CN114857815A

CN114857815A - Ice making apparatus

Info

Publication number: CN114857815A
Application number: CN202210475417.8A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 薛建军; 张延庆; 杜启海; 崔船
Original assignee: Qingdao Haier Refrigerator Co Ltd; Haier Smart Home Co Ltd
Current assignee: Qingdao Haier Refrigerator Co Ltd; Haier Smart Home Co Ltd
Priority date: 2019-04-26
Filing date: 2019-04-26
Publication date: 2022-08-05
Anticipated expiration: 2039-04-26
Also published as: CN114857815B; CN111854251A; CN114857814B; CN114857814A; CN111854251B

Abstract

The invention discloses ice preparation equipment, which comprises an ice making box with an open top and an ice pushing mechanism for pushing out ice cubes in the ice making box.

Description

Ice making apparatus

Technical Field

The invention relates to the field of ice making, in particular to ice making equipment.

Background

The refrigerator is a necessary electrical appliance for family life, besides storing food, the refrigerator can also provide ice blocks required by daily life for users, the ice blocks prepared in the refrigerator are usually formed by adopting ice making cells, however, in the prior art, the ice blocks prepared by adopting the ice making cells are often poor in transparency, and the main reason for generating opacity is as follows: when water is frozen, air dissolved in the water is released to form air bubbles which are wrapped by the ice and cannot be discharged, and when the air bubbles reach a certain amount, the transparency of the formed ice blocks is greatly reduced.

In view of the above, there is a need to provide an improved solution to the above problems.

Disclosure of Invention

The present invention is intended to solve at least one of the technical problems of the prior art, and to achieve the above object, the present invention provides an ice making apparatus, which is specifically designed as follows.

An ice making apparatus, the ice making box includes a box body formed with a receiving cavity; the ice pushing mechanism comprises a top disc arranged in the accommodating cavity and a push rod which is connected with the top disc and penetrates through the bottom of the ice making box to drive the top disc to rotate;

the top disc is provided with a back surface close to one side of the bottom wall of the box body and a top surface far away from one side of the bottom wall of the box body, a back cavity is formed on the back surface, a gap is formed between the periphery of the top disc and the inner wall of the containing cavity, and the top space of the top disc is communicated to the back cavity through the gap.

Furthermore, the back cavity is provided with a plurality of, and a plurality of rings of being are evenly arranged the back of top dish.

Further, the width dimension of the gap is not more than 3 mm.

Further, the top surface of the top plate is planar, and the cross section of the top plate is circular.

Further, the push rod is fixedly connected with the top plate, and the ice pushing mechanism is further provided with a rod-shaped handle which is arranged at one end of the push rod, far away from the top plate.

Furthermore, the outside of the bottom wall of the ice making box is upwards recessed to form a yielding area for the handle to rotate, and the handle is arranged in the yielding area and does not exceed the plane of the outer surface of the bottom wall of the ice making box outwards.

Further, the push rod can push the top tray along the height direction of the ice making box, and the top tray has an initial state of moving to the bottom of the containing cavity and a jacking state of moving upwards from the initial state to push ice blocks in the containing cavity.

Furthermore, a limiting part used for fixing the handle to lock the top disc in the initial state is further arranged in the position yielding area.

Furthermore, the limiting part is a boss formed in the relief area.

Further, a through hole for the push rod to pass through is formed at the bottom of the ice making box; the ice making apparatus further has a sealing member disposed between the push rod and the through hole; the sealing element is sleeved on the push rod, one side of the sealing element is abutted to the sealing ring of the top disc, and the box body is formed with an annular boss at the edge of the through hole towards the direction in the accommodating cavity in a protruding mode.

The invention has the beneficial effects that: based on the specific structure of the ice preparation equipment, in the ice making process, the liquid water in the ice making box is gradually solidified from top to bottom, so that air released from the liquid water can be gradually collected towards the bottom of the accommodating cavity and cannot be wrapped by ice blocks, and the ice blocks can be discharged before the liquid water in the ice making box is completely solidified, so that the ice blocks with higher transparency can be obtained.

Drawings

In order to more clearly illustrate the embodiments of the present invention or the technical solutions in the prior art, the drawings used in the description of the embodiments or the prior art will be briefly described below, it is obvious that the drawings in the following description are only embodiments of the present invention, and for those skilled in the art, other drawings can be obtained according to the provided drawings without creative efforts.

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a first angle of ice making apparatus according to the present invention;

FIG. 2 is a schematic view of a second angle of the ice making apparatus of the present invention;

FIG. 3 is a schematic longitudinal cross-sectional view of a top plate of the ice making apparatus in an initial state;

FIG. 4 is an enlarged view of a portion a of FIG. 3;

FIG. 5 is a schematic longitudinal cross-sectional view of a top plate of the ice making apparatus in a raised condition;

FIG. 6 is an enlarged view of portion b of FIG. 5;

FIG. 7 is a schematic structural view of the box body before assembly with the ice pusher mechanism;

fig. 8 is a schematic structural view of the ice pushing mechanism.

