JP2000200388A - Automatic vending machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To add a suction port switching means to a wind duct of an automatic vending machine in order to easily switch the cooling and heating of commodities to the zone cooling and heating from an entire intra-cabinet area in accordance with the sales modes, the sales circulation situations, etc. SOLUTION: A cabinet 1 includes a commodity store rack where the commodities are vertically arrayed and carried out in sequence from the lowest commodity and a cooling/heating unit 7 which circulates the cooling or heating air in the cabinet according to the sales modes to cool or heat the commodities. The unit 7 is placed at the bottom part of the cabinet and a wind duct 8 having its upper end suction port 8a opening toward an upper part of the cabinet is placed continuous to the unit 7. In such a constitution of an automatic vending machine, an air suction port 8b is prepared at the middle height position of the duct 8 for the zone cooling and heating. Then a damper 10 which is opened and closed by an open/close lever 11 is placed at the port 8b. Thus, the cooling and heating circulation routes can be easily switched in the cabinet to select the zone cooling and heating by opening or closing the damper 10.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for keeping or cooling beverage products in cans and bottles in a machine.
Or, it relates to a vending machine to be sold as a cold product.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art First, as an example of a vending machine to which the present invention is applied, FIG. 4 shows a configuration of a vending machine equipped with a serpentine type product storage rack. In the figure, 1 is a cabinet of a vending machine serving as a heat insulating casing, 2 is a front outer door, 2a is a product outlet, 3 is a heat insulating inner door, 4 is a product 5
Serpentine-type product storage racks, which are arranged side by side, and are transported downward from the lowest order according to the sales order.
Is a merchandise unloading shooter which is arranged below the merchandise storage rack 4 and guides the merchandise 5 dropped and unloaded from the rack to the merchandise outlet 2a, 7 is a cooling / heating unit installed at the bottom of the cabinet, and 8 is a cooling / heating unit for cooling / cooling air in the cabinet. Air guide duct leading to heating unit 7, 9
Is a condensing unit of a refrigerator installed in a machine room outside the refrigerator.

The cooling / heating unit 7 comprises a cooler (evaporator of a refrigerator) 7a, a heater 7b, a fan 7
c is incorporated in the wind tunnel 7d. Further, the air guide duct 8 is laid on the back panel of the cabinet 1 so as to be connected to the rear end of the wind tunnel 7d of the cooling / heating unit 7, and the upper end thereof is open toward the inside of the refrigerator. Note that the height of the air guide duct 8 is fixedly set according to the height of the product storage rack 4, and a suction port 8 a opened at the upper end thereof allows the circulating air in the refrigerator to cover the entire area of the product storage rack 4. The height position is set such that the gas flows uniformly and is sucked into the suction duct 8.

In such a configuration, in the cold product sales mode, the refrigerator 9 is operated, and heat is exchanged with the cooler 7a of the cooling / heating unit 7 so that the cooled cool air is blown forward by the fan 7c as shown by the arrow in the drawing. Then, the air is turned upward, flows through the space inside the refrigerator, is sucked into the air guide duct 8 from the upper part of the refrigerator, and is circulated and blown into the refrigerator along a path that returns to the cooler 7a again. The product 5 stored in the product storage rack 4 in the blowing process is kept as a cold product at a suitable temperature for sale. On the other hand, in the hot product sales mode, the refrigerator 9
Instead, the heater 7b is energized, and the air heated by the heater is circulated and blown into the refrigerator in the same manner as described above to heat the product 5 to a suitable selling temperature.

[0005] Then, when a sales command is given in this state, the bend mechanism of the product storage rack 4 operates to drop and carry out the products from the lowest line in the rack in order.
It is sent to the product outlet 2a via the shooter 6. Also,
The products lined up at the top of the rack move down in the rack in order as the sales progress.

[0006]

By the way, as described above, in the conventional configuration in which the height of the suction port of the air guide duct 8 is fixedly set and the cool air and the warm air are circulated and blown all over the interior of the refrigerator, the product is The following problems remain in the temperature and quality control of the product 5 stored in the storage rack 4.

(1) When a product is sold as a hot product, if it is stored for a long time in a state where it is heated to a high temperature between the time when it is supplied to the product storage rack in the refrigerator and the time when it is sold,
Quality degradation of the contents will be accelerated.

[0008] For this reason, when the sales turnover of the goods is fast, there is no problem to the left, but when the sales turnover is slow, the staying time in the warehouse becomes longer as the goods lined up on the upper side of the goods storage rack. The problem is that the quality of the contents deteriorates.

(2) In terms of heat load when products are kept cool and heated in the refrigerator, keeping all products stored in the product storage rack at almost the same temperature requires more heat. Since the load increases, the power consumption of the refrigerator and the heater increases.

[0010] Therefore, in a vending machine installed in a location where the sale of goods is slow in rotation, the entire area of the warehouse, including the slow-ordered goods that are lined up on the upper side of the goods storage rack, is uniformly kept at a suitable temperature for sale. Insulation and warming by means that the replenished products will be cooled down to the appropriate temperature for sale or consume extra power more than necessary even if the pull-down and pull-up time until heating are taken into account. Become.

