JPH0754780Y2 - Ice tray for automatic ice maker - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the device]

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to an ice tray for an automatic ice making apparatus having an improved mounting structure of a temperature sensor for detecting the temperature of an ice tray body.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art For example, an automatic ice making device provided in an ice making room of a refrigerator supplies water to an ice making tray by a water supply mechanism, and when the ice making is completed, the ice making tray is turned upside down by a driving mechanism to make the ice making tray into an ice storage container. The operation of dropping and reversing the ice tray again to return it to its original position is automatically repeated by a control device such as a microcomputer.
In this case, the ice tray is constructed by attaching a temperature sensor to the bottom surface of the plastic ice tray body, and the control device is
The temperature sensor detects a predetermined temperature (for example, -19 ° C) to detect the completion of ice making. In addition, the ice removing operation of dropping the ice in the ice tray into the ice storage container causes the ice tray body to rotate and, at the end of the rotation, restricts the rotation of one end side of the ice tray body to twist the ice tray. It is done like giving.

As a conventional example of a mounting structure of a temperature sensor in such an ice tray, for example, Japanese Examined Patent Publication No. 51-1133.
There is one disclosed in Japanese Patent No. This product accommodates a heat insulating member and a temperature sensor in a cylindrical holding plate with an open top surface, inserts this into a cylindrical part that is integrally formed on the bottom of the ice tray body, and retains and fixes it with a spring. It was something to do.

[0004]

However, the above-mentioned conventional device has the following drawbacks. That is, the temperature sensor is required to reliably detect the temperature of the ice tray main body without being affected by the ambient temperature in the ice making chamber, but in the above, the temperature sensor itself is in close contact with the bottom surface of the ice tray main body. Therefore, the reliability of temperature detection by the temperature sensor was poor.

In the above-mentioned conventional one, since the cylindrical portion for mounting the temperature sensor is formed in the lower portion of one ice making block of the ice tray main body, the ice tray becomes large in the height direction, It was also against the request for space saving.

The present invention has been made in view of the above circumstances, and it is an object of the present invention to provide an ice tray for an automatic ice making apparatus, which can reliably detect the temperature of the ice tray body by a temperature sensor.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An ice tray for an automatic ice making device according to the present invention comprises a plurality of downwardly projecting ice making blocks.
And the ice tray body that is lined up in the left and right direction, and this ice tray book
Front-to-back direction between a pair of ice blocks on the bottom of the body
Is located in the valley extending to the and detects the temperature of the ice tray body
Temperature sensor and in the front-back direction where the temperature sensor is placed
Left extending on both sides of the valley and its temperature sensor
A heat-insulating cover made of an elastic material that has a substantially rectangular shape that fits in a valley extending to the right and covers the temperature sensor from below, and front and rear.
Having a meandering bulge in the direction
A meandering fixing member made of a spring wire which is mounted so as to be hung between the bottoms of the ice making blocks and presses the heat insulating cover upward to hold the temperature sensor in close contact with the bottom surface of the ice tray body. However, it has a feature.

[0008]

[0009]

According to the above means, the meandering fixing member made of the spring wire is attached to the ice tray body in a state where the temperature sensor is covered from below by the heat insulating cover made of the elastic material. Accordingly, the temperature sensor is closely fixed to the bottom surface of the ice tray body as the heat insulating cover is pressed upward by the spring force of the meandering fixing member. Moreover, since the meandering fixing member has a meandering shape, the temperature sensor and the heat insulating cover can be pressed uniformly over a wide range. As a result, the temperature of the ice tray body can be reliably detected by the temperature sensor.

In this case, the ice making on the bottom of the ice tray body
Place a temperature sensor in the valley between blocks and insulate
Since it is configured to fit in the valley between the manufacturing <br/> ice blocks extending in the front-rear and left and right to form a cover substantially key shape, temperature
Position sensor and heat insulating cover can be easily positioned.
In addition to being excellent in workability of mounting, it is possible to easily fix the temperature sensor and the heat insulating cover without shifting, and it is possible to prevent the size of the ice tray from increasing in size.

