Classifications

• • F—MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; LIGHTING; HEATING; WEAPONS; BLASTING
  • F25—REFRIGERATION OR COOLING; COMBINED HEATING AND REFRIGERATION SYSTEMS; HEAT PUMP SYSTEMS; MANUFACTURE OR STORAGE OF ICE; LIQUEFACTION SOLIDIFICATION OF GASES
  • F25C—PRODUCING, WORKING OR HANDLING ICE
  • F25C5/00—Working or handling ice
  • F25C5/20—Distributing ice
  • F25C5/22—Distributing ice particularly adapted for household refrigerators
• • F—MECHANICAL ENGINEERING; LIGHTING; HEATING; WEAPONS; BLASTING
  • F25—REFRIGERATION OR COOLING; COMBINED HEATING AND REFRIGERATION SYSTEMS; HEAT PUMP SYSTEMS; MANUFACTURE OR STORAGE OF ICE; LIQUEFACTION SOLIDIFICATION OF GASES
  • F25D—REFRIGERATORS; COLD ROOMS; ICE-BOXES; COOLING OR FREEZING APPARATUS NOT OTHERWISE PROVIDED FOR
  • F25D23/00—General constructional features
  • F25D23/12—Arrangements of compartments additional to cooling compartments; Combinations of refrigerators with other equipment, e.g. stove
  • F25D23/126—Water cooler