[0011] In this regard, the ventilation path is changed so that the cool air and the warm air circulated and blown into the warehouse are concentrated and flow to the lower region of the product storage rack, that is, to some of the products arranged in the position of the highest sales order. (Cooling and circulating air by concentrating the cool air and warm air only in the lower area of the refrigerator is called zone cooling or zone heating.) Although it is possible to prevent such a problem, such a configuration in which the suction port height of the air guide duct 8 is fixedly set as in the related art cannot easily perform such switching to zone cooling and zone heating.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points. By additionally providing an air inlet duct switching means in a baffle duct, it is possible to cool and heat products in a hot product, a cold product sales mode, and a sales rotation. It is an object of the present invention to provide a vending machine capable of easily switching from the entire area of the storage to zone cooling and zone heating in accordance with the situation of the above.

[0013]

According to the present invention, in order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, a merchandise storage rack for carrying out merchandise stored vertically arranged in a cabinet of a cabinet in order from a lowermost position based on a sales order. A vending machine equipped with a cooling / heating unit equipped with a fan and circulating or blowing cool air or warm air in the storage in accordance with the sales mode to cool or heat the product. The unit is installed at the bottom of the interior of the refrigerator, and an air inlet duct is provided at the rear side of the interior of the refrigerator connected to the wind tunnel of the unit, and an upper end suction opening is opened in an upper region of the interior of the refrigerator and rises upward. An air inlet for zone cooling and heating is opened at a middle height position of the wind duct, and a damper is provided at the air inlet for opening and closing by an external operation.
By opening and closing the damper, the circulation path of the cool air and the warm air in the refrigerator can be easily switched to select zone cooling and zone heating. Specifically, the damper is configured as follows.

(1) The damper closes the air inlet for zone cooling / heating at the closed position, opens the air inlet at the open position, and shields the duct passage leading to the upper inlet of the air duct. (Claim 2). (2) The operating end of the opening / closing lever attached to the damper is pulled out and arranged on the front side of the cabinet, so that the damper can be easily opened / closed by manual operation from outside (claim 3).

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the illustrated embodiments. In the drawings of each embodiment, the same members corresponding to FIG. 4 are denoted by the same reference numerals.

Embodiment 1 FIGS. 1 (a) and 1 (b) and FIGS.
In (b), the air guide duct 8 installed on the back panel inside the cabinet of the cabinet 1 is separated from the inlet 8a at the upper end of the duct described in FIG. An air suction port 8b for zone cooling / heating is opened at substantially the same width as that of the above, and a damper 10 which is opened and closed by an external operation is provided inside the air suction port 8b.

Here, the damper 10 is connected to the air inlet 8b.
A flapper 10a as a door plate, which is one size larger, is swingably supported by a pivot pin 10b.
Actuator piece 1 projecting obliquely backward on the upper left end
0a-1 is formed.

The damper 10 has an opening / closing lever 11 attached thereto. The opening / closing lever 11 has a rear end bent in a hairpin shape to face the actuator piece 10a-1, and a front end (operating end) serving as an L-shaped shaft. It is held on the inner wall surface of the storage via a mounting bracket 11a so as to be pulled out inward.

With this configuration, the opening / closing lever 11 is moved to the position shown in FIG.
If it is set at the solid line position, the flapper 1 of the damper 10
Reference numeral 0a denotes a hanging posture under its own weight without being restrained by the opening / closing lever 11, and closes the air suction port 8b. In addition, damper 1
A torsion coil spring may be attached to the 0 support shaft 10b to urge the flapper 10a toward the closed position. On the other hand, when the operating end of the opening / closing lever 11 is turned 90 degrees and set to the dashed line position in FIG. 1 (b), the actuator piece 10a-1 is pushed upward, the flapper 10a retreats to the dashed line position, and the air suction port 8b is closed. Open. Flapper 10a at the same time
Abuts on the rear panel of the cabinet 1 to block the upper duct passage leading to the upper end suction port 8a.

Next, a description will be given of the change of the circulation ventilation path for the cool air and the warm air in the refrigerator due to the opening and closing of the damper 10 with reference to FIGS. 2 (a) and 2 (b). First, FIG. 2A shows a state in which the damper 10 is closed and the air inlet 8b for zone cooling and heating opened at the middle position of the air guide duct 8 is closed (the solid line state in FIG. 1B). In this state, the cool air and warm air blown forward from the cooling / heating unit 7 flow through the entire interior of the refrigerator as shown by the arrows in the drawing, and then are sucked into the suction port 8a opened at the upper end of the air guide duct 8. Reflux to the cooling / heating unit 7 through 8. Thereby, all the products 5 stored in the product storage rack 4 are kept cool and heated.