[0011]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. First, in FIG. 6, 11 is a refrigerator main body, which is provided with an ice making chamber 12, and an automatic ice making device 13 is provided in the ice making chamber 12.
The automatic ice making device 13 will be briefly described below.

Reference numeral 14 denotes a machine body in the shape of a substantially rectangular box, which is disposed on the front side of the upper portion of the ice making chamber 12, and inside thereof is a drive mechanism (not shown) such as a motor, and a control device such as a microcomputer. Etc. are provided. And the aircraft 1
4 is connected to an output shaft 15 of a drive mechanism projecting from the rear surface of the ice making tray 4, and one end side of the ice making tray 16 according to the present embodiment is connected, and the other end side of the ice making tray 16 surrounds the ice making tray 16 in two directions. It is rotatably supported by a frame 17 attached to the.

As a result, the ice tray 16 is rotated by the drive mechanism and turned upside down. Also,
The frame 17 is provided with a stopper (not shown) so that when the ice tray 16 is turned over, the rotation of the other end of the ice tray 16 is restricted to give a twist. Reference numeral 18 denotes an ice storage container, which is arranged below the ice tray 16 so as to be accessible. The machine body 14 is also provided with an ice storage amount detection lever 19 for detecting the ice storage amount of the ice storage container 18. Reference numeral 20 is a water supply mechanism for supplying water to the ice tray 16.

With the above configuration, the automatic ice making device 13
Water is supplied to the ice tray 16 by the water supply mechanism 20, and when the ice making is completed, the ice tray 16 is inverted to drop ice into the ice storage container 18 (ice removing operation), and the ice tray 16 is inverted again to return to the original position. The operation is automatically repeated by the control device. Completion of ice making at this time is detected by a temperature sensor described later detecting a predetermined temperature (for example, -19 ° C).

Here, the ice tray 16 will be described with reference to FIGS. 1 to 5. The ice tray 16 comprises a plastic ice tray body 21 and a temperature sensor 22 fixed to the bottom surface of the ice tray body 21. The ice tray main body 21 is in the form of a rectangular thin container as a whole, and has a plurality of downwardly convex ice-making blocks 23 in this case.
In this case, four products lined up in the front-back direction (left-right direction in FIG. 2)
The ice blocks 23 are arranged in two rows on the left and right. Of the ice making blocks 23, four tongue pieces 23b each having a through hole 23a for supporting a meandering fixing member described later are formed on the bottom surfaces of the four ice making blocks 23 near the center.

The left end of the ice tray body 21 in FIG. 2 is a connecting portion 21 fitted to the output shaft 15 of the drive mechanism.
A is formed, and a shaft portion 21b rotatably supported by the frame body 17 is provided at the right end portion. Therefore, the rotating shaft extends in the longitudinal direction at the center of the ice tray body 21. Although not shown in detail, the temperature sensor 22 has a thermistor 22a in an elongated case having a trapezoidal shape.
(See FIG. 3) and the like are provided, and as shown in FIG. 3, the ice making blocks 23 are shaped to fit into the valleys extending in the front-rear direction. And this temperature sensor 22
Is a pair of ice-making blocks located on the left and right in the second row from the front.
It is arranged in the valley portion between the hooks 23. 24
Is a heat insulating cover, which is made of, for example, an elastic material having heat insulating properties such as foamed resin, and as shown in FIG. 1 and FIG.
A vertical bar that is long in the front-back direction and two horizontal bars that intersect the vertical bar
The ice-making block 2 has a substantially square shape and integrally includes
The vertical bar portion of the valley formed by 3 is the temperature sensor 2
2 is fitted in a valley extending in the front-rear direction, and
Two horizontal bars are located on the front and back sides of the temperature sensor 22.
So that it fits in each of the valleys that extend in the left-right direction
It has become. At this time, as shown in FIG.
The height of the two horizontal bars is slightly higher than that of the vertical bars.
In other words, the vertical bar portion is substantially higher than the temperature sensor 22.
It is formed lower than the horizontal bar portion by an amount.

