JPS6130135Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] The present invention relates to a soft drink dispensing device, and more particularly to an innovative soft drink dispensing device that is smaller in size, requires less installation space, and has a larger capacity than devices currently on the market. .

Traditional soft drink dispensing equipment includes forced air cooling, refrigeration condensing machines and equipment that circulates the beverage within the bowl for heat transfer and flow. This equipment typically uses two motors, one for the stirring blades of the pump that circulates the beverage and one for the fan that provides the forced air cooling airflow to the compressor of the condenser and chiller. For use. Two disadvantages of these devices are the expense of using separate motors and the additional space required to accommodate both motors.

The evaporator used in conventional devices is not a primary surface evaporator, that is, a type in which the outer wall of the evaporating part is directly brought into contact with the liquid to be cooled, but a cylindrical or flat plate part is connected to the cooling pipe of the evaporator and the beverage. It is inserted as a heat exchange surface between the two. These evaporators require longer cooling tubes, are more costly, and occupy more space in the bowl and/or base than primary surface evaporators.

Reducing the cost of beverage dispensing equipment continues to be a concern in related industries today. Thus, one important objective of the present invention is to provide an inexpensive beverage dispensing device.

Dimension reduction is very important in equipment designed for use in restaurants and the like.
At Tostran, Kya Feteria, simple cafeterias, etc.
With the proliferation of food and beverage dispensing equipment, any reduction in space usage is most desirable in this type of business. Therefore, another very important object of the present invention is to provide a chilled beverage dispensing device which has very small external dimensions compared to other beverage dispensing devices of the same capacity currently available.

According to the invention, the beverage dispensing device has a cooling device in the bowl with an evaporator and a pump that circulates the beverage with direct heat exchange to the evaporator coil. The primary surface evaporator is thus installed to maximize cooling efficiency. Within the base, a motor serves to drive a pump within the bowl and a fan within the base. The fan creates forced airflow through the base to cool the condenser, compressor, and motor.

The foregoing and other objective features of the present invention will be more clearly understood from the following detailed description with reference to the accompanying drawings.

In FIG. 1, the beverage supply device includes a base 10,
Beverage bowl 12 on the base, pump 1 in the bowl
4, and a cooling system including an evaporator 16 in the bowl and a condenser 18 and compressor 20 in the base. A motor 22 that drives both pump 14 and fan 24 is also mounted within the base.

The base 10 may be made of metal, plastic or a composite material thereof, has an attractive form suitable for decorative purposes, and has legs 26 designed to support the device on a flat surface. .
The drip pan 28 is secured to the front panel 30 of the base and is located below the beverage outlet 32 and the actuation handle 34.

The base 10 is divided into a lower chamber 38 and an upper chamber 40 by a partition plate 36. Lower chamber 38 houses condenser 18 and compressor 20.
The condenser illustrated in FIG. located within.

The partition plate 36 is provided with an opening 46 which communicates the upper and lower chambers 38 and 40 and is rounded by a protrusion 47 . Fan 24 is disposed within this opening 46 and draws air through rear panel 42 as shown by arrow 44 as it rotates. This fan is an axial flow fan that generates an air flow parallel to the rotation axis of the fan through rotation.

Circulating air flow is from the condenser 18 to the compressor 20
Then, it reaches around the superheat reduction coil 48, and further reaches around the motor 22 via the opening 46. The side panels 52 and 54 of the base are provided with loopers at the top adjacent the sides of the chamber 40, as indicated by 56 (FIG. 2), to allow air to be removed from within the base by the fan 24. In this way, the circulating airflow caused by the fan 24 is transmitted to the condenser 18, the compressor 20, the superheat reduction coil 48, and the motor 2.
Cool 2. Several arrows in Figures 1 and 2 suggest this airflow path through the base.

The ball 12 rests on a tray 60 of the base 10, the bottom wall of which is provided with an opening 62 through which a plate 66 and an evaporator tube 68 extend. The plate 66 may be secured to the bottom of the dish as suggested in FIG. The opening 62 has a plate portion 66 extending into the ball 12.
7 surrounding a gasket 72 forming a peripheral seal.
It has a stepped collar portion 70 as shown by 1.

