JP2004150148A - Opening-closing panel for electric appliance - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide an opening-closing panel such as a hinge type door of an electric appliance for integrating a handle by a bending work method such as hemming bending by using a metallic plate. <P>SOLUTION: A hollow panel 20a and the handle 30 of a door panel body 20 are integrally formed of the metallic plate P by bending work. The handle 30 is formed so as to extend from the upper side of the hollow panel 20a by applying the hemming bending to a corresponding part to the handle 30 among the metallic plate P. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2004,JPO

Description

[0001]
TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an opening / closing panel such as a hinged door which is suitable for use in electric appliances such as an ice machine.
[0002]
[Prior art]
2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, an electric appliance includes an ice maker provided with an ice maker main body and a hinged door (see Patent Document 1 below). In this ice maker, the door is hinged to the lower end of the opening of the ice maker main body at the lower end of the door panel, and the door opens the opening of the ice maker main body by turning downward, The opening is closed by the upward rotation.
[0003]
[Patent Document 1]
JP 2001-21377 A
[Problems to be solved by the invention]
By the way, the door of the ice making machine is provided with a longitudinal handle, and the handle is provided with a door panel at the bottom wall so as to extend the gripping wall upward from the front end of the bottom wall. It is assembled along the upper wall. Thus, opening and closing of the door can be easily performed by holding the gripping wall of the handle and pulling it down or pulling it up.
[0005]
However, since the handle is a separate component from the door panel, the handle is assembled to the upper wall of the door panel by fastening a plurality of screws. Therefore, when the frequency of opening and closing the door increases, the screws are loosened, and as a result, the assembling state of the handle with respect to the door panel has a disadvantage.
[0006]
Further, as described above, the screw used for assembling the handle to the door panel causes an increase in the number of components, and as a result, there is a problem that the number of assembling steps and costs are increased.
[0007]
Therefore, the present invention provides an opening / closing panel for an electric appliance such as a hinged door in which a handle is integrated by a bending method called hemming using a metal plate in order to deal with the above. Aim.
[0008]
[Means for Solving the Problems]
In order to solve the above problem, according to the first aspect of the present invention, the opening / closing panel for an electric appliance according to the first aspect has the opening (10a) of a chamber provided in the electric appliance body (B) of the electric appliance. It is an opening / closing panel as a door whose part is hinged so that it can be opened and closed.
[0009]
The opening / closing panel includes a hollow panel (20a, 20) and a handle (30) integrally formed by bending a metal plate (P).
The handle is formed so as to extend from one side of the hollow panel by performing hemming bending on a portion of the metal plate corresponding to the handle.
[0010]
As described above, in the opening and closing panel, the handle is formed integrally with the hollow panel by the metal plate without depending on the fastening of the screw. Therefore, when the opening and closing panel is hinged as a door to an opening of an electric appliance such as an ice maker, even if the opening and closing frequency of the opening and closing panel increases, the door panel is separate from the opening panel as described in the related art. The loosening of the screw that occurs when the handle is tightened with a screw does not cause rattling between the door panel and the handle, and the handle is always maintained integrally with the hollow panel. In addition, the strength of the opening / closing panel of the electric appliance can be maintained satisfactorily.
[0011]
Further, as described above, since the handle is formed integrally with the hollow panel by the metal plate, the screw which is indispensable when assembling the handle separately from the door panel as in the related art is unnecessary. Therefore, the number of parts can be reduced, and as a result, the number of assembling steps and costs for the opening and closing panel can be reduced.
[0012]
Further, since the handle formed integrally with the hollow panel and the metal plate is formed by hemming a portion of the metal plate corresponding to the handle as described above, the strength of the handle can be improved. .
[0013]
According to the second aspect of the present invention, the electrical appliance opening / closing panel according to the present invention is housed in a room provided in the electrical appliance body (B) of the electrical appliance so as to be able to enter and exit through the opening (10a). This is an opening / closing panel constituted by a drawer-like side wall of the drawer-like box body and a handle.
[0014]
In the opening / closing panel, the access side wall is formed as a hollow panel with a metal plate (P) together with a handle by bending the metal plate (P).
The handle is formed so as to extend from one side of the opening of the box in the hollow panel by performing hemming bending on a portion of the metal plate corresponding to the handle.
[0015]
In this way, even when the opening / closing panel constitutes the access side wall of the drawer-like box and the handle, it is possible to achieve substantially the same operation and effect as the first aspect of the present invention.
