JP3238302B2 - Rice cooker - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a rice cooker having a reheating function of reheating after keeping rice at a temperature lower than the temperature at which the rice is cooked.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In a rice cooker, when rice is kept warm after cooking, the temperature is controlled at a lower temperature (about 70 ° C.) than immediately after the rice is cooked. Was. For this reason, a rice cooker having a reheating function has been developed.

Conventionally, as a rice cooker having a reheating function of this type, for example, an inner capacity is estimated according to a temperature rise degree of an inner pot at the time of reheating, and the temperature is set at a different set temperature based on the result. (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 5-3050)
(See Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-39455), and a device which controls the temperature so that the reheating temperature does not become too high, or emits a warning sound when heating to a desired temperature cannot be performed (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 7-39455).

[0004]

However, in the rice cooker having the conventional reheating function, only the reheating from the normal heat retaining state is considered, and the temperature is controlled at a temperature lower than the normal heat retaining temperature. It is not possible to cope with the re-heating from a good night heat retention. Further, depending on the condition of the rice (for example, cold rice, rice porridge), reheating may not be preferable, but there is no means for preventing the reheating.

[0005] In view of the above problems, it is an object of the present invention to provide a rice cooker that can perform appropriate reheating without malfunctioning in both normal heat and good night heat.

[0006]

In order to achieve the above object, a rice cooker according to a first aspect of the present invention has a temperature detecting means for detecting the temperature of an inner pot, a rice cooker key, a reheat key, a heat insulation key, and a good night heat insulation. Various types of input means such as keys, and an input signal from the input means, based on the temperature detected by the temperature detection means, by controlling the energization to various heaters such as a bottom heater, a body heater, etc. In a rice cooker provided with energization control means for performing good-night heat retention processing, reheating processing, and the like, the power supply control means, when performing reheating processing, divides the normal heating temperature to the reheating temperature into a plurality of sections, In the case where the heating level of each heater is different in each section and the nighttime reheating process is performed, the heating level of each heater is normally reheated from the nighttime temperature to the normal temperature. In which was set to lower than sense.

In the rice cooker according to the second invention, the energization control means raises the good night reheating process from the good night keeping temperature to the normal keeping temperature by heating with each heater, and then maintains the normal temperature. This is done in stages.

[0008] In the rice cooker according to the third aspect of the present invention, the input means enables selection of various rice cooking modes such as a white rice cooking mode and a rice porridge mode. The reheating is started only when the rice cooking mode is selected.

[0009]

[0010]

In the rice cooker according to the first aspect of the present invention,
When the reheating key is operated in the warm state, the energization control unit heats the rice by starting energization of each heater. If the temperature detected by the temperature detecting means rises and the corresponding section is different, the energization control means changes the energization mode of each heater to change the heating state. Further, in the case where reheating is performed from the nighttime heat retention, until the normal temperature is reached, the heater is gradually heated by lowering the power supply rate to each heater and the set temperature as compared with the normal reheating.

[0011] In the rice cooker according to the second aspect of the present invention, when reheating from a good night's heat retention, the heating is continued by adjusting the energization rate to each heater until the normal heat retention temperature is reached. When the temperature reaches the temperature, the temperature is maintained, and thereafter, heating control is performed in the same manner as in the case of reheating from normal heat retention.

According to the rice cooker according to the third aspect of the present invention, if the white rice cooking mode is not selected, reheating is not accepted even if the reheating key is operated.

[0013]

[0014]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a schematic view of a rice cooker according to the present invention. This rice cooker has a configuration in which an inner pot 2 is accommodated in a jar main body 1, and an upper opening of the inner pan 2 and the jar main body 1 can be opened and closed by a lid 3 pivotally supported by a part of the jar main body 1. A heating plate 5 having a bottom heater 4 is provided on the bottom of the jar body 1.
Are arranged. A body heater 7 is wound around the outer surface of the body of the jar body 1, and a side sensor 8 protruding inward contacts the inner pot 2 to detect the temperature. Further, on the upper surface of the lid 3, a lid heater 9 and a lid sensor 10 for detecting the temperature of the lid 3 are provided.

An operation panel 1 is provided on the front of the jar body 1.
1 is provided. The operation panel 11 has a rice cooker / reheat key 12, a warming / cancelling key 13, a good night warming key 14, a menu key 15, a reservation key 16, and an hour / minute key 1.
7, clock key 18, display panel 19, each key 12, 1
Display lamps 12a, 13a, 14a corresponding to 3, 14
Are provided respectively.