A pair of holes 74 and 76 on the plate portion 66 are provided with the evaporation tube 6.
8 into and out of the base 10 and connected to the rest of the other cooling devices within the base 10. These tubes are suitably brazed or otherwise sealed within the holes to prevent beverage from leaking into the base through the holes 74,76. As shown in FIGS. 1 and 3, the evaporation tube is disposed in a loop or coil shape on the plate portion 66, and has a substantially cylindrical shape with a top portion 8.
It is accommodated in a hood 78 which is tapered at 0.0. Further, as shown in the figure, the upper portion of the plate portion 66 of the evaporation tube has an elongated shape as a whole. The hood 78 may be integral with the cover 82 of the pump 14, the hood and the cover being connected by a passageway 84 such that the beverage dispensed from the pump is directed upwardly from within the hood 78. The illustrated hood has a spout tube 86 that discharges the beverage cooled by the evaporator tube 68 toward a cover 88 of the bowl of the bowl to provide a dynamic display effect.

The bottom of the hood 78 fits tightly within the collar 70 of the opening 62 on the bottom wall of the bowl. As a result, nearly all of the liquid pumped into passageway 84 by pump 14 passes upwardly through hood 78 into intimate contact with the evaporator or cooling tube. This flow is guided via the hood so that the beverage moves at high speed over the primary surface evaporator, i.e. in direct contact with the cooling tubes, resulting in a high transmission. The pump 14 includes a driven magnet and impeller combination 9 disposed within a shallow recess 94 formed in the bottom wall 64 of the bowl.
2, this driven magnet has a motor 22
in close proximity to a drive magnet 96 supported on a shaft 98 of the motor. The pump cover 82, which is integrally formed with the hood 78, has a pump cover 82 that allows the beverage in the boiler 12 to be pumped and raised inside the hood 78 via a passage 84 so as to be in close contact with the primary evaporator. Inlet port 10 for circulation
0 is set.

As indicated in FIGS. 1, 3, and 4, one or more bare rods 102 are disposed within cooling tube 68 and perform several useful functions within the cooling system. First of all, this rod reduces the volume of the tube that must be filled with refrigerant. In this way, the amount of refrigerant charged is reduced, thereby reducing the cost of the device and providing a greater cooling effect. Additionally, the heat transfer coefficient of the tubes is increased by increasing the flow velocity of the refrigerant within the tubes. This is particularly true in the downward flow region (i.e., the region exiting the evaporator tube via port 76), where this coefficient is slightly lower than the flow entering the tube upwardly through port 74. It's advantageous. In addition, the rods 102 reduce the need for an accumulator at the end of the cooling circuit by preventing evaporated refrigerant from flowing downwardly from the downward piping path into the suction side of the cooling system. It is well known that the flow of large amounts of refrigerant has an adverse effect on the performance characteristics of capillary cooling devices.

From the foregoing description, the many advantages of the present device will be more fully understood. Regarding the arrangement of air coolers and cooling devices in the base, one motor 22 drives both the fan in the base and the pump in the bowl. This arrangement is possible because the shafts of the pump and fan are concentric. Having one motor reduces the cost of the device as well as the space it occupies.

An apparatus constructed in accordance with the present invention has a floor area of approximately 7-3/4 inches by 10-1/2 inches, and a mechanical room ^volume of 2.83 x ¹⁰⁴ cm3 (1 ^ft3 ). per hour, increasing BTU per hour.

A continuously running fan motor 22 of the dimensions used in the embodiment of the present invention continuously dispenses the beverage. In the present invention, the size of the motor can be smaller than that of a single pump used exclusively for pumping in conventional equipment, resulting in further space savings. In prior art systems, shutting off the separate condensing fan motor to stop airflow to the pump motor can result in excessive temperature increases if the motor does not have an internal fan. This also increases the motor size. The continuously operating fan of the device continuously rotates the fan that constantly circulates the beverage in the bowl and cools the device.

The use of one motor is a factor in reducing the size of the device. The air flow path in the base is modified to provide two degrees of orthogonal diffraction, unlike the straight flow path in the base as in prior art devices. Diffraction in the cool air flow path within the base is made possible by a partition plate within the base that divides the base into a low pressure suction chamber (lower chamber 38) and a high pressure chamber (upper chamber 40).

