JP2007278695A - Door opening device of refrigerator - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a door opening device of a refrigerator allowing recycling to be easily carried out by compacting the device itself and by reducing the weight thereof. <P>SOLUTION: This door opening device of a refrigerator is characterized by comprising: an opening/closing door arranged on a front opening of a refrigerator body; a magnet gasket attached to an inner peripheral edge of the opening/closing door and sticking to the front opening; a driving motor 12 installed on the refrigerator body side; a deceleration gear 15 for transmitting the rotation of the driving motor; and a cam device 16 connected to an output-stage gear 17 of the deceleration gear for opening the opening/closing door by projecting toward the door by the rotating operation by energization of the driving motor. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2008,JPO&INPIT

Description

  The present invention relates to a door opening device that is disposed in a front opening of a refrigerator or the like and opens and closes the front opening by rotation or a drawer type.

  In recent years, refrigerators are required to have a large storage capacity along with the diversification of eating habits. Especially in household refrigerators, the storage capacity exceeds 400 liters, and the height and depth of the refrigerator itself are large. Tend to be. Along with this, the doors of refrigerator compartments, freezer compartments, and vegetable storage compartments have also become larger and the amount of storage in the storage pockets inside the doors has increased, especially when many foods are placed on the doors. It was a burden for women and older people who needed power and were weak.

  Regarding the above situation, an electric drive system has been proposed in which a door is opened by pressing a door surface with an extrusion bar using an actuator such as an electromagnetic solenoid provided on the refrigerator body by a switch operation from the refrigerator door surface. .

  However, the electromagnetic solenoid system has a high input in order to obtain instantaneous power, the number of turns of the coil increases to 3000 to 4000 turns, the shape must be increased, and the weight increases. Furthermore, since an alternating current 100V circuit is used for driving the solenoid, it is necessary to use a thermosetting resin in order to ensure insulation, and recycling is difficult.

  The present invention has been made paying attention to this point, and has as its object to provide a refrigerator door opening device that is easy to recycle by reducing the weight of the device itself and reducing the weight.

  In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, a door opening device for a refrigerator according to the present invention includes an opening / closing door provided at a front opening of a refrigerator main body, and a magnet that is attached to the front opening attached to the inner periphery of the opening / closing door. A gasket, a drive motor installed on the refrigerator main body side, a reduction gear that conducts rotation of the drive motor, and an output stage gear of the reduction gear are coupled to the drive motor so as to project to the door side by rotating operation by energization of the drive motor. And a cam device for opening the open / close door.

  According to the refrigerator door opening device of the present invention, the opening of the door by the rotation of the cam is smaller and lighter in terms of component weight than the case where the drive source is an electromagnetic solenoid, and the opening is compact. A device can be obtained. Furthermore, since the motor can be composed of a 12V DC low voltage circuit, it is safe in terms of electric shock and heat generation, and it is not necessary to ensure the insulation of the material such as gears, so a thermoplastic resin such as recyclable polyacetal is used. This is effective for protecting the environment.

  Hereinafter, an embodiment of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. FIG. 4 is a perspective view showing a state in which the refrigerator compartment door of the refrigerator according to the present invention is opened, and a refrigerator main body formed of an outer box, an inner box, and a heat insulating box body filled with a heat insulating material between the inner and outer boxes. 1 includes a refrigerator compartment 2 at the top as a storage space inside the inner box, a vegetable compartment 3 at the bottom, and a freezer compartment 4 at the bottom, which is placed between the freezer compartment 4 and the vegetable compartment 3. The ice storage chamber 5 and the temperature switching chamber 6 are separated from each other through a heat insulating partition wall, and the front opening of each storage chamber is provided with a dedicated door, which is closed openably and closably. Yes.

  A door 8 pivotally supported on one side by a hinge 7 is rotatably attached to the front surface of the opening of the refrigerator compartment 2 having the largest storage capacity. A magnet gasket 9 is attached, and when the door is closed, the gasket 9 is attracted to the opening by the magnetic force of the magnet, and the inside and outside of the refrigerator compartment 2 are hermetically insulated to prevent heat leakage.