The temperatures detected by the sensors 8 and 10 and the input signals from the keys 12 to 18 are input to the microcomputer 20. The microcomputer 20 performs various controls such as rice cooking control, heat retention control, and reheating control based on the input signals.
Since the rice cooking control and the like are not directly related to the present invention, the heat retention control and the reheating control will be described below with reference to the flowcharts of FIGS. The thick solid line shown in the graphs of FIGS. 3 and 4 shows a change in the temperature detected by the side sensor 8, and the thin solid line shows the rice detected by disposing a thermocouple at the center of the rice in the inner pan 2. It shows a change in temperature.

When the rice cooking of white rice is completed, the first heat retention process is started in step S1. In the first heat retention process, the power supply to the bottom heater 4 and the body heater 7 is stopped. Further, the energization rate to the lid heater 9 is set to 22/30, and the temperature is controlled so that the temperature detected by the lid sensor 10 becomes 9 ° C. higher than the temperature detected by the side sensor 8. As a result, when the rice temperature gradually decreases from 100 ° C. after the cooking, and the temperature detected by the side sensor 8 drops to 80 ° C. (at this time, the rice temperature is 8 ° C.).
It is 5 ° C. ), A second heat retention process is started in step S2. In the second heat retention process, the power supply to the bottom heater 4 is stopped, but the body heater 7 has a power supply rate of 30 /
As 30, on / off control is performed so that the temperature detected by the side sensor 8 becomes 72 ° C. Further, the lid heater 9 performs on / off control so that the temperature detected by the lid sensor 10 becomes 80 ° C. while the power supply rate is maintained at 22/30. As a result, the rice temperature gradually approaches the normal temperature of 72 ° C. When the process is shifted to the heat retaining process after the porridge mode ends, the process is started from the second heat retaining process instead of the first heat retaining process.

By the way, if the sleep heat retention key 14 is operated during the first heat retention processing or the second heat retention processing (FIG. 2).
It is indicated by A in the middle. ), Whether or not the previous menu is the rice porridge mode in step S3; whether or not the temperature detected by the side sensor 8 is less than 50 ° C. in step S4;
In step 5, it is determined whether or not the number of the nighttime warming counter is 1 or more (whether or not the nighttime warming has already been performed). If any one of them is met, in step S6, the buzzer is sounded to the user three times (on / off for 0.1 seconds each) to notify the user, and then the pre-processing, that is, the second heat retaining processing is performed. Return.

If all of the steps S3 to S5 are not satisfied, the buzzer is turned on once in step S7 (0.
After notifying the user by sounding (for 1 second), good night heat retention is started. The nighttime heat retention is performed in two stages, a first nighttime heatholding process in step S8 and a second nighttime heat retention process in step S9.

In the first night heat retention process, the power supply to the bottom heater 4 is stopped, the power supply rate to the body heater 7 is set to 30/30, and the power supply rate to the lid heater 9 is set to 22/30. Also,
The body heater 7 is turned on and off so that the temperature detected by the side sensor 8 is maintained at 60 ° C., and the lid heater 9 is turned on and off so that the temperature detected by the lid sensor 10 is maintained at 65 ° C. Control off. As a result, the temperature of the rice gradually approaches 60 ° C., which is the good night keeping temperature.

In the second good-night heat keeping process 2, the power supply to the heaters 4, 7, 9 is performed in the same manner as in the first good-night heat keeping process. The body heater 7 is turned on / off so that the temperature detected by the side sensor 8 is maintained at 72 ° C., and the lid heater 9 is turned on / off so that the temperature detected by the lid sensor 10 is maintained at 77 ° C. Control off. As a result, the rice temperature gradually approaches the normal temperature of 72 ° C.

If the user presses the sleep key 14 again during the sleep processing, the buzzer sounds once (0.1 second) in step S10 to notify the user, and then the third step in step S11. The process shifts to the heat retention process, and the good night heat retention state is released. Therefore, the good night heat keeping lamp 14a is turned off and the heat keeping lamp 13a is turned on. In the third heat retention process, the bottom heater 4, the body heater 7,
The energization rates to the lid heater 9 were 12/30 and 16/3, respectively.
0, 22/30. The energization of the body heater 7 is
On / off control is performed so that the temperature detected by the side sensor 8 is maintained at 68 ° C.

