JPH0315985Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] Industrial application field This invention is an automatic ice-making machine that generates ice cubes in each ice-making chamber by spraying ice-making water from below into a large number of ice-making chambers. The structure is such that the height of ice-making water jetted against the ice cube is constant, so that ice cubes of uniform shape, transparency, and high quality can be produced.

Prior Art A fountain-type automatic ice maker that continuously produces a large number of ice cubes by spraying and supplying ice-making water from below into a large number of ice-making compartments that open downward is used in facilities such as coffee shops, restaurants, etc. It is suitably used in the kitchen. Since the present invention relates to improvements to this fountain-type automatic ice maker, prior to explaining the improvements, the schematic structure of the fountain-type automatic ice maker will be explained with reference to FIGS. 3 to 5. .

FIG. 3 shows the ice-making mechanism of the fountain-type automatic ice-making machine, in which a horizontally arranged ice-making chamber 10 has a large number of ice-making chambers 12 opening downward defined in a grid pattern. An evaporator tube 14 that communicates with a refrigeration system (not shown) is closely arranged in a meandering manner on the upper surface of the ice-making chamber 10, and the ice-making chamber 12 is forcibly cooled by circulating a refrigerant during the ice-making cycle.

Immediately below the ice making compartment 10, a water tray 18 equipped with an ice making water tank 16 for storing a predetermined amount of ice making water is connected to the shaft 2.
It is pivotably tilted via 0. The tank 16 and water tray 18 are held horizontally and parallel to the ice making chamber 10 during the ice making cycle;
actuator (not shown) during the de-icing cycle.
The ice-making chamber 12 is biased by the ice-making chamber 12 and tilts clockwise about the shaft 20 to open the ice-making compartment 12 .

The water tray 18 is provided with a fountain hole 22 for spraying and supplying ice-making water, and a return hole 24 for recovering unfrozen residual water, corresponding to each of the ice-making compartments 12. Further, on the back surface of the water tray 18, as shown in FIG. 4, a plurality of water sprinkling pipes 38 are integrally formed in parallel, and these water sprinkling pipes 38 communicate with the water fountain 22. A pump 26 is attached to the side of the ice-making water tank 16, and the motor 26 sucks ice-making water through a suction pipe 28 communicating with the tank 16, and through a discharge pipe 30 and an inlet 32 shown in the figure.
The water is fed under pressure into a pressure chamber 34 provided in the water tray 18.

The inner wall of the pressure chamber 34 has markings shown in FIGS. 3 and 4.
As shown in the figure, water distribution holes 40 correspondingly communicated with the plurality of water sprinkler pipes 38 described above are drilled respectively.
Therefore, the ice-making water pumped into the pressure chamber 34 is further pumped through the water distribution hole 40 to the sprinkler pipe 38, and is injected into each ice-making chamber 12 from a large number of water fountain holes 22 provided in the water tray 18. Ru. Note that the inner diameters of the plurality of water distribution holes 40 are all set to be equal, as shown in FIG. 5.

Since the ice-making chamber 12 is cooled to below the freezing point by the continuous operation of the refrigeration system, a portion of the ice-making water that is circulated and supplied into the ice-making chamber begins to freeze in a layer on the inner wall surface of the ice-making chamber 12. Further, the unfrozen water falls through the return hole 24 of the water tray 18 and is collected in the ice-making water tank 16. When the ice-making operation progresses and ice cubes are generated in the ice-making chamber 12, a sensor detects this, stops cooling, supplies hot gas to the evaporation tube 14, and supplies ice cubes to the ice-making water tank 16 and water tray 18.
start tilting. The generated ice cubes are discharged from the ice making chamber 12, fall into the water tray 18, slide diagonally downward, and are stored in an ice storage (not shown).

