JP2804510B2 - Draft beer pouring device - Google Patents

Description

The present invention relates to a draft beer pouring device.

(B) Prior Art As shown in Japanese Patent Publication No. 45-20951, a draft beer pouring device pressurizes a barrel-filled beer with a carbon dioxide gas pressure from a carbon dioxide gas cylinder through a pressure reducing valve. By
Draft beer is sent out from a keg, fed to a dispenser, cooled by passing through a cooling coil in the dispenser, and then a certain amount of draft beer is poured into a jockey or the like from a manually operated beer discharge valve. It is.

(C) Problems to be Solved by the Invention Carbon dioxide gas is used for pressurizing draft beer from a barrel, and the carbon dioxide gas dissolves in draft beer in an amount corresponding to the temperature of draft beer, affecting the taste of draft beer. ing.

By the way, in the draft beer dispensing device disclosed in the above-mentioned publication, since the beer dispensing valve is manually operated for dispensing, the amount to be dispensed varies depending on the skill of the operator and the like, which causes a problem in sales. In addition, the amount of foam of the draft beer that has been poured at the same time is excessive or insufficient, and when the foam is insufficient, the draft is added. However, the operation of the draft beer discharge valve for producing only the foam involves further difficulty.

The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and an object of the present invention is to provide a draft beer dispensing apparatus that is controlled so that anyone can reliably discharge draft beer and add foam.

(D) Means for Solving the Problems The present invention rotates a ball valve in a fixed direction in a draft beer dispensing apparatus that dispenses draft beer by a ball valve arranged in a draft beer discharge path, and completely closes → fully opens → fully closes. One cycle is performed for every half rotation of the ball valve, and this half rotation is one sales cycle. Normally, a ball valve that automatically pours a predetermined amount of draft beer, and a foaming device that is operated when the poured draft beer has insufficient foam When the foaming switch is actuated, the ball valve can be further rotated half a turn, and a half-open foaming state in which the foamed beer is discharged halfway, and a draft beer which instantaneously passes through the removal of the residual foam in the pouring path. , A momentary stoppage of the fully-open state is performed, and then control is performed so as to be completely closed.

(E) Action When a sales command is input by operating a sales switch or the like, the ball valve rotates in a fixed direction, and performs a half-rotation (180 ° rotation) rotation operation that completely closes → fully opens → fully closes the spouting path. It is fully opened at the middle 90 ° rotation position in the middle and stops for a certain period of time, and a predetermined amount of draft beer is automatically poured into a jockey or the like. After dispensing, it is in the fully closed state and one selling operation ends. If there is not enough foam in the draft beer in the jockey that has been poured by this one sale, press the foaming switch with a jockey or the like to turn on the switch. Then, the ball valve can be further rotated by half and starts to rotate. Then, the rotation is temporarily stopped at an appropriate rotation angle position before reaching 90 ° rotation from the initial rotation.

At the time of this temporary stop, the ball valve is in a semi-open bubble generation state in which the spout path is not fully opened but a state in which the beer flows out in a foamy state can be obtained.

Therefore, at this time, foam is added to the liquid beer that has foaming and is filled with about 80% of the jockey. When the bubble switch is turned off after adding the foam, the ball valve turns again and stops momentarily at the 90 ° rotation position, which is now fully open.
At this moment, a small amount of the beer liquid flowing into the jockey at the moment causes the remaining foam in the pouring path (pouring nozzle) at the previous foaming to be poured out together. Therefore, there is no foam remaining, and the foaming phenomenon at the time of the next sale does not occur, so that draft beer can be dispensed without any trouble. Then, after the bubbles are removed, the rotation is further performed, the rotation is stopped in the fully closed state, and the state is returned to the state of one rotation from the beginning, and the next sales stand-by is performed.