Detailed Description

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention will be clearly and completely described below with reference to the drawings in the embodiments of the present invention, and it is obvious that the described embodiments are only a part of the embodiments of the present invention, and not all of the embodiments. All other embodiments, which can be obtained by a person skilled in the art without making any creative effort based on the embodiments in the present invention, belong to the protection scope of the present invention.

Referring to fig. 1, 3 and 7, the ice making apparatus according to the present invention includes an ice box 1 having an open top, and an ice pushing mechanism 2 for pushing out ice cubes in the ice box 1. The ice making box 1 comprises a box body 11 with a containing cavity 10 and a heat insulation layer 12 coated outside the box body 11; the ice pushing mechanism 2 includes a top tray 21 disposed in the accommodating cavity 10 and a push rod 22 connected to the top tray 21 and penetrating the bottom of the ice making housing 1 to push the top tray 21 along the height direction of the ice making housing 1, and a through hole 110 is formed at the bottom of the ice making housing 1 for the push rod 22 to pass through.

In the present invention, the top plate 21 has an initial state moved to the bottom of the receiving chamber 10 and a lifted state moved upward from the initial state to push the ice cubes in the receiving chamber 10. Referring to fig. 3, there is shown a schematic view of the top plate 21 in an initial state; referring to fig. 5, a schematic view of the top plate 21 in a raised state is shown. Wherein the ice making apparatus further has a sealing member for forming a seal against the through-hole 110 when the top plate 21 is in an initial state; thus, when the top plate 21 is in the initial state, the liquid water in the receiving cavity 10 is prevented from leaking from the through hole 110.

The process of ice making by adopting the transparent ice making mechanism comprises the following steps: locking the top plate 21 in an initial state, and injecting liquid water into the accommodating cavity 10; then the ice making box containing liquid water is placed in low-temperature places such as a freezing chamber and the like to realize the solidification of the liquid water; finally, the pushing rod 22 pushes up the top plate 21 to push the ice blocks on the top of the top plate 21 out of the containing cavity 10.

The invention has the beneficial effects that: based on the specific structure of the ice preparation equipment, due to the arrangement of the heat insulation layer 12, in the ice making process, the cold energy can only be transferred from the open side of the ice making box 1 to the liquid water, so that the liquid water in the ice making box 1 is gradually solidified and frozen from top to bottom, and correspondingly, the air released when the liquid water is solidified can gradually converge towards the bottom of the accommodating cavity 10 and cannot be wrapped by the ice blocks above; and then, the ice cubes with high transparency can be obtained by discharging the ice cubes before the liquid water in the ice making box 1 is completely solidified. In addition, even if the liquid water in the containing cavity 10 is completely solidified into ice, the prepared ice blocks only contain air bubbles in a small area range at the bottom, and the integral transparency of the ice blocks is greatly improved compared with the transparency of the ice blocks prepared by the traditional ice making grids.

The top tray 210 of the present invention has a back surface on the side close to the bottom wall of the box body 11 and a top surface on the side far from the bottom wall of the box body 11. As a preferred embodiment of the present invention, referring to fig. 4 and 8, a back cavity 210 is formed on the back surface of the top plate 21, and when the top plate 21 is in the initial state, a gap (not shown) is formed between the periphery of the top plate 21 and the inner wall of the accommodating cavity 10, and the top space of the top plate 21 is communicated to the back cavity 210 through the gap. Based on the structure, in the ice making process, when the liquid water inside the receiving cavity 10 is completely solidified, the air released from the liquid water enters the back cavity 210 through the gap before the liquid water is completely solidified. In this way, even if all the liquid water in the storage chamber 10 is frozen into ice, all the ice cubes pushed out by the ice pushing mechanism at the top of the top plate 21 can be kept transparent.

In the present invention, the width dimension of the gap between the periphery of the top plate 21 and the inner wall of the housing chamber 10 is preferably not more than 3mm, and may be set to 1.5mm, for example. Because the width of the gap is small, when the liquid water in the containing cavity 10 is completely solidified into solid ice, the ice in the gap has a smaller thickness, so that when the ice pushing mechanism 2 is used for pushing out ice blocks, the ice in the gap is more easily broken, and the ice blocks on the top of the top plate 21 can be smoothly separated from the containing cavity 10.

As a preferred embodiment of the present invention, as shown in fig. 3 and 5, the top surface of the top plate 21 is planar. Since the top surface of the top plate 21 is planar, when the liquid water inside the receiving chamber 10 is completely solidified into solid ice, the ice cubes on the top of the top plate 21 have a small adhesive force with the top plate 21, thereby facilitating the separation between the ice cubes and the top plate 21.

Referring to fig. 2 and 7, the ice pushing mechanism 2 of the present invention further includes a rod-shaped handle 23 rotatably disposed about the push rod 22, wherein the handle 23 is disposed vertically with respect to the push rod 22 and has a middle portion connected to an end of the push rod 22 away from the top plate 21. As shown in fig. 2, an abdicating area 120 for the handle 23 to rotate and move along the height direction of the ice making box 1 is formed in the outer side of the bottom wall of the ice making box 1 in an upward concave manner, and a limiting portion for fixing the handle 23 to lock the top tray 21 in the initial state is further provided in the abdicating area 120.

