JPH05240539A - Automatic icemaker - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain an icemaker which can make ice by shortening an icemaking time when ice is early wanted in an automatic icemaker to be mounted in a cold storage refrigerator, etc. CONSTITUTION:The automatic icemaker comprises a temperature detector 2, an ice separating mechanism having a motor 8, a driver 12, a twisting completing position detector 11 and horizontal position detecting means 10, a water feed motor pump 4, a driver 13 for driving the pump, a feed water timer 14 for counting a water feeding time and a shortening water feed timer 18. Further, the icemaker comprises an icemaking timer 15 for counting an icemaking time, a shortening icemaking timer 17, a rapid ice switch 16, and a controller 9 for counting a time by the timers 18, 17 during operating of the switch 16 and counting a time by the timers 14, 15 at the time of no operation.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an automatic ice making device which automatically transfers ice stock from an ice tray to an ice container after completion of ice making.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, for example, an automatic ice making device mounted on a domestic refrigerator has a water supply motor pump for supplying water to a plate, and a temperature sensor attached to the outer bottom surface of the ice making plate to detect the completion of ice making. The temperature sensor indicates the ice making completion temperature (for example, -12).
It is becoming more common to have an ice removing device that rotates the ice tray to remove ice when it is detected that the temperature is below (° C).

An automatic ice making device of this type will be described below with reference to FIGS. 3 to 6 by taking a home refrigerator / freezer as an example.

FIGS. 3 and 4 are perspective views showing the entire conventional automatic ice making device and a rear view showing a state in which the back lid of the ice removing device is removed, and FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing the structure of the automatic ice making device. FIG. 6 is a flow chart for explaining the operation.

Referring to FIG. 3, the conventional automatic ice making device includes an ice tray 1 installed in a freezer (not shown) and an ice tray 1
Temperature detector 2 including a thermistor or the like attached to the back surface of the ice cube to detect the completion of ice making, a water supply tank 3 installed in a refrigerating room (not shown), and water supply for supplying water from the water supply tank 3 to the ice tray 1 Motor pump 4, an ice container 5 disposed below the ice tray 1, an ice tray 1 that rotates the ice tray 1 and twists it with a twisting arm 6 to remove ice and drop it into the ice container 5. It consists of

Turning to FIG. 4, the ice removing device 7 includes an electric motor 8 for rotating an ice tray (not shown) 1 via a reduction gear train.
A horizontal position detector 10 including a control device 9 including a printed circuit board on which a microcomputer and the like are mounted, and a horizontal position detector 10 including a micro switch for detecting the horizontal position of the ice tray 1 and the completion of the twisting operation, and the twisting operation completion position detection, respectively. And a container 11 are provided.

Next, the control circuit will be described with reference to FIG. The control device 9 has a temperature detector 2, a twisting motion completion position detector 11, and a horizontal position detector 10 at its input terminals, and a drive device 12 for moving the electric motor 8 and the water supply motor pump 4 at its output terminals. 13 are connected to each other. The control device 9 is provided with a water supply timer 14 for measuring the operating time of the water supply motor pump 4 and an ice making timer 15 for counting the ice making time.

The operation of the automatic ice making device configured as described above will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

First, it is checked whether or not the horizontal position detector 10 is in the ON state (step 1). If it is in the OFF state, that is, "NO", the electric motor 8 is operated until it is in the ON state (step). 2). Horizontal position detector 10 is O
If the state is N, that is, "YES", the electric motor 8 is stopped if it is running, and if it is stopped, it is left as it is (step 3). Next, the ice making timer 15 is started (step 4) and waits until the time is up (step 5). When the time is up and a time (for example, 120 minutes) which is considered to be sufficiently completed has passed, it is next judged whether or not the temperature of the temperature detector 2 is lower than the set value (step 6). That is, if “NO”, the process waits until it becomes low.

If it is determined that the temperature is low and ice making is completed, that is, if "YES", the operation of the electric motor 8 is started.
(Step 7). As a result, the ice tray 1 is rotated and twisted by the twisting arm 6 to drop ice from the ice tray 1. At this time, it is judged whether or not the twisting motion completion position detector 11 is in the ON state (step 8), and if it is not in the ON state, that is, “NO”, the operation of the electric motor 8 is continued. If it is in the ON state, that is, "YES", it is determined that the ice removal is completed, the electric motor 8 is continuously operated until the ice tray 1 becomes horizontal, and the horizontal position detector 10 waits until it becomes the ON state.

Judgment by the horizontal position detector 10 (step 9)
If it is not turned on, that is, if "NO", the operation of the electric motor 8 is continued. When the horizontal position detector 10 is turned on, that is, "YES", it is determined that the ice tray 1 has returned to the horizontal position, and the electric motor 8 is stopped (step 10). Then, in order to supply water to the empty ice tray 1, the water supply motor pump 4 is operated (step 11) and the water supply timer 14 is started (step 12) until the time is up (for example, 8 seconds elapse). Until) The water supply motor pump 4 is operated.