(F) Example Hereinafter, an example of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings. In the draft beer pouring device having a foam adding function of the present invention shown in FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a draft beer barrel containing draft beer, and the draft beer in the barrel 1 has a pressure reducing valve 3 provided with a carbon dioxide gas pressure from a carbon dioxide gas cylinder 2. Pressurized through. The draft beer can be sent out from the barrel 1 by the carbon dioxide gas pressure, and the carbon dioxide gas amount corresponding to the draft beer temperature melts. Numeral 4 is a dispenser device for introducing draft beer extruded from the barrel 1 through a draft beer liquid pipe line 5, a cooling unit 7 using ice 6 inside, and after cooling, discharging from a discharging nozzle 8.
The control of the pouring is performed by a ball valve 10 arranged in the middle of the pouring path 9. As will be described later in detail, the pouring path 9 is opened and closed by the intermittent rotation of the ball valve 10, and the draft beer is distributed. Is controlled. The dispenser device 4 has a sales switch 11 which is pressed and operated by a sales operator at the upper part on the front, and a jockey at the lower part on the front.
It has 12 mounting sections 13 and a foaming switch 14 pressed by the back of the jockey 12. When the selling switch 11 is pressed, a timer function is activated by a control unit (not shown) including a microcomputer and the like, and the ball valve 10 is opened for a certain period of time so that the draft beer is discharged to the jockey 12 by the nozzle 8. After a lapse of a predetermined time, the ball valve 10 is closed and a predetermined amount of draft beer is automatically discharged. When the dispensing nozzle 8 is connected to the dispensing path 9 by a swing type joint 15 that can swing back and forth, it becomes easy to insert the dispensing nozzle 8 to the vicinity of the bottom of the jockey 12, thereby maintaining the state. By temporarily placing the jockey 12 on the support base 13a provided above the mounting portion 13, an advantage of preventing excessive foaming when pouring can be obtained. In addition, the foaming switch 14 is a single sales dispensing operation. When draft beer has been poured into the jockey 12 to a capacity of approximately 80%, if the foam is insufficient, the jockey 12 is released by the sales operator. Move it backwards and push to add more foam.

Next, FIG. 2 is an explanatory view of the operation of FIG. 2 for explaining the rotation of the ball valve 10 and the control state of the draft beer pouring thereby, and FIG. 3 including the ball valve performing this operation and its rotation control mechanism. (A), (b) will be described based on the configuration diagram.
In FIG. 2, * marks are given to indicate the rotational position.

The ball valve 10 is intermittently driven to rotate in a fixed direction by a motor 17 having a speed reduction mechanism 16, and a flow passage 18 formed therein communicates between the upstream and downstream of the pouring passage 9 (fully open) and shuts off according to the rotational angle position. (Fully closed). The ball valve 10 of the present invention receives a sales command accompanying the pressing of the normal sales switch 11 and stops by half-turning by 180 degrees each time, and repeats for each sale to rotate in a certain direction.

That is, as shown in FIG. 2, at the first half rotation (at the time of the first sale), the ball valve 10 fully closes the pouring passage 9 in which the flow passage 18 and the pouring passage 9 are orthogonal to each other. From the stopped state (rotation angle 0 ° position), rotate 90 degrees
Fully open state (rotational angle 90 °
Position). It takes about 0.2 seconds to change to this state. Thereafter, the change between the states takes the same time. Then, the fully opened state of this is continued for about 10 seconds, during which time the draft beer is jockey a fixed amount (for example, 400 c
c) Pour. After that, the spout is further rotated by 90 °, and the spouting path is fully closed again (at a rotation angle of 180 °) and stopped.
Then, at the next sale, it will make another half turn. Also at this time,
Although it is not shown, it is rotated 90 ° from the initial state, it is turned to the angular position rotated 270 ° from the initial 0 ° position, fully opened for about 10 seconds to pour draft beer, and then rotated 90 ° to rotate the first beer. Return to the state (rotation angle 360 ° position).

That is, normal (fully closed) → (fully open) → (fully closed)
Pour draft beer into Jockey 12 by repeating.

By the way, jockey in one →→ sales cycle
In 12, the draft beer is poured up to about 80%, and the remaining 20% of the beer is usually filled with foam, but sometimes the amount of foam is insufficient. In that case, use the jockey 12 to switch the bubble
Press 14 to add foam on top of about 80% full liquid beer. When the bubble switch 14 is pressed, the ball valve 10
Performs the rotation characteristic of the present invention. That is, 0 ° for one sale
The ball valve 10 that has been rotated from the position → 180 °
A half-turn of 80 ° is made possible, and during this half-turn, a rotation situation of →→ is taken as shown in FIG. Ie 18
After rotating by 45 ° from the position of 0 °, the flow passage 18 and the pouring passage 9 are partially connected to each other, and rotate to a half-open-foam generation state (at a rotation angle of 225 °) in which foamed beer comes out. Then, this half-foam generation state is continued for about 2 seconds, during which draft beer is passed again. If draft beer passes through such a narrow passage in a semi-open state, the beer will be poured in a foamy shape, and the insufficient foam can be added. In this state, the half-opening state is maintained by pressing the foaming switch 14 with the jockey 12 only during that time. For example, if the foaming switch is pressed for about 2 seconds, foamy beer is poured for about 2 seconds. And when you have finished pouring the foam, 45 more
Rotate to stop for about 0.5 seconds at the 270 ° rotation angle position where it becomes fully open, during which instantly pour beer. The reason for this instantaneously fully open state is that when the foam is closed after pouring, the bubble is left inside the pouring nozzle 8 when the state is returned to the closed state and closed. When pouring beer, the remaining foam first enters the jockey 12, which acts as a foaming agent, and adds foam to the liquid beer that is subsequently poured. Therefore, after the half-opening of the state, the beer that first passes through the state in the fully opened state serves to send out the foam in the pouring nozzle 8. In this way, after the foam in the pouring nozzle 8 has been sent out, it is further rotated and rotated once (360 ° rotational angle position).
If the liquid beer is completely closed in a state where the liquid beer has its own weight, it falls immediately and does not remain inside the pouring nozzle 8. Therefore, it cannot be a foaming agent for the next sale.
It should be noted that the half-open state for foaming is sometimes performed at a rotation angle position of 45 °. As described above, when bubbles are insufficient at about 80% of the injection of the jockey 12, the ball valve 10 is rotated in the order of →→.