Specifically, in the present embodiment, the position-limiting portion is a boss 121 formed in the receding area 120. Referring to fig. 2, in the abdicating area 120, the handle 23 is rotatably disposed by using the push rod 22 as a rotating shaft, and when the handle 23 rotates to an end surface of the abutting boss 121 far away from one side of the accommodating cavity 10, an interference fit relationship is formed between the handle 23 and the boss 121, so as to lock the top plate in the accommodating cavity 10 at an initial position; when the handle 23 is rotated to be separated from the boss 121, the user can push the push rod 22 through the handle 23 to move the top plate 21 in the receiving cavity 10, so that the top plate 21 is switched between the initial state and the jacking state.

In the present embodiment, referring to fig. 2, the handle 23 does not extend beyond the plane of the outer surface of the bottom wall of the ice making housing 1 when the top tray 21 is in the initial state. In the specific implementation process, the outer surface of the bottom wall of the ice making box 1 is generally planar, and because the handle 23 does not exceed the plane of the outer surface of the bottom wall of the ice making box 1, the ice making box 1 can be stably placed on a carrying platform in low-temperature places such as a refrigeration compartment and the like during ice making.

With reference to fig. 4, 6, 7, and 8, the sealing element in this embodiment is a sealing ring 24 sleeved on the push rod 22 and having one side abutting against the top disc 21, the box body 11 is formed with an annular boss 112 protruding from the edge of the through hole 110 toward the inner direction of the receiving cavity 10, and when the top disc 21 is in the initial state, the sealing ring 24 tightly abuts against the annular boss 112 to seal the through hole 110.

In this embodiment, as shown in fig. 3, the thermal insulation layer 12 is made of foam or other materials with better thermal insulation effect. In other embodiments of the present invention, the thermal insulation layer 12 may also be a coating layer with a vacuum region formed therein, and the thermal insulation layer 12 formed by the coating layer has a relatively poor thermal conductivity due to the vacuum region.

As further shown in fig. 7, the cartridge body 11 in this embodiment is cylindrical. In this embodiment, when the handle 23 is rotated, the top plate 23 can be synchronously rotated in the box body 11. It will of course be appreciated that in other embodiments of the invention, the handle 23 may also be arranged to rotate directly relative to the push rod 22, i.e. when the handle 23 is rotated, the push rod 22 and the top disk do not rotate.

Furthermore, the shape of the receiving cavity 10 in the present invention is an inverted frustum shape, that is, the cross-sectional area of the receiving cavity 10 gradually decreases from the top of the receiving cavity 10 to the bottom thereof, so that the ice cubes inside the receiving cavity 10 can be more easily pushed out by the ice pushing mechanism 2.

It should be understood that although the present description refers to embodiments, not every embodiment contains only a single technical solution, and such description is for clarity only, and those skilled in the art should make the description as a whole, and the technical solutions in the embodiments can also be combined appropriately to form other embodiments understood by those skilled in the art.

The above-listed detailed description is only a specific description of a possible embodiment of the present invention, and they are not intended to limit the scope of the present invention, and equivalent embodiments or modifications made without departing from the technical spirit of the present invention should be included in the scope of the present invention.

Claims

1. The ice making equipment comprises an ice making box with an open top and an ice pushing mechanism, and is characterized in that the ice making box comprises a box body with a containing cavity; the ice pushing mechanism comprises a top disc arranged in the accommodating cavity and a push rod which is connected with the top disc and penetrates through the bottom of the ice making box to drive the top disc to rotate;

2. An ice making apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the back cavity is provided in a plurality, arranged uniformly in a ring shape, on the back of the top plate.

3. An ice making apparatus as claimed in claim 2, wherein the gap has a width dimension of no more than 3 mm.

4. An ice making apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the top plate is planar and the top plate is circular in cross-section.

5. An ice making apparatus as claimed in claim 1, wherein the push rod is fixedly connected to the top plate, and the ice pushing mechanism further comprises a rod-like handle disposed on the push rod at an end remote from the top plate.

6. An ice making apparatus as claimed in claim 5, wherein the outer side of the bottom wall of the ice making box is recessed upwards to form a relief area for the handle to rotate, the handle is disposed in the relief area and does not go out beyond the plane of the outer surface of the bottom wall of the ice making box.

7. An ice making apparatus according to claim 6, wherein the push lever pushes the top tray in a height direction of the ice making housing, the top tray having an initial state moved to a bottom of the housing chamber and a lifted state moved upward from the initial state to push the ice pieces in the housing chamber.

8. An ice making apparatus as claimed in claim 7, wherein said setback region further has a stopper therein for fixing said handle to lock said top plate in said initial state.

9. An ice making apparatus as claimed in claim 8, wherein said limiting portion is a boss formed in said relief area.

10. An ice making apparatus according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein a through hole through which a push rod passes is formed at a bottom of the ice making housing; the ice making apparatus further has a sealing member disposed between the push rod and the through hole; the sealing element is sleeved on the push rod, one side of the sealing element is abutted to the sealing ring of the top disc, and the box body is formed with an annular boss at the edge of the through hole towards the direction in the accommodating cavity in a protruding mode.