  The other vegetable room 3, ice storage room 5, temperature switching room 6, and freezing room 3 arranged in the lower part of the refrigerator compartment 2 are storage containers mounted on a frame (not shown) that is attached to the inner side of the door and extends deep inside the storage room. At the same time, the door is pulled out in the front-rear direction by a rail mechanism between the frame and the inner wall surface.

  And in the center part of the width direction of the ceiling part of the refrigerator main body 1 used as the upper part of the refrigerator compartment 2, the door opening apparatus 10 which is the characteristics of this invention is installed. As shown in FIG. 1, the door opening device 10 has a drive motor 12 installed in a unit case 11 via a vibration absorber, a worm 13 is attached to the output shaft of the motor 12, and the worm 13 to the worm wheel 14. Further, the idler 15 and the like are connected to a reduction gear of equal stages, and a cam 16 is provided at the final stage. The drive motor 12, the gear train 15, and the cam 16 are disposed so as to be compactly engaged with each other. As shown in FIG. 2, the height of the opening device unit is about 35 mm, and is conspicuous in the upper center of the refrigerator body. It is not installed.

  Each gear such as the worm 13 is made of a thermoplastic resin such as polyacetal (POM) having a good sliding property instead of a conventional thermosetting resin, and can be recycled to cope with environmental problems.

  The cam 16 has a substantially semicircular plate body whose outer shape is eccentric to the end of the axis of the rotating gear 17 connected to the idler 15, and the arc-shaped portion 18 on the periphery of the cam is the inner edge 19 of the refrigerator compartment door 8. The inner edge 19 is slid and pressed in accordance with the rotation indicated by the two-dot chain line from the closed state in contact with the door 8, and the door 8 is pushed out in the opening direction.

  The drive motor 12 is a direct current motor, uses a low voltage direct current circuit, has a torque of 1.7 N · cm, and a rotational speed of 9000 revolutions / minute. The motor speed is greatly reduced by the worm gear 14 and further reduced by the following gear train. The rotation of the cam 16 portion is 2.5 rotations / second at a gear ratio of 1:60, that is, one rotation of the cam 16 is 0.4. Since the door is opened within one second from the operation of the opening switch, the user does not feel uncomfortable that the opening time is slow. Further, even when a driving force of 100 N is required for opening the door, the door 8 is closed by the cam 16 rotating counterclockwise as shown in the open state diagram of the door 8 shown in FIG. Of the half door stopper (not shown) provided on the hinge portion 7 that overcomes the magnetic attraction force of the magnet gasket 9 and performs self-closing action to prevent the half door by moving the stroke of 20 mm in the opening direction indicated by the solid line from The refrigeration room door 8 is pushed outwards over the latching claw and opened. In addition, the said embodiment is a case where the opening apparatus of a door is installed in the approximate center part of the refrigerator main body width | variety, and has the advantage which can be applied also to the type which has any right and left pivot parts with a rotary door. When installed at the end on the anti-pivot side, a stroke of 40 millimeters is required, but the drive force may be 50 N, so that the door opening force is sufficient, and the cam is shaped to obtain a predetermined stroke amount. That's fine.

  The operation | movement at the time of opening the door 8 by the said structure is demonstrated. As shown in FIG. 5 and FIG. 6, the drive motor 12 of the door opening device 10 is initially in a power-off state, and the door of the refrigerator compartment door 8 is provided on the condition that the door is in a closed state as detected by the door switch 21. By operating the opening switch 22 provided on the surface, the drive motor 12 is driven by the ON signal to open the door 8. In this case, the door opening signal is output from the control circuit 23 to the driver 24 composed of a transistor, and a drive circuit for driving the motor 12 is connected, and the motor 12 is energized for a predetermined time, for example, 1 second, One-way rotation returns to the original position and disappears. When the return position of the cam 16 is unstable, the stop position is specified by setting the number of rotations using a stepping motor. The stop position may be determined by a position detection sensor or the like.