Problems to be Solved by the Invention In the fountain type automatic ice maker having the above structure, the ice making water in the tank 16 is pumped into the pressure chamber 34 through the inlet 32, and the water pressure in the pressure chamber 34 is kept as constant as possible. The water is distributed and supplied to each sprinkler pipe 38. However, in the vicinity of the inlet 32 in the pressure chamber 34, the ice-making water fed by the pump collides with the wall of the pressure chamber, causing turbulent flow, causing a phenomenon in which the water pressure locally decreases. That is, in the range affected by the turbulence, the water pressure is lower than in the range not affected by the turbulence, and the pressure chamber 34
This causes an imbalance in water pressure within the tank.

For this reason, water pressure is not applied evenly to each of the water sprinkler pipes 38 that communicate with the pressure chamber 34 via the water distribution holes 40, and the water pressure of the water spray pipes 38 in the vicinity where turbulent flow is occurring is separated from the location where turbulent flow is occurring. Other sprinkler pipes 38
water pressure is lower than that of water. Therefore, the spray height of ice-making water sprayed from the water spray pipe 38 with low water pressure is:
The water pressure is lower than the injection height of the ice-making water that is injected from the water sprinkler pipe 38 that has not decreased, and the ice-making water does not reach every corner of the ice-making chamber 12, resulting in deformed ice with missing corners. There were some shortcomings. In addition, cloudy ice with air mixed in due to lack of water flow,
The drawback was that it was not possible to obtain clear, high-quality ice cubes.

As a proposal to solve the above problems, the sixth
As shown in the figure, a pressure equalizing plate 42 is arranged and fixed within the pressure chamber 34 to prevent turbulent flow generated near the inlet 32 from directly affecting the water distribution holes 40. However, in this case, it is necessary to install a separately prepared pressure equalizing plate 42 in the pressure chamber 34 of the ice maker, which has the drawback of increasing the number of parts and the number of processing steps.

Purpose of the invention In view of the above-mentioned drawbacks, the present invention was proposed to suitably solve the problem. To provide an ice making machine capable of producing transparent ice cubes of good quality without deformation by keeping the injection height of ice making water injected into an ice making chamber constant.

Means for Solving the Problems In order to achieve the above-mentioned object, the present invention includes an ice-making chamber that defines a number of ice-making chambers that open downward, and a water fountain that communicates with a plurality of water pipes corresponding to each ice-making chamber. a water tray drilled in the ice-making chamber and tiltably disposed below the ice-making chamber; an ice-making water tank disposed below the water tray for storing ice-making water; , a pump for supplying pressure to a pressure chamber provided in the water tray through an inlet, and the plurality of water sprinkler pipes are configured to communicate with the pressure chamber via correspondingly opened water distribution holes. In the fountain-type automatic ice maker, the inner diameter of each water distribution hole communicating with the sprinkler pipe is:
The pressure chamber is characterized in that the hole closest to the inlet opened in the pressure chamber is set to be the largest, and the hole is set to become smaller as the distance from the inlet is increased.

Embodiments Next, the automatic ice making machine according to the present invention will be described below with reference to preferred embodiments and the accompanying drawings. Furthermore, as explained in relation to FIGS. 3 to 5,
The same members already mentioned in the conventional automatic ice maker will be designated by the same reference numerals, and detailed explanation thereof will be omitted.

1 and 2 show an embodiment of the present invention, in which water distribution holes 40a to 40a, which communicate with the plurality of water sprinkler pipes 38 (eight in this example), are provided in the inner wall 36 of the pressure chamber 34. 40h is drilled. The inner diameter of the water distribution hole 40 is set to the maximum inner diameter of the water distribution holes 40e and 40f, which are located at a location near the inlet 32 opened at the bottom of the pressure chamber 34 and most affected by the turbulent flow. It is set to become smaller as the distance increases. For example, water distribution holes 40a, 40b, 40 that are hardly affected by turbulence
If the inner diameter of water distribution holes 40d and 40g, which are slightly affected by turbulent flow, is set to 1.1 times the inner diameter of water distribution holes 40d and 40g, which are slightly affected by turbulence, the inner diameter of water distribution holes 40e and 40f, which are most affected by turbulence, is Set the dimensions so that it is 1.2 times larger.