Definitions

• the present invention relates to an ice dispenser, in particular an ice dispenser of the type which can be used in a refrigeration device to temporarily store pieces of ice produced by an automatic ice maker of the refrigeration device and output at the request of a user.
• An ice dispenser known from US Pat. No. 4,176,527 A comprises a storage container for ice pieces, a slide rotatable in an output chamber of the storage container with a plurality of parallel, spaced apart blade-shaped fingers and an assembly with a second set of fingers optionally rotatable together with the slider or attachable to the storage bin to dispense either intact pieces of ice or ice crushed between the fingers of the pusher and the assembly at a dispensing port.
• the second set of fingers divides the dispensing chamber into upper and lower halves with the dispensing opening at the lower half.
• the lower half of the dispensing chamber is offset from the rest of the hopper by a divider.
• the ice In order to be able to be dispensed, the ice must be lifted over this partition by means of a screw conveyor.
• the slide and screw conveyor are arranged on an axis together with a stirring tool.
• the stirring tool is designed as a helix, so that pieces of ice are conveyed in the direction of the dispensing chamber by rotation of the stirring tool. If the agitator were rotated without allowing ice out of the dispensing chamber, the ice would jam in the dispensing chamber and block rotation. Rotation of the stirring tool without simultaneous dispensing of ice is therefore not possible. If no ice is removed for a long time, there is a risk that the pieces of ice in the storage container will freeze together and block the rotation, so that the ice dispenser must be removed from the refrigerator and defrosted to make it usable again.
• a very powerful drive motor for the stirring tool can be provided, and reservoir and stirring tool can be designed with high mechanical strength to allow breakage of the pieces of ice even after prolonged disuse.
• this approach is associated with considerable costs, and there is a risk that pieces of ice in the reservoir are undesirably crushed .
• the greater the proportion of small fragments on the ice of the reservoir the greater is its tendency to freeze, and the greater the force required to break the ice.
• US Pat. No. 4,846,381 proposes to solve the problem of freezing by mounting a stirring tool and a screw conveyor in the reservoir of an ice dispenser, separate from one another and each driven by its own motor.
• the stirring tool can be actuated to separate the ice pieces from each other, without at the same time is issued by the screw auger ice.
• a problem of this design is the large space requirement of the stirring tool and the separate screw conveyor and its drive motors, which makes this solution mainly for commercial, exclusively for ice making devices interesting.
• the object of the present invention is to provide an ice dispenser for the optional dispensing of chunks or crushed ice, which has a simple, cost-effective construction, which makes it particularly suitable for use in a household refrigerator.
• the object is achieved by providing at least one of the sets in an ice dispenser having a storage container for ice cubes, a slide movable over a discharge opening of the storage container in a predetermined path, a first set of fingers and a second set of fingers comprises two axially spaced fingers, and upon movement of the slider on the way a finger of the other set passes a gap between the two fingers of the one set, achieved by placing the assembly between a position partially clearing the dispensing opening concealed, and a position in which it releases the discharge opening, is movable.
• the partial occlusion prevents intact pieces of ice from passing through the dispensing opening, but allows the dispensing of crushed ice. This eliminates the need to provide an output chamber remote from the remainder of the reservoir through a bulkhead, and also aids that carry the ice over the bulkhead are not required.
• the fingers are expediently designed as a knife, with sharp cutting edges.
• a particularly simple construction is achieved by having a finger of the assembly in the form of a plate and in the dispensing opening partially concealing position an edge of the plate bridges the dispensing opening.
• the free cross-sectional area of the discharge opening is only slightly reduced by the partial occlusion and the crushed ice can be spent efficiently.
• the assembly comprises a plurality of parallel plates, ice pressed by the fingers of the slider between the plates can be dispensed without having to pass an obstructive bottleneck or edge beforehand.
• the movement of the slide is expediently a rotary movement.
• a stirrer may be mounted in the reservoir, the occasional operation of which prevents ice pieces stored in the reservoir from freezing together.
• a coupling is expediently arranged between the stirring tool and the slide in order to selectively transmit or not to transmit a drive torque exerted on the stirring tool to the slide.
• the slider rotates together with the agitating tool, and pieces of ice that reach the reach of the slider by the movement of the agitating tool or otherwise are conveyed from the slider to the dispensing opening. If the drive torque is not transmitted, the slider remains at rest, so that the ice is not conveyed to the discharge port. In this condition, it is possible to operate the stirring tool alone in the reservoir to dissolve ice pieces together without ice being dispensed at the same time.
• an ice dispenser is preferred in which the agitating tool and the slider have the same axis of rotation.
• Such a rotation can be driven in a simple manner when the assembly is frictionally coupled to the slider.
• the bridging position is a stable equilibrium position of the assembly.
• FIG. 1 is a schematic section through a household refrigerator, which is equipped with an ice dispenser according to the invention.
• Figure 2 is an enlarged axial section through the discharge chamber of the ice dispenser.
• FIG 3 shows a schematic section through the dispensing chamber perpendicular to the axis in a stirring mode or an operating mode for dispensing crushed ice
• Fig. 4 is an analogous to Fig. 3 section in an operating mode for dispensing pieces of ice.
• the refrigerating appliance shown in a schematic section in FIG. 1 has a heat-insulating body 1 and a door 2 which delimit an interior space 3.
• the interior 3 is maintained at a temperature below 0 9 C by an evaporator, which is housed in an upper part of the body 1 divided evaporator chamber 4.
• An automatic ice maker 5 is arranged in the immediate vicinity of the evaporator chamber 4 in the interior 3, so that it can preferably be acted upon by cold air from the evaporator chamber 4.
• the ice maker 5 comprises in a known manner, not shown in detail in the figure, a plurality of mold containers, means for automatically dosing water into the mold containers, and means for automatically ejecting the finished ice cubes from the mold containers.
• a collecting container 6 of an ice dispenser is arranged, which receives the ejected pieces of ice.
• the collecting container 6 extends over a large part of the depth of the inner space 3.
• an electric motor for driving a stirring rod 8 extending in the longitudinal direction of the collecting container 6 is accommodated.
• Rotary blades 9 of a grinder are coupled to an end 7 of the stirring rod 8 facing away from the niche in a manner which will be described in more detail below.
• the knives 9 are housed in a cylindrical dispensing chamber 10 which is open to the collecting container 6 and extends it along the axis of rotation of the stirring rod 8.
• an electromagnet 1 1 is arranged, whose function will also be explained later.
• the stirring rod 8 is a metal rod zigzag-shaped in a plane parallel to the axis. Because of its planar shape, it practices, unlike a helix or a
• the stirring rod 8 can be rotated from time to time by the motor, without thereby ice pieces are pressed into the discharge chamber 10 and can clog them.
• the output chamber 10 has substantially the shape of a horizontal cylinder, on the lateral surface of a after bottom open dispensing opening 12 is formed.
• This discharge opening 12 is located opposite a passage 13 shown in FIG. 1, which extends through an insulating material layer of the door 2 and opens into a niche 14 open towards the outside of the door 2.
• a flap 15 keeps the passage 13 closed unless the dispenser is in operation to deliver ice through the dispensing opening 12 and the passage 13 to a container placed in the recess 14.
• a water tank 16 is embedded on the rear wall of the niche 14 in the insulating material of the door 2.
• the water tank 16 is on the one hand as the icemaker 5 via a supply line 17 and a check valve 18 connected to the drinking water network and on the other hand to a tap 19 in the niche 14.
• the stirring rod 8 at its end facing away from the niche 7, merges integrally into a cylindrical shaft 20 which extends through the dispensing chamber 10.
• a distal end portion 21 of the shaft 20 has a non-circular, for example, square cross-sectional shape.
• a sleeve 22, which is mounted so as to be easily rotatable on the shaft 20, carries a plurality of cutting disks 23, each of which, as can be seen in FIG. 3, carries four blades 9 protruding radially from a round core region 24 and acting as a slide for the dispensing chamber 10 Ice pieces work.
• sharp-edged plates 26 In the spaces between each two of the cutter discs 23 engage sharp-edged plates 26 of about a quarter-circle shape. Mutually facing edges of the knives 9 and the plates 26 are serrated to selectively produce a high pressure to break up the pieces of ice can.
• the mutually parallel plates 26 are connected at its outer periphery by two transverse struts 25, 27 rigidly connected to an assembly.
• the two transverse struts 25, 27 bear against the wall of the dispensing chamber 10 on either side of the dispensing opening 12, while the plates 26 bridge the dispensing opening 12.
• the distance between the parallel plates 26 is smaller than the dimensions of the pieces of ice produced by the icemaker 5, so that pieces of ice that are in the dispensing chamber 10 can not pass intact between the plates 26 through the dispensing opening 12.
• the shaft 20 adjacent edge portions of the plates 26 are each clamped by elastic buffer rings 29 between two cutter discs 23, so that the plates 26 tend to follow a rotation of the blades 9 in the counterclockwise direction, if not, as shown in Fig. 3, by a voltage applied to one of the cross braces 25, 27 latch 28 are prevented from it.
• the sleeve 22 is rotatably mounted in a bearing opening 30 formed in the end wall of the dispensing chamber 10 facing the door 2.
• a coupling body 31 is mounted on the non-circular end portion 21 of the shaft 20 and by means of (not shown in Fig. 2) electromagnet 1 1 between the position shown in Fig. 2, in which the knife 9 carrying sleeve 22 and the shaft 20th are freely rotatable against each other, slidable in a coupling position, in which coupling claws 32 of the sleeve 22 engage in recesses 33 of the coupling body 31, whereby a positive and a positive connection between the shaft 20 and the sleeve 22 is produced.
• the operation of the ice dispenser is as follows: As long as, as shown in Fig. 2, the shaft 20 and the sleeve 22 are not coupled to each other, the motor is operated in the niche 7 at predetermined time intervals for a short time to break free in the collecting container 6 ice pieces and keep moving. In the perspective of FIG. 3, the motor rotates preferably in the counterclockwise direction. A frictional torque transmitted via the bearing from the shaft 20 to the sleeve 22 does not cause the blades 9 to rotate since they are braked by the plates 26 clamped to the buffer rings 29 and blocked by the latch 28. No ice is crushed, and ice pieces located in the discharge chamber 10 do not reach the discharge opening 12 because they can not pass the plates 26.
• the bar 28 it is possible to allow the bar 28 to be withdrawn during the dispensing of ice pieces, so that the plates 26 make the same rotation as the knives 9. In this case, however, it is difficult to meter the ice pieces, since the Briefis dispensing mode can be stopped again when the plates 26 have reached the position shown in Fig. 3 again and locked in this by the bolt 28.
• the bolt 28 is therefore withdrawn only as long as necessary, so that the leading in the direction of rotation of the two transverse struts 27, the bolt 28 can pass through the transition to the Indeedis- output mode. Subsequently, when the bolt 28 engages again in the discharge chamber 10, it blocks, as shown in Fig.

