SMALL-SIZED SENSOR

• US 20030095082A1
• Filed: 03/16/2000
• Published: 05/22/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 07/17/1998
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Omron Corporation
• Original Assignee: Omron Corporation
• Inventors: IMAI, KIYOSHI, KAMEI, TAKASHI
• Granted Patent: US 6,674,416 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 345/39
• CPC Class Codes: G01D 7/00 Indicating measured values
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/208 Input by product or record sensing, e.g. weighing or scanner processing

Abstract

A photoelectric sensor 11 has a level display unit (28). The level display unit (28) is constituted by arranging a plurality of 7-segment indicators (33). The 7-segment indicators (33) are partially constituted of red LED segments (33b) and partially constituted of red/green two-color LED segments (33a). For a digital display, all of the segments are illuminated in red to display numerals. For a graph display, the red/green two-color LED segments are illuminated in green to present a bar graph.

Claims

1. A sensor device comprising:

a first face;

a display unit (28) placed on said first face and capable of selectively displaying a plurality of numerals and a graph, the plurality of numerals being arranged in a first direction for presenting a numerical display, and axial direction of the graph being arranged in said first direction for presenting a graph display; and

a selector (30, 31) for selecting said display located so as not to overlap said display unit (28) on said first face, wherein

only said display unit (28) is substantially placed on an arbitrary line on said first face passing through said display unit orthogonally to said first direction.

2. The sensor device according to claim 1 constituted of a plurality of faces including said first face that cross each other, wherein

said first face has a first dimension in a second direction orthogonal to said first direction, and

said first dimension is the minimum dimension among dimensions of the plurality of faces constituting said sensor device.

3. The sensor device according to claim 1, wherein

display of said plurality of numerals and display of said graph are presented on said display unit (28) in different colors respectively.

4. The sensor device according to claim 3, wherein

said display unit (28) includes a display segment (33) used for presenting the numerical display and a display segment (33) used for presenting the graph display,

said display segment (33) used for presenting the graph display is selected from the display segment (33) used for presenting the numerical display and has a display color which can be changed, and

the display color of said display segment (33) is selected to present the numerical display and the graph display in different display colors respectively.

5. The sensor device according to any of claims 1 to 4, further comprising:

feature amount acquiring means (13, 23) for acquiring a feature amount which represents a physical state of an object to be sensed;

threshold setting means (29) for setting a threshold so as to determine the feature amount; and

display mode selecting means (31), wherein

said display mode includes a mode of displaying the feature amount by numerals and/or a mode of displaying the threshold by numerals and a mode of displaying the feature amount by the graph.

6. The sensor device according to claim 5, wherein

said display unit (28) includes a plurality of display segments (33) having a display color which can be changed, and

when said feature amount is displayed by the graph, a part of said display segments (33) presents a display color different from a display color of the graph in order to indicate position of the threshold in the graph by position of the part of the display segments (33).

7. The sensor device according to claim 5, wherein

a range of value of said feature amount or said threshold displayed by the numerals is different from a range of value of said feature amount displayed by the graph.

8. A sensor device comprising:

feature amount acquiring means (13, 23) for acquiring a feature amount which represents a physical state of an object to be sensed;

threshold setting means (29) for setting a threshold so as to determine the feature amount;

a display unit (28) including a plurality of display segments (33) to present a numerical display; and

display mode selecting means for selecting one of a numerical display mode and a graph display mode, wherein

at least a part of the display segments (33) used for presenting the numerical display has a display color which can be changed,

the feature amount or the threshold is presented by the numerical display in one display color in the numerical display mode, and

in the graph display mode, the feature amount is displayed by a graph using display segments (33) selected from the display segments (33) used for presenting the numerical display, and a part of the display segments (33) selected from the display segments (33) used for presenting the numerical display presents a display color different from a display color of the graph in order to indicate position of the threshold in the graph by position of the part of the display segments (33).

9. A display unit (28) comprising a plurality of display segments (33) for displaying a plurality of numerals and using a display segment (33) selected from the display segments (33) for displaying the numerals to display a graph, wherein

said display segment (33) used for displaying the graph has a display color which can be changed, and

the display color of said display segment (33) is selected so as to display the numerals and the graph respectively in different display colors.