1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method of automatically feeding lubricating oil to bearing parts of various machine elements. In particular, the present invention relates to an automatic lubricating oil feeding method using a microcomputer whereby various settings, progress of the settings, and display of the operating state of a lubricating oil feeding apparatus can be easily identified in a user-oriented manner.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In order to achieve the automatic lubricating oil feeding to machine elements such as bearings of various industrial equipments, diverse kinds of lubricating oil feeding techniques have been developed and used.
An automatic lubricating oil feeding apparatus using gas pressure has been developed to continuously feed the lubricating oil to bearings or other parts which require the lubricating oil to the exclusion of inconvenience of the manual operation.
According to this apparatus, a typical diaphragm is extended by the gas pressure of an electrochemical reactor, and this causes a piston to descend so as to discharge the lubricating oil (i.e., grease). The gas pressure is controlled by a control circuit in a manner that the amount of current, which corresponds to the gas reaction time of the electrochemical reactor, is adjusted by the control circuit, and this causes the discharge of the lubricating oil to be performed for a preset time in the range of one month to several or several tens of months.
Consequently, the above-described conventional apparatus can continuously feed the lubricating oil through the term set in the range of one month to several months by variably determining the current supplied to the electrochemical reactor (i.e., gas chamber) in accordance with the resistance value of a resistor selected by a switch and by adjusting the reaction time of the electrochemical reactor accordingly. In the apparatus, light emitting diodes which operate simultaneously with the selection operation of the switch are employed to display the operating state of the apparatus.
However, the conventional electric lubricating oil feeding apparatus has the drawbacks that since it controls the lubricating oil discharge time by adjusting the electrochemical reaction time by limiting the supplied current through a selected resistor, it cannot reflect the condition inside the bearing and the environmental change such as the change of temperature. Also, it cannot achieve an accurate discharge of lubricating oil with a proper amount in the preset time because the preset amount of current supplied to the electrochemical reactor is changed due to the change of the internal resistance value of the electrochemical reactor as the time elapses.
Further, according to the conventional apparatus, it is difficult for a user to identify the setting time of the lubricating oil feeding apparatus since the setting time of the apparatus should be identified by checking the state of the switches one by one. Also, even though the entire setting time elapses due to an external factor such as temperature, machine element, internal factor, etc., the user cannot identify such an abnormal elapse of time.
In order to solve the problems involved in the conventional lubricating oil feeding apparatus as described above, Korea Patent Number 189152 issued to the applicant discloses an automatic lubricating oil feeding method which includes an operating-term input step performed by a mode selection means to set the lubricating oil discharge time, an output step performed by a microcomputer to control the output time per unit time according to a set operating term, the microcomputer providing a computed output to an electrochemical reactor according to a selected mode and controlling a liquid crystal display (LCD) to display the set mode, a step of detecting the termination of the set operating term, and a step of rapidly discharging the remaining lubricating oil by deleting the set mode and resetting a shortest term mode when the set mode is terminated.
According to the above patent, the setting of the operating term and the identification of the set term can be easily effected, and the discharge of the lubricating oil can be accurately controlled even after the elapse of the term by compensating for the internal resistance of the electrochemical reactor. Especially, if the set term elapses, the remaining lubricating oil is rapidly discharged by changing the present mode to the shortest term mode.
Though the above-described patent has various advantages as described above, it has the disadvantage that the discharge of the lubricating oil using the electrochemical reaction cannot effect an accurate control of the discharge amount of the lubricating oil. Thus, the applicant has developed a driving apparatus whereby a piston ascends and descends by a driving motor to feed the lubricating oil as much as the volume of a cylinder.
It is an object of the present invention to solve the problems involved in the prior art, and to provide an automatic lubricating oil feeding method using a microcomputer which can control the display of the remaining operating time by icons on liquid crystal displays (LCDs) after an automatic lubricating oil feeding apparatus is installed to facilitate the identification of the elapse of the operating time, the operation of a motor for discharging a set amount of lubricating oil, and various displays such as the overload of the motor, shortage of a battery capacity, elapse of the lubricating oil replacement time, etc.
In order to achieve the above object, there is provided an automatic lubricating oil feeding method which comprises an initializing step of driving a lubricating oil discharge motor by one revolution when a power is initially supplied, a discharge amount setting step of setting a discharge amount of lubricating oil, an operating term setting step of selecting and setting the number of operating months, a drive control step of controlling an operation of the motor so that the lubricating oil is discharged according to the set number of operating months, and a display step of displaying an elapse of the set operating months and various factors such as a trouble, a shortage of a battery capacity, a replacement time of the lubricating oil, etc., by icons and indicator lamps.