Electric vacuum cleaner with two dust collecting sections and a switching mechanism

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EP 1 913 857 A3

(12)	EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION

(88)	Date of publication A3:
	21.10.2009 Bulletin 2009/43

(43)	Date of publication A2:
	23.04.2008 Bulletin 2008/17

(21)	Application number: 07019140.8

(22)	Date of filing: 28.09.2007

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International Patent Classification (IPC):

A47L 9/20^(2006.01)

A47L 9/10^(2006.01)

(84)	Designated Contracting States:
	AT BE BG CH CY CZ DE DK EE ES FI FR GB GR HU IE IS IT LI LT LU LV MC MT NL PL PT RO SE SI SK TR
	Designated Extension States:
	AL BA HR MK RS

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Priority:

18.10.2006 JP 2006283949

(71)	Applicants:
	Kabushiki Kaisha Toshiba Minato-ku, Tokyo 105-8001 (JP) Toshiba Consumer Marketing Corporation Tokyo 101-0021 (JP) Toshiba Ha Products Co., Ltd. Ibaraki-shi Osaka 567-0013 (JP)

(72)	Inventor:
	Morishita, Atsushi Ibaraki-shi Osaka 567-0013 (JP)

(74)	Representative: Kramer - Barske - Schmidtchen
	European Patent Attorneys Landsberger Strasse 300 80687 München 80687 München (DE)

(54)	Electric vacuum cleaner with two dust collecting sections and a switching mechanism

(57) Dust is trapped in a main dust collecting chamber (21) by selecting a cleaning state through a switching mechanism (58) where a switching valve (48) provides communication between the main dust collecting chamber (21) and the upstream side of an electric blower (5) while an outside air incoming valve (52) is closed to cut off the communication with outside air. The dust trapped in the main dust collecting chamber (21) can be transferred to the auxiliary dust collecting chamber (22) by selecting a dust transfer state through the switching mechanism (58) where the switching valve (48) provides communication between the auxiliary dust collecting chamber (22) and the upstream side of the electric blower (5) while the opening-closing valve (41) provides communication between the main dust collecting chamber (21) and the auxiliary dust collecting chamber (22), and the outside air incoming valve (52) is opened to introduce outside air into the main dust collecting chamber (21), which can limit the reduction in suction power over time.

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