When the water supply timer 14 times out (step 13), the operation of the water supply motor pump 4 is stopped. (Step 14). When the water supply is completed, one cycle of the ice making cycle ends, and the process proceeds to step 4 again, and thereafter this cycle is repeated to automatically make ice.

[0013]

However, in such a structure, the ice making is not completed until the time set by the ice making timer 15 (for example, 120 minutes) elapses. There was the problem of having to wait.

The present invention solves the above-mentioned problems, and shortens the ice making time when ice is needed quickly.

[0015]

In order to solve the above problems, an automatic ice making device of the present invention is provided with a quick ice switch, and when the fast ice switch is operating, the set times of the ice making timer and the water supply timer are set. It is configured to be short.

[0016]

According to the present invention, since the ice making cycle is operated by the above-mentioned structure, when the quick ice switch is operated, the time from the water supply to the ice making tray to the ice removing operation is shortened, and the ice making is performed. You can shorten the time. In this case, since the set time of the water supply timer is short, the amount of water supplied to the ice tray decreases, so the ice making time of the water in the ice making tray also becomes substantially short, and by shortening the ice making timer setting time, The case of incomplete ice making does not occur.

[0017]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. It should be noted that the same components as those of the related art are denoted by the same reference numerals, detailed description thereof will be omitted, and only different portions will be described.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing the configuration of this embodiment. The difference from the conventional example shown in FIG. 5 is that a quick ice switch 16 is added as an input to the control device 9, and the shortened ice making timer 17 is added to the control device 9. In addition, a shortened water supply timer 18 is additionally provided.

The operation of the automatic ice making device configured as described above will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG.

The difference from the conventional example is that after step 3, step 3'is performed to judge the state of the quick ice switch 16. If it is not turned on, move to step 4 and step 1
Up to 4, the same operation as in the conventional example is performed. If it is determined in step 3 ′ that the quick ice switch 16 is on, the process proceeds to step 15 and the operations up to step 24 are performed.
Here, the operations from step 15 to step 14 are the same as the operations from step 4 to step 13 and the set time of the shortened ice making timer 17 at step 16 and step 2
The setting time of the shortened water supply timer 18 of 4 is changed.

For example, the time setting of the ice making timer 15 is 120
In contrast, the shortened ice making timer 17 is set to 80 minutes, and the water supply timer 14 is set to 8 seconds, while the shortened water supply timer 18 is set to 6 seconds. When the water supply motor pump 4 is turned off in step 14, the process proceeds to step 3 ', and thereafter, this cycle is repeated to automatically make ice.

Therefore, when the quick ice switch 16 is turned on, the set time of the ice making timer and the water supply timer can be shortened in the ice making cycle operation.

[0023]

As is apparent from the above embodiments, according to the present invention, the quick ice switch is provided, and when the fast ice switch is operating, the set times of the ice making timer and the water supply timer are shortened. Since it has been configured as above, by operating the quick ice switch when you want to make ice quickly, the time from water supply to the ice tray to ice removing operation in the ice making cycle can be shortened, and the ice making time can be shortened. ..

Since the amount of water supplied to the ice tray is reduced,
The ice making time of the water in the ice making tray is substantially shortened, and there is no possibility that the ice making is not completed due to the shortening of the ice making timer setting time.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of an automatic ice making device showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart of the automatic ice making device of the same embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the entire automatic ice making device showing a conventional example.

FIG. 4 is a rear view showing a state where the back lid of the ice removing device of the automatic ice making device showing the conventional example is removed.

FIG. 5 is a block diagram of an automatic ice making device showing the conventional example.

FIG. 6 is a flowchart of an automatic ice-making device showing the conventional example.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 Ice tray 2 Temperature detector 3 Water supply tank 4 Water supply motor pump 5 Ice container 6 Twisting arm 7 Ice removing device 8 Electric motor 9 Control device 10 Horizontal position detector 11 Twist operation completion position detector 12 Drive device 13 Drive device 14 Water supply timer 15 Ice making timer 16 Fast ice switch 17 Shortened water supply timer 18 Shortened ice making timer

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. An ice tray, an ice making temperature detecting means attached to the ice tray, and an ice removing mechanism for rotating the ice tray to remove ice.
A water supply tank, a water supply motor pump for supplying water from the water supply tank to the ice tray, a water supply timer for counting the water supply time, an ice making timer for counting the ice making time from the water supply until the ice is removed, the water supply time and the ice making An automatic ice making device comprising a fast ice switch for shortening the time, and comprising control means for shortening the counting time of the water supply timer and the ice making timer during the operation of the fast ice switch.