Patent ID: 7975401

Claim:
An appliance for drying clothing articles, the appliance comprising: a drum for receiving the clothing articles; a motor for rotating the drum about an axis; a heater for supplying heated air to the drum during a drying cycle; a moisture sensor for providing on an output thereof a moisture signal indicative of the moisture content of the clothing articles; an outlet temperature sensing thermistor for sensing temperature of air exiting from the drum and generating a drum output temperature signal at an output for the sensing thermistor; a load parameter generating module being coupled to the output of the outlet temperature sensing thermistor for receiving the output temperature signal, the load parameter generating module measuring a slope of the output temperature signal corresponding to rise of the outlet temperature of air exiting from the drum during an initial time period of operation of the dryer, the load parameter generating module comparing the slope with a value indicative of a predetermined slope for rise of the outlet temperature during the initial period, the load parameter generating module having an output, and the load parameter generating module generating and outputting to its output one of a small load input parameter and a large load input parameter, the small load input parameter being generated when the load parameter generating module determines that the slope is greater than the value, and the large load input parameter being generated when the load parameter generating module determines that the slope is less than the value; and, a processor coupled to the moisture sensor output and the load parameter generating module output for estimating the stop time of the dry cycle as the dry cycle is executed based on the moisture signal representative of the moisture content of the clothing articles and a selected target signal wherein the processor selects the selected target signal based on at least one of a small load input parameter and a large load input parameter received from the load parameter generating module output.