GB896831A - Improvements in and relating to the vending of hot food - Google Patents

Abstract

896,831. Heating food by electric infra-red lamps. NEWKIRK, F., and KOWALSKEY, R. June 16, 1959, No. 20683/59. Class 39(3) [Also in Group XVIII] A food-vending machine comprises a magazine in the form of a rotatable drum for storing a plurality of food packages, a dispensing station coin-controlled means for initiating delivery of a single package from the magazine to the dispensing station, and heating means located between the magazine and dispensing station for warming the contents of the package. As shown in Fig. 5 the machine comprises a series of magazines D<SP>1</SP> . . . D<SP>9</SP> disposed in the upper insulated compartment 25 of a cabinet 1, the compartment being maintained at a low temperature by a refrigerator coil and fan in the compartment. The goods to be dispensed are arranged in radial compartments of the drums and are discharged when, in the rotation of the drums, a charged compartment comes over a discharge shoot. The magazines D<SP>1</SP> . . . D<SP>5</SP> are described as containing sandwiches enclosed in sealed envelopes and arranged to be discharged down a shoot 64 to an infra-red heating oven 0 located in a lower compartment 26 and thence to delivery position behind a door 13 in the front of the cabinet. The oven O, Fig. 8, is a rectangular structure having counterweighted flaps 104, 105 and 114, 115 at its inlet and outlet openings. Vertical rods 122 extending between these openings form a guide for the downward passage of a sandwich from the shoot 64, and fingers 128 on a horizontal rotatably-mounted shaft 124 provide for the support of the sandwich in the oven. Infra-red radiators or tubes are mounted on the inner faces of the end walls of the oven, together with arcuate reflectors, and a further radiator or tube with a reflector, is mounted on the bottom wall. A motor-driven blower 119 on the outside of the oven induces a flow of air through openings 118, 118<SP>1</SP> in the side walls of the oven. Operation of the machine is initiated by setting a selector switch to select the particular item desired and inserting the proper number of coins in the insertion slot so as to close a switch resulting in the energization of the selector switch and a solenoid for actuating the magazine containing the selected item. Assuming the selection to be made from packages in one of the drums D<SP>1</SP> . . . D<SP>5</SP> the selected package drops down the shoot 64 closing a control switch 65 in its passage, and is discharged through the counterweighted flaps 104, 105, Fig. 8, into the oven. Here it drops on to the fingers 128, then somewhat upwardly inclined and by its weight rocks them to horizontal position; the shaft 124 carrying the fingers is then latched in this position and at the same time actuates a switch 147 to energize a circuit including a motor driving a timer switch, the infra-red tubes and blower 119. The sandwich will then be heated by the tubes for the time set by the pointer of the timer switch and at the, end of this time the switch completes a circuit through a solenoid 129 whereby a trigger arm 136 releases a counterweighted bar 141 and so releases the shaft 124 and permits the fingers 128 to rock under the weight of the sandwich and to discharge the latter through the flaps 114, 115 to the access door 13. Instead of allowing the machine to go through a full cycle which results in a fullytoasted sandwich, the operator can actuate a manual switch to energize the solenoid 129 at an earlier stage in order to obtain a sandwich which is relatively cold, warm or only partially toasted. Three signal lights which are successively illuminated by a wiper arm associated with the timer switch and movable over three contact segments are arranged respectively to indicate that the sandwich is passing through the relatively cold, warm and toasting periods. Thermostats are provided in the compartment 25 and oven O for controlling the temperature in these zones.