Timer with cycle and time dependent runout for dryer

Claim 2

A fabric drying apparatus comprising: a chamber for receiving a fabric load to be dried; heating means for supplying heat to said chamber; and control means for controlling the drying operation, said control means comprising means for selecting a dryness condition, including switch means, and encoding means for providing settings of said switch means as logical signals, sensing means for sensing the moisture content of the fabric in said chamber, timing means for timing the drying operation up to the point where a predetermined dryness condition is sensed, and means for extending the drying operation beyond the point of the sensed predetermined dryness condition by an interval that is a function of the selected dryness condition and the drying time accumulated in attaining the predetermined dryness condition.

Claim 3

A fabric drying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said timing means includes digital counting means operable to provide digital signals representing accumulated time and said means for extending the drying operation includes means for reading the digital signals of said timing means and the digital signals of said selecting means.

Claim 4

A fabric drying apparatus according to claim 1, wherein said switch means includes a multi-position manually operable switch and said encoding means is operable to provide a unique set of logical signals for each switch position.

Claim 5

A fabric drying apparatus according to claim 3, comprising means for decoding the logical signals of said selecting means as unique time intervals and means for operating said drying apparatus for fixed time intervals in response thereto.

Claim 6

A fabric drying apparatus comprising: a chamber for receiving a fabric load to be dried; heating means for supplying heat to said chamber; and control means for controlling the drying operation, said control means comprising means for selecting a dryness condition including switch means operable to select a dryness condition within a predetermined range of dryness conditions, sensing means for sensing the moisture content of the fabric in said chamber, timing means for timing the drying operation up to the point where a predetermined dryness condition is sensed, and means for extending the drying operation beyond the point of the sensed predetermined dryness condition by an interval that is a function of the selected dryness condition and the drying time accumulated in attaining the predetermined dryness condition.

Claim 7

A fabric drying apparatus comprising: a chamber for receiving a fabric load to be dried; heating means for supplying heat to said chamber; and control means for controlling the drying operation, said control means comprising means for selecting a dryness condition including switch means operable to select a dryness condition within a predetermined range of dryness conditions, sensing means for sensing the moisture content of the fabric in said chamber, timing means for timing the drying operation up to the point where a predetermined dryness condition is sensed, and means for extending the drying operation beyond the point of the sensed predetermined dryness condition by an interval that is a function of the selected dryness condition and the drying time accumulated in attaining the predetermined dryness condition.

Claim 10

A method according to claim 6, wherein the step of continuing the fabric drying operation includes the step of timing the drying operation until the predetermined dryness condition is sensed.

Claim 11

In a dryer control of the type including an indexable memory device having a plurality of states which correspond to a program of dryer operations, means for indexing said memory, moisture sensing means, and a source of timing signals used to control dryer operations which are not sensed, the improvement comprising: a first time accumulating circuit operable to accumulate and store a signal indicative of the time required for the sensing means to indicate that a Fabric load has attained a predetermined apparent moisture content; a second time accumulating circuit operable to accumulate time after the sensing means indicates that the predetermined moisture content has been attained; selection means for selecting a desired moisture content; and circuit means connected to said first and second time accumulating circuits and to said selection means and operable to produce a signal for indexing the memory when said second time accumulating circuit has accumulated an amount of time which is dependent upon the amount of time stored in said first time accumulating circuit and the moisture content selected by said selection means.

Claim 12

In a dryer control of the type including an indexable memory device having a plurality of states which correspond to a program of dryer operations, means for indexing said memory, moisture sensing means, and a source of timing signals used to control dryer operations which are not sensed, the improvement comprising: a first time accumulating circuit operable to accumulate and store a signal indicative of the time required for the sensing means to indicate that a Fabric load has attained a predetermined apparent moisture content; a second time accumulating circuit operable to accumulate time after the sensing means indicates that the predetermined moisture content has been attained; selection means for selecting a desired moisture content; and circuit means connected to said first and second time accumulating circuits and to said selection means and operable to produce a signal for indexing the memory when said second time accumulating circuit has accumulated an amount of time which is dependent upon the amount of time stored in said first time accumulating circuit and the moisture content selected by said selection means.

Claim 13

The dryer control of claim 8, wherein said selection means includes multi-position switch means and means for encoding selection positions of said switch means a unique signals representing respective moisture contents.