FIG. 4 schematically shows a series of rotation states of the ball valve 10 which makes the above-described bubble addition. As described above, the operation of the ball valve 10 is repeated in the normal sales cycle in the order of →→, and in the case of sales in which foaming is performed, →→→→→
The operation control for performing the above operation can be performed by the rotational position detecting device.
That is, as shown in FIG.
When the detection plate 20 crosses over the rotation of the detection plate 20 fixed to the deceleration rotation shaft 19, the light is blocked, and three types of light detectors S ₁ , S ₂ , and S that detect the rotation angle position ₃ at 0 °, approximately 45
° and 90 ° respectively. Optical detectors S ₁ is for detecting the start position, ,, in the state shown in FIG. 2 (ball valve fully closed) is detected, the light detection devices S ₃ likewise
Detecting the state of a fully open position detection (ball valve fully open) ,, and the optical detector S ₂ detects the state (half open bubble generating condition of 225 °, or 45 °) in a detection bubble out position . That is, in the first half rotation (the first sale), the detection plate 20 has one end 20a actuating the light detectors S ₁ and S ₃ in order, and the ball valve 10 opens and closes in a fully closed → full open → fully closed state. I do. Next, in a half turn (second sale), the other end 20b of the detection plate 20 similarly operates the photodetectors S ₁ and S ₃ to operate in the same manner. In the meantime, the detection plate 20 also blocks the light detector S ₂ , but since the detection signal at this time does not press the bubble release switch 14, the control unit acts to ignore the rotation of the ball valve 10. Does not affect

Then, pressing the foam out switch 14, further detection plate 20 together with the possible half turn, this time should be inputted detection signal of the optical detector S ₂ to the control unit. Therefore, by the operation of the optical detectors S ₂ in the course of half turn, ball valve 10
Is in a half-open state, and performs foaming for about 2 seconds. Thereafter, when the operation of the optical detectors S ₃ rotates again, become instantaneously fully opened, pouring about 0.5 seconds beer poured off bubbles remaining, then finally a half turn To stop rotating.

The rotation operation control as described above is performed by the detection plate 20 and the detector S ₁ ,
It can be performed by a rotational position detecting device using S ₂ and S ₃ , but is not limited to a photodetector, and appropriate means such as a reed switch can be adopted.

FIG. 5 is a flow chart showing the operation relating to the rotation control of the ball valve 10 by the control unit. The operation procedure will be described with reference to the operation explanatory diagram of FIG. The flow due to ON starts, the motor is driven (process 501), and the ball valve 10
Starts rotating in a certain direction. The ball valve is fully opened
90 ° rotation performed was whether the ON photodetector S _3, it is determined at OFF operation (decision 502), if the optical detector S ₃ OFF, as NO, performed again (decision 502).

If the photodetector S _{3 is} ON, it is in the fully open state, so it is determined to be YES, the motor is stopped (step 503), and the timer is operated to maintain the fully open state for a fixed time (11.1 seconds) (step 50).
Do 4).

11.1 seconds later, the motor drive (process 505) is performed again.
The ball valve 10 is further rotated from the 90 ° rotation position. Determine whether 180 ° rotation of the ball valve, which is one sold termination is made ON of the optical detector S _1, at OFF operation (decision 50
6) If the photodetector S _{1 is} OFF, NO (determination 506) is performed again; if ON, YES is determined and the motor is stopped (processing 5).
07). At this point, the ball valve 10 is fully closed, and it is determined whether or not there is an ON operation of the bubble switch (determination 508). If there is no ON operation, NO is determined and the process is terminated. The normal selling operation is completed at this point, and the draft beer is poured into the jockey 12 in a state where an appropriate amount of foam is placed on the liquid beer poured into 80%.