[0016]
In addition, the code | symbol in the parenthesis of each said means shows the correspondence with the concrete means described in embodiment mentioned later.
[0017]
BEST MODE FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION
An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows an example of an ice making machine to which the present invention is applied. This ice making machine includes an ice making machine main body B and an ice making machine main body. B provided with a hinged door D. The ice making machine main body B includes an ice making room (not shown) at the vertical center thereof, and the ice making room has an opening 10a (corresponding to the vertical center of the front wall 10 of the ice making machine main body B). At, it opens to the front.
[0018]
As shown in FIGS. 1 to 3, the door D includes a door body Db, and the door body Db includes a door panel body 20 and a handle 30. As shown in FIG. 3, the door panel body 20 includes a hollow panel 20 a and a urethane foam 20 b filled in the panel 20 a, and the panel 20 a is formed at the lower end 21 a of the back wall 21. As shown in FIG. 1, the opening 10a of the ice making chamber is hinged to the lower side, and the opening 10a is opened by turning downward or the opening 10a is closed by turning upward. It has become.
[0019]
Here, the configuration of the panel 20a in the door body Db will be described in detail together with the configuration of the handle 30. As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the panel 20a is formed by bending a single metal plate (for example, a stainless steel plate). By doing so, it is formed integrally with the handle 30. The panel 20a is flat in the front-rear direction with a back wall 21, a front wall 22, an upper wall 23, a lower wall 24, and left and right walls 25 (only the right wall 25 is shown in FIGS. 3 and 4). It is formed in a rectangular parallelepiped hollow shape.
[0020]
As shown in FIGS. 3 and 4, the handle 30 integrally extends upward and forward from the upper end of the front wall 22 of the panel 20a and the front end of the upper wall 23 adjacent thereto in a crank shape. Each of the extending walls 31 and 32 is bent and integrated at each extending end so as to overlap each other. The portion of the handle 30 that linearly extends upward in FIG. 4 from the front wall 22 and the upper wall 23 of the panel 20a is referred to as a base 30a, and is bent forward in an L shape from the base 30a. The extending portion is referred to as a central portion 30b, and the portion extending upward from the central portion 30b in an L shape is referred to as a distal end portion 30c.
[0021]
The panel 20a and the handle 30 configured as described above are integrally formed by bending the above-described metal plate (see FIG. 5). First, the metal plate (hereinafter, also referred to as a metal plate P) is bent at a bending portion (refer to a symbol a in FIG. 5A) corresponding to an intermediate portion in the vertical direction by a so-called hemming bending method. As shown in FIG. 5 (b), the sheet is folded 180 degrees. As a result, the metal plate P becomes the two metal plate portions P1 and P2 that overlap each other based on the bent portion a.
[0022]
Next, the two metal plate portions P1 and P2 of the metal plate P thus bent are replaced with portions corresponding to the distal end portion 30c and the central portion 30b of the handle 30 having the bent portion a as the distal end among the metal plate portions P1 and P2. 5 (c), as shown in FIG. 5 (c), both are bent into an L-shape.
[0023]
Thereafter, the portion corresponding to the distal end portion 30c of the handle 30 among the portions b of the metal plate portions P1 and P2 thus bent is moved to the boundary portion between the distal end portion 30c and the central portion 30b of the handle 30 (FIG. 5). At (d), reference sign c) is bent upward in the L-shape as shown in FIG. 5 (d). Thereafter, the metal plate portion P2 is placed at the boundary between the base 30a of the handle 30 and the portion corresponding to the upper wall 23 of the panel 20a (see reference numeral d in FIG. 5E), as shown in FIG. Bend to the right in an L-shape as shown. Thus, the bending process using the hemming bending of the handle 30 is completed.
[0024]
After such completion, a portion of the metal plate portion P1 corresponding to the bottom wall 24 of the panel 20a is bent into a L-shape as shown in FIG. The panel 20a is completed by bending a portion corresponding to the back wall 21 into an L-shape with respect to the upper wall 23 as shown in FIG. The urethane foam 20b is filled in the panel 20a by being injected in a liquid form through an appropriate hole formed in the back plate 21 of the panel 20a and then foamed. The urethane foam 20b plays a role as a heat insulating material for insulating the inside of the ice making chamber from the outside. The hole is closed after filling with the urethane foam 20b.
