Automotive air conditioner

Abstract

An automotive air conditioner comprises an offset blower for blowing an air, an evaporator is centrally disposed within a dashboard and receives the air from below, and a heater approximately horizontally disposed above the evaporator. The evaporator inclines downward along the direction of the air flow. A plurality of condensed water guide plates are provided under the evaporator so as to allow a condensed water smoothly flow on the surface of each guide plate and is discharged from the evaporator through a condensed water drain pipe.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 531,531 filed on Mar. 21, 2000; which is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 460,795 filed Dec. 15, 1999; which is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 038,902 filed Mar. 12, 1995; which is a divisional of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08 / 731,792 filed Oct. 18, 1996, now U.S. Pat. No. 5,755,107; which is a continuation-in-part of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 08 / 531,373 filed Sep. 21, 1995, now abandoned. This application claims the benefit of JP 7-281479 filed Oct. 30, 1995; JP 7-270148 filed Oct. 18, 1995; JP 7-235505 filed Sep. 13, 1995; JP 7-220903 filed Sep. 29, 1995; JP 6-240362 filed Oct. 4, 1994; and JP 6-227592 filed Sep. 22, 1994. The disclosures of the above applications are incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] The present invention relates to an automot...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0013] In view of the foregoing, it is an object of the present invention to provide a compact automotive air conditioner which enables mounting heat exchangers within a narrow vehicular space.

[0014] It is another object of the present invention to provide an automotive air conditioner which promotes drainage of condensation from an evaporator.

[0024] Preferably, the blower includes a scroll casing disposed approximately horizontally, and the scroll casing has a winding end portion connected to an air passage below the cooling heat exchanger. Further, an air guide plate is disposed on a downstream side of the cooling heat exchanger and extends from the scroll casing along the air flow direction. In this way, the blow air by the blower from the scroll casing is guided by the air guide plate, and the air blow speed distribution in the longitudinal direction of the automobile can be uniformed. Accordingly, the uniform heat exchange can be performed in each portion of the cooling heat exchanger, thus improving the heat exchanging efficiency and contributing to the uniformity of the air blow speed distribution of the air flowing into the heating heat exchanger.

[0031] Preferably, an air conditioning unit case for containing the cooling heat exchanger and the heating heat exchanger and for forming an air passage in which air generated by said blower passes is included, and a direction of the air passage is changed from a horizontal direction to a vertical direction toward the downstream side. Further, the cooling heat exchanger includes a plurality of tubes in which heating medium for being heat exchanged with air which is generated by said blower passes, and a corrugated fin connected between each pair of the adjacent tubes, and the corrugated fin has a fin flat surface and is provided with louvers for guiding air which is generated by said blower toward an inclination direction against the fin flat surface. The inclination direction being is so as to offset non-uniformity of air blow speed distribution of air due to the changing direction of the air passage in said air conditioning unit case.

[0037] According to these preferred modes, both of the cooling heat exchanger and the heating heat exchanger are located substantially horizontally and laminated vertically (one above the other), a vertical space for the heat exchanger portion can be greatly reduced. As a result, the vertical dimension of the air conditioning unit can be made sufficiently smaller than that of the conventional center-layout unit.

[0039] Further, because it is unnecessary to provide blowing ducts on the front and rear sides of the heat exchanger portion, the dimension in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle can also be reduced.

Problems solved by technology

This results in a decrease in the space within the dashboard P and thus makes it difficult to mount such a lateral layout air conditioner within the dashboard.

Consequently, those air ducts results in an increase in the overall length of the air conditioner.

This increase makes it difficult to mount a blow mode selector behind the heater core 22.

However, this arrangement brings about an increase in the height of the air conditioner.

Thus, such a center layout air conditioner is also difficult to mount with a lot of electric components in the dashboard.

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