Reference numeral 25 denotes a meandering fixing member, which is made of, for example, a spring wire made of stainless steel. As shown in FIG. 5, both ends 25a, 25a extend on the same straight line in opposite directions, and a portion between them. Is a pressing portion 25b that is bent in a substantially Z shape that is meandering. The meandering fixing member 25 is, as shown in FIG.
It is formed to be a size smaller than 4 and does not come off from the ice tray body 21.
(See FIG. 5) is formed larger than the width dimension D2 (see FIG. 3) between the pair of facing tongue pieces 23b, 23b of the ice tray body 21. Further, in the present embodiment, the width dimension D2, that is, the length dimension between both fixed ends of the meandering fixing member 25 is smaller than the meandering width dimension D3 of the pressing portion 25b (see FIG. 5). There is.

As will be described later, the temperature sensor 22 is fixed to the bottom surface of the ice tray body 21 by a meandering fixing member 25 with the lower surface side covered with a heat insulating cover 24. The lead wire 22b of the temperature sensor 22 extends in the rotation axis direction at the bottom of the ice tray body 21 and is connected to the control device inside the machine body 14.
The detection signal of the temperature sensor 22 is input to the control device.

The temperature sensor 22 is attached to the ice making block 2 as shown in FIGS. 1 to 4.
The meandering fixing member 25 is shown in FIG. 5 at two points in a state in which it is arranged so as to extend in the direction along the rotation axis of the ice tray main body 21 and fit in the valley portion between the three, and is covered with the heat insulating cover 24 from below. While elastically deforming as shown by the chain line, both ends 25a, 2
5a a pair of tongue pieces 23b, 23b through hole 23
It is done by inserting into a and 23a respectively from the inside.

At this time, as shown in FIG. 4, when the temperature sensor 22 and the heat insulating cover 24 are placed on the bottom surface of the ice tray main body 21, the heat insulating cover 24 is below the through hole 23a of the tongue piece 23b. Since the thickness of the heat insulating cover 24 is set so that
The heat insulating cover 24 is attached by pressing the heat insulating cover 24 upward by b so as to be compressed and deformed.

Thus, the temperature sensor 22 is fixed in a state of being in close contact with the bottom surface of the ice tray body 21 by the elasticity of the heat insulating cover 24. Further, the pressing portion 25b of the meandering fixing member 25 has a meandering shape folded back in the direction along the longitudinal direction of the temperature sensor 22 and in particular has a large meandering width D3, so that the heat insulating cover 24 and the temperature sensor 22 are provided.
Can be fixed by pressing substantially uniformly over the whole.

At this time, the temperature sensor 22 is arranged along the rotation axis, and the length dimension D2 between the fixed ends of the meandering fixing member 25 is the meandering width dimension along the rotation axis direction. By making it smaller than D3, the ice tray body 21
At the time of twisting, the temperature sensor 22 does not receive much twisting force, and the displacement amount of the meandering fixing member 25 is very small, so that the temperature sensor 22 can be stably held.

According to the present embodiment, the elasticity of the adiabatic cover 24, the temperature sensor 22 is the upper, left and right
The side wall of the is firmly attached to the bottom of the ice tray body 21 ,
The temperature sensor 22 has a heat insulating cover on the bottom surface and both front and rear sides.
Covered by over 24 atmosphere and thermally isolated by Runode,
The temperature sensor 22 can reliably detect the temperature of the ice tray main body 21, unlike the conventional one in which the reliability of temperature detection by the temperature sensor is poor.

