JP5007856B2 - Ice making machine and ice making method - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a reverse cell type ice making machine and an ice making method thereof.

As shown in FIGS. 1 to 4, an inverted cell type ice making machine A mainly used for business use has an ice tray 2 having a plurality of depressions 1 opened downward, and a vertical swing below the ice tray 2. A water supply unit 7 that is movably provided and closes the depression 1 with a water supply plate 5; and a pump 8 that spouts water w from the nozzles 6 of the water supply plate 5 into the respective depressions 1 to form ice pieces i. A water supply pipe 12 for supplying water to the surface of the water supply plate 5 to prevent the ice pieces i from sticking to the surface, and an ice storage 9 for storing the ice pieces i below the water supply unit 7. The ice storage 9 is composed of a detection switch 10 for detecting that the ice piece i is full (see, for example, Patent Document 1).
JP 2006-194498 A

  The ice making operation by the reverse cell type ice making machine A is such that the water supply unit 7 swings upward around the rotation shaft 4 as shown by an arrow from the solid line state shown in FIG. Is brought into close contact with the ice tray 2 (see FIG. 2), and water in the water supply unit 7 is ejected from the nozzle 6 of the water supply plate 5 into the recess 1 of the ice tray 2 and the ice tray 2 is cooled by the cooler 3. Cool to freeze the water w. The remaining water w that has not been frozen returns to the water supply unit 7 from the drain hole 11 near the nozzle 6.

  When the spout s of the water w is continued and the ice piece i has grown sufficiently, the spout s is stopped, and the water supply unit 7 swings downward as shown by the arrow in FIG. The dent 1 of the ice tray 2 is opened away from 2. At this time, the ice tray 2 is heated by a heating device (not shown), and the surface of the ice piece i melts and is detached from the depression 1 and falls onto the water supply plate 5.

  When the water supply unit 7 reaches its lowest swing point (see FIG. 3), the ice piece i on the water supply plate 5 slides down (black arrow in the figure) and is discharged to the ice storage 9 (same as above). Figure white arrow). When this water supply unit 7 is located at the lowest swing point, water f is supplied from the water supply pipe 12 to the surface of the water supply plate 5, and the water supply prevents the ice piece i from sticking to the surface of the water supply plate 5, Sliding is performed more smoothly, and eventually the ice pieces i on the water supply plate 5 are all slid down (FIG. 1).

  When the water supply unit 7 reaches the lowest swing point and a predetermined time elapses, the water supply f from the water supply pipe 12 stops and the water supply unit 7 swings upward from the state shown in FIG. Return to ice making position.

  When this ice making action is repeated, the ice storage is nearly full, and when the ice piece i is discharged from the ice tray 2, the detection switch 10 is pushed by the discharged ice piece i as shown in FIG. Is turned on. In this on state, the water supply f and the water supply unit 7 stop swinging, and a display indicating that the ice storage is full is displayed.

  When ice pieces i in the ice storage 9 are used in the ice storage state after the stop, the ice storage amount is reduced, the detection switch 10 is released from the on state (off state), and further, at the time of restart. When the compressor protection time, for example, 5 minutes elapses, the water supply unit 7 swings again and returns to the ice making position shown in FIG. 2, and the ice making action described above is performed to fill the ice storage.

  Further, from the state where the ice storage 9 is full, a person scrapes the ice pieces i in the ice storage 9 and turns off the detection switch 10, and further, the compressor protection time at the time of restart, for example, 5 minutes After the elapse of time, the water supply unit 7 swings again and the above ice making operation is performed, and ice is stored in the scraped and averaged space, and the ice storage is full.

In such an ice making operation by the reverse cell type ice making machine A, it is preferable that the ice piece i is transparent, and the transparency depends on the properties of the water w used. For example, if impurities such as salt and calcareous substances are contained in the water w, the impurities such as salinity and calcareous substances cannot enter the ice crystal lattice in the process of the water w becoming ice pieces i. It is expelled to the surface of the lattice, appears as a lump on the surface of the ice piece i, and becomes a cloudy ice piece i with the lump.
For this reason, when this type of ice making machine must be installed in an area where water must be made with water w that contains a lot of impurities such as salt and calcareous substances (areas with poor water quality), the ice pieces The cloudiness of i becomes a problem.

Conventionally, the appearance is poor and there is no problem in terms of hygiene.
However, the ice pieces i having a large impurity content may feel bitter when eaten, and if the bitterness is felt, the original taste of the food containing the ice pieces i is impaired. For this reason, it is very meaningful to provide delicious ice pieces i with few impurities, and it is preferable to remove impurities from ice pieces i as much as possible.
Moreover, even the ice piece i is one of commercial products, and it is preferable for business to improve its appearance.

In view of the above circumstances, the present invention has an object to make it possible to easily make a highly transparent ice piece i without being influenced by the properties of water w (content of impurities such as salt and calcareous substances). To do.

In order to solve the above-mentioned problem, the present invention pays attention to the fact that the turbidity of the ice piece i varies depending on the momentum of the jetted water w into the depression of the ice tray, and the jetting speed (momentum) of the water w is set to the water w It was made variable based on the properties of
As mentioned above, since impurities such as salinity and calcareous material cannot enter the ice crystal lattice, they are expelled to the surface of the crystal lattice and appear as a lump on the surface of the ice piece i. If attached, the lump is removed, and the water w is originally transparent, and an ice piece i consisting only of the transparent water w is formed in the recess.
The ejection speed of the water w is set as appropriate by experiment or the like so that the ice piece i having the required transparency can be formed.

