrode 32 and the operation unit 28 in the toilet seat 14 are touched. resulting in large capacitance _C a between the electrode 44, _{C B} (see FIG. 3), the seating sensor 30 is turned on. That is, here, the seating of the human body on the toilet seat 14 is detected. Therefore, when the user presses the operation key 38 for jetting the washing water in this state, the washing water for the local washing is jetted from the nozzle 22.

On the other hand, even if the same operation key 38 is operated without sitting on the toilet seat 14, the seating sensor 3
In the case of No. 0, since the sitting of the human body on the toilet seat 14 is not detected, the washing water is not injected from the nozzle 22.

In the case of the capacitance type seating sensor 30 of the present embodiment, the influence of the construction of the toilet and the user, more specifically, whether the user is an adult or a child whose feet do not sufficiently touch the floor. The seating of the human body on the toilet seat 14 can be stably detected without being affected. Further, according to this example, the seating sensor 30 can be configured at low cost.

In this embodiment, a conductive layer is formed on the back surface of the sheet 42 constituting the operation surface of the operation section 28, and this is
Therefore, the electrode 44 can be easily provided on the operation unit 28.

Although the embodiment of the present invention has been described in detail, this is merely an example, and the present invention can be configured in variously modified forms without departing from the gist thereof.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a local cleaning device including a seating sensor according to an embodiment of the present invention together with a toilet bowl.

FIG. 2A is an enlarged view of a main part of FIG. 1; FIG. 2B is a diagram illustrating a cross-sectional configuration of the operation unit in FIG.

FIG. 3 is an explanatory diagram of an operation of the seating sensor according to one embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a configuration of a seating sensor of a conventional local cleaning device together with its operation.

[Explanation of symbols]

 14 toilet seat 20 local cleaning device 22 nozzle 28 operation unit 30 seat sensor 32,44 electrode 42 seat

 ────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Nobuyuki Tanaka 5-1-1 Koie Honcho, Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture Inside Inax Co., Ltd. (72) Eiji Saito 5-1-1 Koie Honcho, Tokoname, Aichi Prefecture Inax Co., Ltd. (72) Inventor Motohiro Nishiuchi 5-1-1 Koie Honcho, Tokoname City, Aichi Prefecture Inax Corporation (72) Inventor Naoto Yamada 5-1-1 Koie Honmachi, Tokoname City, Aichi Prefecture Inax Corporation (72) Invention Person Masato Takeda 5-1-1 Koiehonmachi, Tokoname-shi, Aichi F-term in Inax Corporation (reference) 2D037 AD16 2D038 JC11 KA03

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A capacitance type seating sensor of a local cleaning device for cleaning a local human body by injecting cleaning water from a nozzle by operating an operation unit, wherein one electrode is provided inside a toilet seat. The operation unit is provided with the other electrode, and the seat is seated on the toilet seat based on a non-seat state on the toilet seat and a change in capacitance between the electrodes when a human body is seated on the toilet seat and touches the operation unit. A seating sensor for a local cleaning device characterized by detecting the presence / absence of presence. 2. The seating sensor of a local cleaning device according to claim 1, wherein a conductive layer is formed on a back surface of a sheet constituting an operation surface of the operation unit, and the conductive layer serves as the other electrode. Seating sensor for local cleaning equipment.