On the other hand, when the rice cooker / reheater key 12 is operated during each of the heat retention processes (indicated by B in FIG. 2), it is determined in step S12 whether or not the previous menu is the rice porridge mode, in step S13. And the temperature detected by the side sensor 8 is 5
It is determined whether the temperature is less than 5 ° C. and whether the temperature detected by the side sensor 8 is 85 ° C. or less in step S14. If any one of them is applicable,
After the buzzer is notified in step S6, the process returns to the first heat retaining process. If none of the above applies, step S1
In step 5, the buzzer sounds once (0.1 second) to notify the user, and then the process proceeds to the reheating process in step S16 and subsequent steps.
Thereby, acceptance of reheating from a state unsuitable for reheating is avoided.

In step S16, it is determined whether or not the previous heat retention state is a good night heat retention process. In the case where the previous time is the night heat insulation processing, the rice temperature is set to the normal heat insulation temperature (72
C), the sleep temperature is lower (60 ° C), so that the first reheating process is started in step S17 to start the sleep reheating, and the rice temperature is once raised to the normal heat retention temperature. In addition, when the previous time is not the good night heat-retaining process, the rice temperature is the normal heat-retaining temperature, so that the first re-heating process is skipped and the normal re-heating is started by starting the second re-heating process in step S18. .

In the first reheating process in step S17, duty control is performed by setting the duty ratio to the bottom heater 4 to 15/30 and the duty ratio to the body heater 7 to 13/30, and the duty ratio to the lid heater 9 is controlled. Is set to 22/30, on / off control is performed so that the temperature detected by the lid sensor 10 becomes 80 ° C. Then, when the temperature detected by the side sensor 8 rises to 72 ° C., which is the normal heat retaining temperature, the process proceeds to the second reheating process in step S18. Note that the first reheating process is performed for a maximum of 7 minutes, and the process shifts to the second reheating process without increasing the temperature to 72 ° C. within this time.

In the second reheating process in step S18, duty control is performed with the power supply rate to the bottom heater 4 being 18/30 and the power supply rate to the body heater 7 being 10/30. On / off control is performed such that the temperature detected by the lid sensor 10 is maintained at 98 ° C. while keeping the energization rate to the lid heater 9 at 22/30. Then, when the temperature detected by the side sensor 8 rises to 80 ° C., the process proceeds to the third reheating process in step S19. Note that the second reheating process is performed for a maximum of 5 minutes, and the process shifts to the third reheating process without increasing the temperature to 80 ° C. within this time.

In the third reheating process in step S19, the energization rate to the bottom heater is set to 20/30 and the energization rate to the body heater is set to 8/30, and the temperature detected by the side sensor 8 is set to 8
On / off control is performed so as to be maintained at 8 ° C. The state of power supply to the lid heater 9 is the same as in the case of the second reheating process. Then, when five minutes have elapsed from the start of the third reheating process, the reheating process ends. The end of this reheating is performed by a buzzer a total of eight times (on time 0.2 seconds, off time 0.8
Second) to inform the user by sounding. in this way,
After the first reheating process and the second reheating process, the temperature is controlled for a certain time by the third reheating process, so that the rice temperature gradually approaches the reheating temperature of 85 ° C.

If the rice cooker / reheater key 12 is operated during each of the reheating processes (indicated by B in FIG. 2), the buzzer is operated once (1 in step S20 or S21).
(0 second) to alert the user. After the buzzer is notified in step S20, the process returns to step S2 and repeats the above-described processing. After the buzzer is notified in step S21, returns to step S1 and repeats the above-described processing.
Further, if the sleep keeping key 14 is operated during each of the reheating processes (indicated by A in FIG. 2), the process returns to step S3 to perform the sleep keeping control.

As described above, in the reheating treatment, when reheating from the good heat retention, the heating state in the first reheating treatment is suppressed as compared with the second reheating treatment when reheating from the normal heat retention. As a result, the rice can be warmed smoothly without being partially scorched or dried.

In the above embodiment, in the case of good night reheating,
Normally, only the first reheating treatment was performed until the temperature reached the heat retaining temperature. However, as shown in the graph of FIG. 5, the temperature was controlled to a constant temperature by the fourth reheating treatment after the first reheating treatment. You may.