Note that the ratio of the inner diameters of the water distribution holes 40a to 40h is experimentally confirmed and set based on various conditions that cause turbulent flow, such as the output of the pump 26 and the inner diameter of the inlet 32. In other words, the water distribution hole 4 in the low water pressure range
0a, 40b, 40c, and 40h, and the water distribution hole 40 in the high water pressure range.
The ice-making water is set so that the same amount of ice-making water flows into the water sprinkler pipes 38 that are communicated through the pipes d, 40e, 40f, and 40g.

Next, the operation of the automatic ice maker according to the present invention will be explained. When the ice-making operation of the automatic ice-making machine is started, the pump 26 is driven to suck ice-making water from the tank 16 and forcefully feed it into the pressure chamber 34 through the inlet 32. This ice-making water generates turbulent flow near the inlet 32 as described above, and as a result, the ice-making water
Water pressure near 2 decreases. However, the water distribution holes 40d, 40e, 40f, and 40g are affected by the turbulence.
The inner diameter of the water distribution hole 40a, which is not affected by turbulence, is
Since the inner diameters of the pipes 40b, 40c, and 40h are set to be larger than the inner diameters of the pipes 40b, 40c, and 40h, the same amount of ice-making water flows into each water sprinkling pipe 38 communicating through each water distribution hole. That is, if the flow rate is the same, the water pressure in each water sprinkler pipe 38 with the same inner diameter is constant, and therefore the water tray 1
Ice-making water is supplied into the ice-making chamber 12 from a fountain hole 22 formed in the ice-making chamber 8 at a uniform pressure. Therefore, the injection height of the ice-making water supplied into the ice-making water chamber 12 remains constant.

Effects of the invention According to the automatic ice-making machine according to the invention configured as described above, the water pressure of the ice-making water force-fed from the pressure chamber to each sprinkler pipe becomes constant. Therefore, the ice-making water sprayed into each ice-making compartment from the water sprinkler pipe is uniformly distributed on the wall surface of the compartment and reaches every corner of the ice-making compartment. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the formation of deformed ice with missing corners or cloudy ice, and it is possible to produce ice cubes of good quality that are transparent and have uniform dimensions.

Moreover, since it can be implemented by a simple process of changing the inner diameter of the water distribution hole in the pressure chamber, the number of parts and the number of work steps can be reduced, and manufacturing costs can be reduced.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Fig. 1 is a sectional view taken along the line - - of Fig. 2 showing the opened state of the water distribution hole drilled inside the pressure chamber of the automatic ice maker according to the present invention, and Fig. 2 is a water tray of the automatic ice maker according to the present invention. FIG. 3 is a schematic side view showing the ice making mechanism of an automatic ice maker according to the prior art; FIG. 4 is a partially cutaway plan view of FIG.
The figure is a partially cutaway plan view of the water tray shown in FIG. 3, and FIG. 5 is a cross-sectional view taken along the line -- in FIG.
FIG. 6 is a partially cutaway plan view schematically showing a means for preventing turbulence in a pressure chamber according to the prior art. 10... Ice making room, 12... Ice making small room, 16...
Ice-making water tank, 18... water tray, 22... fountain hole,
26...Pump, 32...Inflow port, 34...Pressure chamber, 36...Inner wall, 38...Water pipe, 40...Water distribution hole.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claim for Utility Model Registration] An ice-making chamber 10 defining a large number of ice-making chambers 12 that open downward, and a fountain hole 22 communicating with a plurality of water pipes 38 corresponding to each ice-making chamber 12, The ice making room 10
a water tray 18 disposed so as to be tiltable downward; an ice-making water tank 16 disposed below the water tray 18 for storing ice-making water; and a pump 26 that pumps water into a pressure chamber 34 provided at 18 through an inlet 32, and the plurality of water sprinkler pipes 38 communicate with the pressure chamber 34 through correspondingly opened water distribution holes 40. In the fountain-type automatic ice maker configured as such, the inner diameter of each water distribution hole 40 communicating with the water sprinkler pipe 38 is equal to that of the inlet 3 opened in the pressure chamber 34.
The hole closest to 2 is the largest, and the inlet 32
An automatic ice maker characterized by being set to become smaller as the distance from the ice maker increases.