Landscapes

• Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Mechanical Engineering (AREA)
• Thermal Sciences (AREA)
• General Engineering & Computer Science (AREA)
• Physics & Mathematics (AREA)
• Devices For Dispensing Beverages (AREA)
• Devices That Are Associated With Refrigeration Equipment (AREA)
• Confectionery (AREA)
• Beverage Vending Machines With Cups, And Gas Or Electricity Vending Machines (AREA)
• Production, Working, Storing, Or Distribution Of Ice (AREA)
• Containers And Packaging Bodies Having A Special Means To Remove Contents (AREA)
• Filling Or Emptying Of Bunkers, Hoppers, And Tanks (AREA)
• Air Bags (AREA)
• Preparing Plates And Mask In Photomechanical Process (AREA)

Applications Claiming Priority (2)

Publications (1)

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Country Status (8)

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• 2006
  • 2006-09-07 DE DE202006013709U patent/DE202006013709U1/de not_active Expired - Lifetime
  • 2006-12-22 DE DE102006061094A patent/DE102006061094A1/de not_active Withdrawn
  • 2006-12-22 DE DE202006020971U patent/DE202006020971U1/de not_active Expired - Lifetime
• 2007
  • 2007-08-08 CN CNA2007800328692A patent/CN101512260A/zh active Pending
  • 2007-08-08 US US12/310,758 patent/US20090320511A1/en not_active Abandoned
  • 2007-08-08 WO PCT/EP2007/058232 patent/WO2008028741A2/de active Application Filing
  • 2007-08-08 RU RU2009109322/21A patent/RU2430313C2/ru not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 2007-08-08 EP EP07819928A patent/EP2064500A2/de not_active Ceased
  • 2007-08-22 DE DE502007002699T patent/DE502007002699D1/de active Active
  • 2007-08-22 EP EP07802795A patent/EP2064498B1/de not_active Not-in-force
  • 2007-08-22 US US12/310,759 patent/US8240519B2/en not_active Expired - Fee Related
  • 2007-08-22 ES ES07802795T patent/ES2338938T3/es active Active
  • 2007-08-22 RU RU2009109831/21A patent/RU2411426C2/ru not_active IP Right Cessation
  • 2007-08-22 AT AT07802795T patent/ATE456011T1/de active
  • 2007-08-22 CN CN2007800331708A patent/CN101512262B/zh not_active Expired - Fee Related

Non-Patent Citations (1)

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