If there is insufficient foam, the foaming switch 14 is pressed, so (YES in step 508), the motor is driven (step 509), and the ball valve 10 is further rotated from the 180 ° rotation position.
To rotate. Performed ball valve 10 to the rotational angular position is the total 225 ° is whether rotating determined by the optical detector S ₂ (decision 510), NO if the (decision 510) again, YES if the motor is stopped ( Process 511). At this point, the ball valve 10 is in a semi-open state in which foamed beer flows out. The pouring time of the foamed beer is controlled by keeping the foaming switch 14 pressed. For example, press and hold for 2 seconds, during which foaming is performed to add foam. Accordingly, it is next determined whether or not the bubble switch 14 has been turned off (determination 512).
If S, the motor is driven again (process 513). Then, it is determined whether the next 270 ° rotation as a ball valve fully open is performed ON photodetectors S _3, in OFF operation (decision 51
4) If it is OFF, it judges NO and performs again (judgment 514). If it is ON, it judges YES and stops the motor in the fully open state (process 515). Seconds)
A timer operation (step 516) for maintaining the time is performed. Due to the draft beer passing instantaneously for 0.3 seconds, the foam remaining in the pouring nozzle 8 at the time of the previous foaming flows down, and does not become a foaming agent at the next sale. After 0.3 seconds, drive the motor again (Process 517)
Was carried out, it is determined whether or not made 360 ° rotation of the ball valve (1 rotation) ON of the optical detector S _1, at OFF operation (decision 51
8) If it is OFF, NO is determined (determination 518) is performed again, and if it is ON, YES is determined, the motor is stopped (process 519), and the ball valve 10 is fully closed to end.

As described above, by turning the ball valve in a certain direction of rotation, only a normal volume of beer liquid can be poured in a fixed volume, and after pouring a certain amount as necessary, foam is added. It can be completely closed after performing the bubble elimination process by liquid feeding.

(G) Advantages of the Invention As described above, the present invention rotates the ball valve in a fixed direction, performs one cycle of fully closed → fully opened → fully closed every half revolution of the ball valve, and sells this half revolution for one sale. A ball valve that automatically pours a prescribed amount of draft beer automatically as a cycle,
When there is insufficient foam in the draft beer that has been poured, a foaming switch that is operated is provided. When this foaming switch is activated, the ball valve can be further rotated halfway, and a half-open foaming state in which foamy beer is discharged halfway through The stop and the instantaneous stop of the fully opened state performed by the draft beer that instantaneously removes the remaining bubbles in the pouring path are performed, and thereafter the control is performed so as to completely close. Therefore, by controlling the rotation of one ball valve in a certain direction, it is possible not only to automatically supply normal beer liquid but also to easily perform foaming for adding foam as needed. In addition, the draft beer that passes for a moment after the foaming is devised so that the foam remaining at the pouring nozzle etc. is washed away, so there is no need to worry about becoming a foaming agent at the next sale, It is possible to provide a draft beer dispensing apparatus having a simple structure and excellent functions, such as dispensing without difficulty.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic explanatory view of a draft beer dispensing apparatus according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is an explanatory view of a rotating operation of a ball valve, and FIG. 3 (a) is an operation mechanism diagram for performing a rotating operation of the ball valve. FIG. 4 (b) is a simplified explanatory view of a rotation position detecting device, FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of a ball valve rotating state in a case where draft beer pouring and foaming are performed by one rotation of a ball valve, and FIG. It is a flowchart explaining operation control of a valve. 1 ... draft beer barrel, 2 ... carbon dioxide gas cylinder, 4 ... dispenser device, 8 ... dispensing nozzle, 9 ... dispenser, 10
…… Ball valve, 11… Sale switch, 14… Bubble switch, 12… Detector plate, S ₁ , S ₂ , S ₃ … Rotary position detector.

Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Morikatsu Horino 6-26-1, Jingumae, Shibuya-ku, Tokyo Inside Kirin Brewery Co., Ltd. (56) References JP-A-60-228292 (JP, A) (58) Investigated Field (Int.Cl. ⁶ , DB name) B67D 1/00-5/00

Claims (1)

(57) [Claims] In a draft beer dispensing apparatus for discharging draft beer by a ball valve arranged in a draft beer discharging path, the ball valve is rotated in a fixed direction, and one cycle of fully closed → fully opened → fully closed is performed by the ball valve. A ball valve that automatically pours a predetermined amount of draft beer automatically as a sales cycle with the half rotation as one sales cycle, and a foaming switch that is operated when the draft beer that has been poured has insufficient foam. When the dispensing switch is actuated, the ball valve can be further rotated half a turn, and a half-open bubble generation state for discharging foamy beer on the way and a momentarily full open state performed with draft beer that instantaneously removes residual foam in the pouring path. A draft beer dispensing device, wherein the draft beer is controlled to be stopped and then completely closed.