As a configuration of the present invention, an ice making tray having a plurality of depressions opened downward, a water supply unit provided below the ice making tray so as to be swingable in the vertical direction, and closing the depression with a water supply plate, In a cell-type ice making machine having a pump for making ice pieces by ejecting water from the nozzle of the water supply plate into each of the recesses, when the content of impurities such as water salt and calcareous is higher than usual, the pump of the ejection rate of water by increasing, to adopt one that increases the transparency of the ice pieces by removal of masses of the impurity of the ice pieces surface by jetting of the water.
By providing a switch that makes the water ejection speed of the pump variable, and setting the ejection speed by the switch corresponding to the nature of the water in the area where it is installed in advance ,
When the content of impurities such as water salinity and calcareous is higher than usual, increase the pumping speed of the pump water and increase the transparency of the ice pieces by removing the lump of impurities on the ice piece surface by the water jetting. the switch of increasing provided, if you put a As a switch, in the region, it is possible to obtain the ice pieces i of the required transparency.

  In addition, the pump water ejection speed is usually changed by changing the rotational speed of the driving motor. The motor may be an AC motor, but a DC motor is preferably used. There is no general-purpose product that can make the rotation speed variable in the small-sized AC motor used in this type of ice making machine, and the DC motor has many advantages such as being small and easily changing the rotation speed by adjusting the voltage. Because.

As described above, when the content of impurities such as water salinity and calcareous is higher than usual , the present invention increases the ejection speed (momentum) of the ejection water w into the depression of the ice tray, Since the transparency of the ice piece is increased by removing the lump of impurities on the surface of the ice piece by the eruption of water, it is possible to easily obtain an ice piece with high transparency even in an area where the water properties are poor.

  In this embodiment, in the ice making machine A shown in FIGS. 1 to 4, the pump 8 is driven by a DC motor, and the pump 8 is controlled by the control circuit shown in FIG. 5. 2 (the height at which water w is ejected from the nozzle 6 into the recess 1 in FIG. 2), the number of rotations can be normally switched between two cases: 3000 rpm and 3400 rpm. A switch (not shown) is provided. This switch is arbitrary as the position where it can be operated from outside the operation panel or circuit board of the ice making machine A, the appropriate position inside the ice making machine, and the like.

As shown in FIG. 5, a switching regulator circuit 21 and a rotation speed detection circuit 22 are connected to the pump 8, and the switching regulator circuit 21 and the rotation speed detection circuit 22 are connected to a microcomputer M. Therefore, the microcomputer M changes the pulse width t _on of the control signal c output at a constant period T, and the supply voltage V ₀ (= V _DD × t _on to the pump 8 set by the control signal c. / T), and the number of revolutions of the pump 8 is set appropriately. For example, the rotation speed of the pump 8 is switched between 3000 rpm and 3400 rpm. In the figure, e is the rotation speed signal of the pump 8 which is input from the rotational speed detecting circuit 22 to the microcomputer M, the microcomputer M, based on the signal e, rotary pump 8 is required by changing the pulse width t _on Control to be a number.

When the ice making machine A according to this embodiment is installed in a region of water w having normal properties, the number of rotations of the pump 8 is set to 3000 rpm by a switch operation, and the quality of water with poor salinity and calcareous water quality is poor. In the case of installing in the water area, the pump 8 is set to 3400 rpm by the switch operation.
When the number of revolutions is set to 3400 rpm, the ice making ability is slightly reduced compared to the normal case, and the hole of the ice piece i is slightly larger. However, it is possible to obtain an ice piece i having a transparency comparable to the normal case. did it.

  In addition, even when the ground water containing the electrolyte or the like was made as water w, by setting the number of revolutions of the pump 8 to 3400 rpm, it was possible to obtain a transparent ice piece i that was inferior to that in a normal case. .

Cross-sectional view of one working state of inverted cell type ice making machine (water supply unit swinging lowest point state) Sectional view of other operating states (state of ice making position of water supply unit) Sectional view of other operating states (ice piece discharge state) Sectional view of other operating states (ice piece discharge state just before ice storage is full) Control circuit diagram of a pump adopting an embodiment of the present invention in the above reverse cell type ice making machine Relationship diagram between pump speed and blowing height using the same embodiment

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Dimple 2 Ice tray 4 Rotating shaft 5 Water supply plate 6 Nozzle 7 Water supply unit 8 Pump A Reverse cell type ice making machine f Water supply i Ice piece w Water

Claims (4)

An ice tray (2) having a plurality of depressions (1) opened downward, and a swing plate provided below the ice tray (2) so as to be swingable in the vertical direction. A water supply unit (7) that is closed, and a pump (8) that forms ice pieces (i) by ejecting water (w) from the nozzle (6) of the water supply plate (5) into each of the recesses (1). In a cell-type ice making machine having
When the content of impurities such as salinity and calcareous substance in the water (w) is higher than usual, the water (w) ejection speed of the pump (8) is increased and the water (w) ejection (s) A reverse cell type ice making machine characterized in that the transparency of the ice piece (i) is increased by removing the lump of the impurities on the surface of the ice piece (i). A switch for changing the water (w) ejection speed of the pump (8) is provided , and when the impurity content is higher than usual by this switch, the water (w) ejection speed of the pump (8). The reverse cell type ice making machine according to claim 1 , wherein the size is increased .   The reverse cell type ice making machine according to claim 1 or 2, wherein a driving motor of the pump (8) is a DC motor. This is an ice making method in a reverse cell type ice making machine in which water (w) is jetted by a pump (8) into a plurality of depressions (1) opened downward in an ice tray (2) to produce ice pieces (i). And
When the content of impurities such as salinity and calcareous substance in the water (w) is higher than usual, the water (w) ejection speed of the pump (8) is increased and the water (w) ejection (s) The ice making method is characterized in that the transparency of the ice piece (i) is increased by removing the lump of impurities on the surface of the ice piece (i).

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