That is, in the fourth reheating process, the energization rates of the heaters 4, 7, and 9 are the same as those of the first reheating process, and the energization of the bottom heater 4 and the body heater 7 is performed by the side sensor 8. On / off control is performed so that the detected temperature is maintained at 76 ° C., and energization by the lid heater 9 is controlled on / off so that the detected temperature of the lid sensor 10 is maintained at 80 ° C.

That is, in this good night reheating, after the inner pot is heated in the first reheating process, the temperature is kept at the normal temperature for a predetermined time by the fourth reheating process. Therefore, not only the temperature detected by the side sensor 8 but also the temperature of the rice can be brought close to the temperature in the normal heat-retention state. Can be.

In the above-described embodiment, the inner pot 2 is heated by the bottom heater 4 via the heating plate 5. However, an incoloy heater that directly heats the inner pot 2, or an induction heater in which the inner pot itself generates heat. Of course, a heating coil or the like may be used. Further, in the above-described embodiment, the side sensor 8 is used for detecting the temperature of the inner pot 2, but a bottom sensor for detecting the bottom temperature of the inner pot 2 may be used.

[0035]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the rice cooker according to the first aspect of the present invention, the range from the warming temperature to the reheating temperature is divided into a plurality of sections, and power is supplied to each heater for each section. Is adjusted, so that reheating can be appropriately performed according to the degree of warming of the inner pot and the rice, and problems such as partial drying and burning of the rice can be avoided. In addition, when reheating from a good night heat retention at a low set temperature, the division is divided more finely than reheating from normal heat retention, so that even low temperature rice, which was not possible in the past, is properly reheated. It can be heated to the heating temperature.

According to the rice cooker according to the second aspect of the present invention, since the normal reheating is constituted by a part of the good night reheating, the control program can be simplified and the production thereof can be facilitated. . Further, since the amount of memory used can be suppressed, it can be effectively used for other controls.

According to the rice cooker according to the third aspect of the present invention, reheating is not performed unless the white rice cooking mode is selected, so that malfunctions when reheating is impossible, such as for cold rice or porridge, can be ensured. Can be avoided.

[0038]

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a rice cooker according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart illustrating a heat retention control and a reheating control of the rice cooker according to the present embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a graph showing a relationship between a change in the detected temperature of the heat retention and the normal reheating in FIG. 2 and a change in a power supply mode to each heater.

FIG. 4 is a graph showing a relationship between a change in detected temperature of heat retention and good night reheating in FIG. 2 and a change in a power supply mode to each heater.

FIG. 5 is a graph showing a relationship between a change in the detected temperature of the heat retention and other rest reheating in FIG. 2 and a change in a power supply mode to each heater.

[Description of Signs] 4 Bottom heater 7 Body heater 9 Lid heater 12 Rice cooking / reheating key 20 Microcomputer (power supply control means)

────────────────────────────────────────────────── ─── Continued on the front page (56) References JP-A-6-30844 (JP, A) JP-A-8-10152 (JP, A) (58) Fields investigated (Int. Cl. ⁷ , DB name) A47J 27/00 103 A47J 27/00 109

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] A temperature detecting means for detecting a temperature of the inner pot;
Various input means such as a cooking rice key, a reheating key, a heat keeping key, a good night heat keeping key, and an input signal from the input means,
A bottom heater based on the temperature detected by the temperature detecting means,
In a rice cooker having an energization control means for performing heat retention processing, good night heat insulation processing, reheating processing, and the like by controlling energization to various heaters such as a body heater, the energization control means performs reheating processing. In the case, the normal warming temperature to the reheating temperature are divided into a plurality of sections, and the heating levels of the respective heaters are different in each section, and when performing the good night reheating process, from the good night keeping temperature to the normal warming temperature. A rice cooking jar characterized in that the heating level of each heater is reduced as compared with a normal reheating treatment. 2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the energization control unit performs the sleep reheating process in two stages of raising the sleep temperature from the sleep temperature to the normal temperature by heating with each heater, and then maintaining the normal temperature. The cooked rice jar according to claim 1. 3. A rice cooking mode using the input means,
The rice cooking mode such as a rice porridge mode can be selected, and the energization control means starts reheating only when a white rice cooking mode is selected when a reheating key is operated. 3. The rice cooker according to 1 or 2.