[0025]
Further, as shown in FIG. 3, the door D includes a back plate 40 and an annular packing member 50. The back plate 40 is formed of a synthetic resin so as to have a cross-sectional shape shown in FIG. 3, and the back plate 40 is provided alongside the back wall 21 of the panel 20a. The juxtaposition is made by inserting and supporting the outer peripheral portion of the back plate 40 into an annular flange 21b having an L-shaped cross section which protrudes from the back wall 21 as shown in FIG.
[0026]
As shown in FIG. 3, the packing member 50 includes two layers of hollow packings 51 and 52 formed in an annular shape. The packing member 50 is provided on the back wall 21 of the panel 20 a by the packing 51. It is supported side by side. A columnar magnet 52b is coaxially fitted in the upper edge 52a of the packing 52.
[0027]
Thus, when the opening 10a of the ice making chamber is closed by the door D, the packing member 50 comes into close contact with the opening 10a under magnetic attraction to the opening 10a of the magnet 52b. At least the opening 10a of the ice making chamber is made of a magnetic metal material, or a thin strip made of a magnetic material is attached to the outer surface of the opening 10a.
[0028]
2 and 3, reference numeral 60 indicates both stoppers for hinge connection of the door D (only one stopper is shown in FIGS. 2 and 3), and these stoppers are provided on the back wall of the panel 20a. The lower end 21a extends from the left and right sides of the lower end 21a toward the lower side of the opening 10a of the ice making chamber, and is rotatably connected to the lower side. Thereby, both stoppers 60 allow the door D to rotate in the up-down direction and play a role of restricting the downward rotation angle of the door D to, for example, 90 degrees.
[0029]
In the present embodiment configured as described above, when the door D is in the state in which the opening 10a of the ice making chamber is closed as shown by the solid line in FIG. When pulled, the door D pivots downward as shown by an arrow Ar indicated by a two-dot chain line in FIG. 1 to open the opening 10a. When the handle 30 is gripped and pushed upward, the door D rotates in the direction opposite to the arrow Ar to close the opening 10a. Then, the door D is closely adhered to the opening 10a by the packing member 50 under the magnetic attraction force of the magnet 52b and maintains the closed state of the opening 10a well. In addition, the door D maintains the temperature of the ice making in the ice making room satisfactorily by the heat insulating action of the urethane foam 20b.
[0030]
Here, in the door D, the handle 30 is formed integrally with the panel 20a of the door panel body 20 by a single metal plate P without depending on the fastening of screws. Therefore, even if the frequency of opening and closing the door D increases as described above, when a handle separate from the door panel is fastened to the door panel with a screw as described in the related art at the beginning of this specification, The handle 30 is always maintained integrally with the panel 20a without causing a problem such as rattling between the door panel and the handle due to the loosening of the screw, and the strength as a door in the ice making machine is maintained. Can be maintained satisfactorily.
[0031]
Further, as described above, since the handle 30 is formed integrally with the panel 20a of the door panel body 20 by a single metal plate, the handle 30 is indispensable when a separate handle is assembled to the door panel as in the related art. No screws are required. Therefore, the number of parts can be reduced, and as a result, the number of assembling steps and costs for the door D can be reduced.
[0032]
The handle 30 formed integrally with the panel 20a by a metal plate is formed by hemming a portion of the metal plate corresponding to the handle 30 as described above, so that the strength of the handle 30 is reduced. Can improve. Further, since the handle 30 is formed in a crank shape as described above, it is possible to further improve the strength of the handle 30 and further facilitate the grip of the handle 30.
[0033]
Further, as described above, since the material for integrally forming the panel 20a and the handle 30 is a metal plate, cracking of the handle, which tends to occur when a handle separate from the door panel is formed of a synthetic resin as in the related art, is likely to occur. No damage is caused.
[0034]
Further, as described above, since the handle 30 is formed integrally with the panel 20a of the door panel body 20 by a single metal plate, the surface of the handle 30 becomes flat and neat. Therefore, dust and dirt hardly adhere to the surface of the handle 30, the surface can be cleaned well, and dirt hardly remains on the surface.
[0035]
When the outer wall of the ice making machine main body B is formed of a metal plate, particularly a stainless steel plate, similarly to the panel 20a and the handle 30 of the door panel body 20, the exterior of the ice making machine is entirely made of stainless steel plate. Therefore, when the ice making machine is viewed from the front wall side, which is the front side, a sense of quality can be given to the viewer.