Further, in this embodiment, the temperature sensor 2
As a structure for mounting 2, the minimum number of parts such as the heat insulating cover 24 and the meandering fixing member 25 is sufficient, and the end 25a of the meandering fixing member 25 is simply inserted into the through hole 23a of the tongue piece 23b. Easy to assemble. In addition, at the bottom of the ice tray body 21
Using the shape of the valley between the ice making blocks 23,
The sensor 22 and the heat insulating cover 24 can be easily positioned.
You can Therefore, as compared with the conventional one in which the mounting structure of the temperature sensor is relatively complicated, the structure can be simple and the mounting work can be facilitated, and the cost can be reduced.

Moreover, particularly in this embodiment, the temperature sensor 2
Since the 2 and the heat insulating cover 24 are fixed so as to fit into the valleys between the ice making blocks 23, the temperature sensor 22 and the heat insulating cover 24 can be fixed without slipping and the height of the ice making tray 16 as a whole is increased. It is possible to sufficiently meet the demand for space saving without increasing the size.

The present invention is not limited to the above embodiment, and as shown in FIG. 7, the Z-shaped pressing portion 26b from the end 26a of the meandering fixing member 26 supported by the ice tray body 21. It is also possible to obtain a large spring force as a shape in which is raised. Further, as the shape of the pressing portion of the meandering fixing member, various modifications such as an S shape other than the Z shape can be considered.

[0027]

As is apparent from the above description, according to the ice tray for the automatic ice making device of the present invention, the bottom of the ice tray body is
A temperature sensor placed in the valley between the ice making blocks and the ice making
A heat-insulating cover made of an elastic material that fits in the valley of the bottom of the dish body and covers the temperature sensor from below, and the front-back direction
And a meandering fixing member made of a spring wire for holding the temperature sensor so that the temperature sensor is brought into close contact with the bottom surface of the ice tray body by pressing the heat insulating cover upward and having a meandering bulge. This has an excellent practical effect that the temperature of the main body can be reliably detected.

And, it has a meandering bulge in the front-back direction.
That while adopting a meandering on the stationary member, the temperature sensor and the heat insulating cover, since the so that to secure to fit in the valleys between the ice blocks, be fixed without moving shift the temperature sensor and heat-insulating cover Easy to position and
It has the advantage that it can be easily installed and that the height of the ice tray can be prevented from becoming large.
It is something that can be done .

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an exploded perspective view of an ice tray showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of an automatic ice making device.

[Figure 3] Vertical front view of ice tray

FIG. 4 is an enlarged side view of a main part.

FIG. 5 is a plan view of a meandering fixing member.

FIG. 6 is a vertical sectional side view of the refrigerator.

FIG. 7 is a perspective view of a meandering fixing member according to another embodiment of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

In the drawings, 13 is an automatic ice making device, 14 is a body, 16 is an ice tray, 21 is an ice tray body, 22 is a temperature sensor, 23 is an ice making block, 24 is a heat insulating cover, 25 and 26 are meandering fixing members, 25a, Reference numeral 26a indicates an end portion, and 25b and 26b indicate pressing portions.

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] 1. A plurality of ice making blocks which are convex downward
The ice tray main body that has the rear and left and right side by side, and this ice making tray
Front and back between a pair of ice making blocks arranged on the left and right of the bottom of the plate body
Detects the temperature of the ice tray body located in the valley extending in the direction
Temperature sensor and front and rear where the temperature sensor is arranged
Located on the front and back sides of the temperature sensor
And the heat insulation cover made of an elastic material covering the lower the temperature sensor a substantially key-shaped fitted to the valley portion extending in the horizontal direction that, before
The ice tray main body has a meandering bulge in the rear direction.
Mounted so that it can be hung between the bottom of the pair of ice making blocks
The insulating cover pressing by the temperature sensor ice tray automatic ice maker for ice tray formed by and a serpentine fixing member spring wire made of holding so as to close contact with the bottom surface of the main body upward is.