Patent ID: 9351386
Filing Date: 2016-05-24
CPC Classification: H01T,H05F

Claim Text:
1. An ionizer comprising a discharge unit that has 2n discharge needles (n: natural number), each of which releases positive or negative ions according to a polarity of an applied direct-current voltage, the discharge needles being classified into a first group and a second group in units of n discharge needles; a polarity output unit that is selectively capable of outputting, to the discharge unit, any one of a first polarity pattern by which a positive direct-current voltage is applied to the discharge needles in the first group and a negative direct-current voltage is applied to the discharge needles in the second group at the same time and a second polarity pattern by which a negative direct-current voltage is applied to the discharge needles in the first group and a positive direct-current voltage is applied to the discharge needles in the second group at the same time; a polarity control unit that controls a polarity pattern to be output from the polarity output unit; and a power supply unit, connected to the polarity output unit, that is capable of turning on and off electric power supply to the polarity output unit; wherein the polarity control unit has a flag storage unit that stores any one of a flag assigned to the first polarity pattern and a flag assigned to the second polarity pattern, and a flag update unit that rewrites one flag stored in the flag storage unit to another flag when the power supply unit is turned on from an off state or is turned off from an on state, and wherein the polarity control unit outputs a command signal to the polarity output unit, the command signal commanding a polarity pattern corresponding to a flag (i) stored in the flag storage unit to be output from the polarity output unit.