[0036]
In the embodiment of the present invention, unlike the above embodiment, the handle 30 of the door D is arranged to extend linearly upward from the upper wall 23 and the front wall 22 of the panel 20a as shown in FIG. As shown in FIG. 7, the panel 20a may be formed so as to linearly extend upward from the upper wall 23 and the front wall 22 of the panel 20a and forward of the front wall 22 in an inclined manner. . Also, unlike the above embodiment, the handle 30 of the door D extends from the upper wall 23 and the front wall 22 of the panel 20a forward and upward of the front wall 22 in an L-shape, as shown in FIG. You may do so.
[0037]
In practicing the present invention, in the door D described in the above embodiment, the urethane foam material 20b constituting the door panel body 20 may be omitted, and the hollow panel 20a itself may be used as the door panel body 20. In this case, the air in panel 20a exhibits a heat insulating effect.
[0038]
Further, in the embodiment of the present invention, unlike the above embodiment, the door body Db has a concept including the panel body 20, the back plate 40 and the packing member 50, and the door body D and the handle 30 of this concept constitute the door D. The concept may be
[0039]
Further, in practicing the present invention, unlike the above embodiment, the door D may be turned upside down, hingedly connected to the upper side of the opening 10a of the ice making chamber, and turned up and down. .
[0040]
Further, in the implementation of the present invention, the door D does not pivot vertically with respect to the opening 10a of the ice making chamber as described in the above-described embodiment, but instead is placed on one of the left and right sides of the opening 10a. A hinge connection may be made to rotate in the front-back direction with respect to the opening 10a.
[0041]
Further, in carrying out the present invention, as described in the above embodiment, without being limited to the ice machine, an opening of a refrigerator compartment of a refrigerator, an opening of a freezing compartment or a vegetable compartment, a hinged door for opening and closing an opening of a freezer, and the like. The present invention may be applied to hinge-type doors of various electric appliances, which require a heat insulating function, in substantially the same manner as in the above embodiment.
[0042]
Further, the present invention is not limited to the hinged door of the electric appliance, but may be a drawer-type box that is put into and taken out of an opening (corresponding to the above-mentioned opening 10a) into an electric appliance accommodation room (for example, a vegetable room of a refrigerator). The present invention may be applied to the access side wall (corresponding to the door panel body 20) and the handle (corresponding to the handle 30) integrally extending from the access side wall in substantially the same manner as the above embodiment. In addition, you may grasp | ascertain the said in / out side wall and a handle as an opening / closing panel, and grasp | ascertain the door main body Db mentioned in the said embodiment as an opening / closing panel.
[Brief description of the drawings]
FIG. 1 is a side view showing an embodiment of an ice making machine according to the present invention.
FIG. 2 is a perspective view of a door of the ice making machine of FIG. 1;
FIG. 3 is a sectional view of the door of FIG. 1;
FIG. 4 is a partially cutaway sectional view of a hollow panel and a handle of the door.
FIGS. 5 (a) to 5 (e) are process diagrams for forming the hollow panel and the handle.
FIG. 6 is a partial sectional view showing a main part of a modification of the embodiment.
FIG. 7 is a partial sectional view showing a main part of another modification of the embodiment.
FIG. 8 is a partial sectional view showing a main part of another modification of the embodiment.
[Explanation of symbols]
B: ice machine body, D: door, P: metal plate, 10a: opening,
20: door panel body, 20a: hollow panel, 30: handle.

Claims (2)

An opening and closing panel as a door hingedly connected to an opening of a chamber provided in the appliance main body of the appliance so that the opening can be opened and closed,
With a hollow panel and handle integrally formed by bending the metal plate,
The opening / closing panel for an appliance, wherein the handle is formed so as to extend from one side of the hollow panel by performing hemming bending on a portion of the metal plate corresponding to the handle. An opening / closing panel configured with a drawer-like box body insertion / removal side wall and a handle that is housed in a room provided in the appliance main body of the appliance so as to be able to be taken in and out through an opening thereof,
The access side wall is formed integrally with the handle as a hollow panel by bending the metal plate together with the handle,
The handle is formed so as to extend from one side of the opening of the box in the hollow panel by performing hemming bending on a portion of the metal plate corresponding to the handle. Opening and closing panel for appliances.

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