On the other hand, when the damper 10 is opened by operating the opening / closing lever 11 (the state shown by the dashed line in FIG. 1B), the state changes to the state shown in FIG. 2B, and the air inlet 8b of the air guide duct 8 is opened. At the same time, the duct passage leading to the upper end suction port 8a is blocked by the damper 10. Thereby, the cool air and the warm air blown out from the cooling / heating unit 7 are sucked into the air suction port 8b of the air guide duct 8 from the upper and lower middle positions in the refrigerator as shown by arrows in the drawing, and are returned to the cooling / heating unit 7. become. In other words, since cold air and warm air do not flow in the upper region of the refrigerator, the slow-selling products lined up in the upper half of the product storage rack 4 are not directly cooled and heated by the cool air and warm air, but are heated in the lower half. Only the products with the fastest selling order are zone cooled and zone heated.

Therefore, in the hot product sales mode, by switching the warm air circulation ventilation path in the warehouse as shown in FIG. Products with slower sales rankings with longer periods will not be exposed to high temperatures for a long time,
As it moves to the lower half of the product as it sells, it will be heated to a high temperature while waiting for it to be sold. As a result, the heat load on the entire interior of the refrigerator is reduced, and the power consumption of the heater can be reduced.

Also, in the cold merchandise selling mode, the merchandise storage rack 4 is switched by switching the cooling air circulation path in the refrigerator as shown in FIG. The energy saving effect can be obtained, which saves extra electric power spent for keeping cold products of low sales ranks arranged at the top of the table. Moreover, the damper 10 can be easily opened and closed simply by turning the opening and closing lever 11 from the front.

[Embodiment 2] FIG. 3 shows an application embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, the damper 10
1 is the same as that of the first embodiment described with reference to FIG. 1, but the structure of the opening / closing lever 11 is slightly different, and a shaft intermediate portion of the lever is supported so as to be able to swing up and down via a bearing 11b. Here, when the opening / closing lever 11 is held in a horizontal posture, the flapper 10a of the damper 10 closes without being restrained by the opening / closing lever, and closes the air suction port 8b of the air guide duct 8. Therefore, a ventilation state similar to that of FIG.

On the other hand, when the operating end of the opening / closing lever 11 is pushed downward and moved to the position indicated by the dashed line, the rear end of the lever is moved to the actuator piece 10a-1 of the damper 10 (see FIG. 1 (b)).
To retract the flapper 10a,
The air suction port 8b is opened. As a result, the state is switched to the ventilation state in the refrigerator shown in FIG. Reference numeral 11c denotes a stopper for locking and holding the opening / closing lever 11 at the solid line position and the chain line position.

[0026]

As described above, according to the present invention, the air inlet for zone cooling / heating is opened at the middle height position of the air guide duct in the refrigerator communicating with the cooling / heating unit, The suction port is equipped with a damper that can be opened and closed by an external operation. By opening and closing the damper, it is possible to easily switch the cooling air and warm air circulation paths in the refrigerator and select zone cooling and zone heating. By switching the damper according to the sales mode, sales rotation, and other conditions, the product temperature management and power consumption that prevent the deterioration of hot product quality due to long-term high-temperature storage, which was a problem in the conventional configuration, and Can be saved.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIGS. 1A and 1B are configuration diagrams around a wind guide duct corresponding to a first embodiment of the present invention, wherein FIG. 1A is an overall perspective view, and FIG. 1B is a detailed structure of a damper and an opening / closing lever in FIG. Illustration of the opening and closing operation

FIGS. 2A and 2B are diagrams showing a state of circulation of cool air and warm air in a refrigerator corresponding to opening and closing of a damper in FIGS.
Is the state diagram corresponding to the closing and opening of the damper, respectively.

FIG. 3 is a configuration diagram around a wind guide duct corresponding to a second embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a cross-sectional view showing a conventional configuration of a vending machine equipped with a serpentine-type product storage rack to which the present invention is applied;

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Cabinet 4 Merchandise storage rack 5 Merchandise 7 Cooling / heating unit 8 Air guide duct 8a Upper end suction port 8b Air suction port for zone cooling / heating 10 Damper 10a Flapper 11 Opening / closing lever

Claims (3)

[Claims] 1. A product storage rack for transferring goods stored vertically one after another in a cabinet of a cabinet based on a sales order from the bottom to the bottom, and a cooling / heating unit with a fan, and a storage according to a sales mode. A vending machine that cools or heats products by circulating or blowing cool air or warm air inside. The cooling / heating unit is installed at the bottom of the refrigerator and connected to the wind tunnel of the unit. On the back side of the refrigerator, an air inlet for zone cooling / heating is opened at the middle height position of the air guide duct, where a wind guide duct is provided with an upper end suction opening opening in the upper part of the inside of the refrigerator and rising upward. A vending machine provided with a damper at the air suction port which is opened and closed by an external operation. 2. The vending machine according to claim 1, wherein the damper closes the zone cooling / heating air suction port at the closed position, opens the suction port at the open position, and sucks the upper end of the air guide duct. A vending machine characterized as a flapper that blocks the duct passage leading to the mouth. 3. The vending machine according to claim 1, wherein an operation end of an opening / closing lever attached to the damper is drawn out to a front side inside the cabinet of the cabinet.