  In the above description, the cam shape is a substantially semicircular plate, but is not limited to this, and has a peripheral portion where the distance from the rotation axis is not constant, such as an involute curve, such as a circle, an ellipse, an oval, or a crescent. And what is necessary is just to press a door side outward in the peripheral part, rotating.

  Further, the door opening device is not only installed so as to protrude from the upper surface of the refrigerator body as in the embodiment, but at least a part of the door opening device may be embedded in the heat insulating wall to improve the appearance design, and further installed only on the upper surface. Instead, it may be embedded in a partition wall between the storage chambers so that the cam protrudes from the front surface of the partition member to the door side.

  In the above embodiment, the example of the rotary door in the refrigerator door has been described. However, the cam of the opening device is installed in the center in the width direction of each storage chamber door, and the door extends from the back surface into the main body. It can also be applied to a drawer-type door in which the container portion is placed on the frame body to be moved and moved back and forth by the frame body and the main body rail.

  Further, in the above embodiment, the drive motor is rotated in the same direction. However, the present invention is not limited to this. After the door opening operation, that is, after the rotation to the maximum protrusion amount of the cam to the door side, the drive motor is rotated backward to the original position. You may make it return.

  According to the above embodiment, the door opening device rotates the drive motor 12 by operating the door opening switch 21, decelerates the rotation of the motor 12 by the gear train 15, and conducts the rotation to the cam 16. Thus, the door 8 is opened by a push-out action that slides and presses the door inner end face 19, and the opening device unit 10 is smaller and lighter than the case where the drive source is an electromagnetic solenoid. The device unit can be made compact. Further, the motor 12 can be constituted by a DC low voltage circuit of 12V, and since it is not necessary to ensure the insulation of the material such as the gear 15, it is possible to use a thermoplastic resin such as recyclable polyacetal to protect the environment. Is also effective.

It is a top view of the opening device of the door which shows one embodiment of the present invention. It is a side view which shows the internal structure of the opening apparatus of the door in FIG. It is a top view which shows the opening operation state of the door of this invention. It is a perspective view of the refrigerator carrying the opening device of the refrigerator compartment door of this invention. It is a circuit diagram which shows the electrical constitution of the door opening apparatus of this invention. It is a flowchart of the door opening operation | movement of this invention.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Refrigerator main body 2 Refrigeration room 8 Refrigeration room door 10 Door opener 12 Drive motor
13 Worm 14 Worm wheel 15 Gear train 16 Cam 17 Rotating gear 18 Arc-shaped part 23 Control circuit

Claims (8)

  An opening / closing door provided at the front opening of the refrigerator body, a magnet gasket attached to the inner opening of the opening / closing door, a drive motor installed on the refrigerator body side, and the drive motor A door opening device for a refrigerator comprising: a reduction gear that conducts rotation of the motor; and a cam device that is coupled to an output stage gear of the reduction gear and that protrudes toward the door by rotation by energization of the drive motor to open the door.   2. The refrigerator door opening device according to claim 1, wherein the opening / closing door is of a drawer type.   3. A door opening device for a refrigerator according to claim 1, wherein the cam device is installed at a substantially central portion in the width direction of the refrigerator main body.   2. The refrigerator door opening according to claim 1, wherein the opening device includes a drive motor, a worm attached to an output shaft of the drive motor, a worm wheel, and a cam coupled via an idler. apparatus.   The door opening device for a refrigerator according to any one of claims 1 to 4, wherein the drive motor is rotated in the reverse direction after rotating to the maximum protrusion amount to the door side.   5. The refrigerator door opening device according to claim 1, wherein the driving motor returns to its original position by turning in one direction after rotating to the maximum protrusion amount to the door side and deenergizes.   The door opening device for a refrigerator according to any one of claims 1 to 6, wherein the drive motor is a stepping motor.   8. The refrigerator door opening device according to claim 1, wherein the stop position of the cam is determined by a position detection sensor.

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