To further reduce the required condenser size and thereby reduce the space required, a desuperheat coil 48 may be used located above the compressor. Here, the hot gas loop is placed behind the condenser and compressor in the air flow path to optimize the heat transfer relationship based on the average effective temperature difference.
Since the heat transfer of the gas in the pipe is low, there is no need for a secondary surface in addition to the primary surface effect in the superheat reduction process. That is, even if another cooling surface (secondary surface) is joined to the outer wall (primary surface) of the superheat reduction coil, there is not much effect. One or more primary surfaces can be added to the top of the compressor to reduce superheating without adding significant space to the equipment base.

Regarding the evaporator, the evaporator tube exposed directly into the beverage (primary evaporator type) is less susceptible to the heat transfer effect at the contact point of the built-in shell piping (secondary surface evaporator type) found in prior art devices. Remove drops.

The fast flow of the beverage within the hood ensures freeze-free operation of the dispensing equipment.

The evaporator and hood are very easy to clean because there is no covered part of the evaporator tube and the entire part is exposed. The hood can be easily removed and cleaned separately. The structure of the evaporator itself is very inexpensive in terms of cost compared to the shell built-in piping of prior art devices. Assembly effort is minimal and the design allows automatic brazing.

The design of the evaporator, especially the use of the primary surface, is approximately 2/2 times the length of tube required in the piping design with built-in shell.
This will save 3 lengths of pipe length. The high velocity flow flowing against the tube increases the heat transfer rate of the beverage by a factor of 2-3 and further reduces the required tube length. Direct expansion within the tube eliminates the need for secondary surfaces, which further reduces material costs.

The construction of the evaporator allows a particularly narrow (in cross-section) bowl design. Because the beverage is circulated directly adjacent to the evaporator tube, the evaporator provides effective cooling even at the lowest level of beverage in the bowl. With the exposed dome, there are no problems such as occur when the beverage level drops in some prior art devices.

According to the invention, it is also possible to provide a beverage dispensing device capable of handling two types of beverages, in which the evaporation pipe extends in a loop between two chambers of the bowl.

Of particular importance is the small number of components in the device, which also necessarily reduces failures during use. For example, only one motor may be used instead of two or three motors as in one or two beverage dispensing devices according to the prior art. As a result, the reliability of the device increases.

Although the present invention was described in detail in the main text,
It will be clear to those skilled in the art that other modifications can be made without departing from the spirit of the invention. Therefore, it is not intended that the practice of the present invention be limited in scope to the single example described or illustrated herein. Rather, what the main text intends is that the scope of the present invention be determined by the scope of the claims for utility model registration, etc.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional side view of the beverage supply device of the present invention;
2 is a cross-sectional front view of the base of the beverage dispensing device of FIG. 1 rotated 90 degrees; FIG. 3 is an enlarged partial view of the device in cross section taken along line 3--3 of FIG. 1; and FIG. is a partially cutaway cross-sectional view taken along line 4--4 of FIG. 3; 10...Base, 12...Beverage ball, 14...
...Pump, 16...Evaporator, 18...Condenser, 2
0...Compressor, 22...Motor, 24
...Fan, 26...Legs, 28...Dripping pan, 3
0... Front panel, 32... Discharge port, 34... Operating handle, 36... Partition plate, 38... Lower chamber,
40... Upper chamber, 42... Rear panel, 44...
Arrow, 46... Opening, 48... Superheat reduction coil, 52, 54... Side panel, 60... Evaporation dish, 62... Opening, 64... Bottom wall surface, 66...
Plate portion, 68...Evaporator piping, 70...Color, 7
1...Stepped portion, 72...Gasket, 74, 76...
...hole, 78...hood, 80...top, 82...
Cover, 84... Passage, 86... Spray tube, 88
... Bowl cover, 92 ... Driven magnet and vane, 94 ... Shallow recess, 96 ... Drive magnet, 98 ... Shaft.

Claims (1)

[Scope of utility model registration request] a base having a front panel, a rear panel, and a side panel; a beverage bowl placed on the base; a pump cover disposed within the bowl; an impeller disposed below the pump cover; a driven magnet attached to the impeller; a pump for circulating beverage contained within the bowl;
a motor disposed within the base and supporting a drive magnet in close proximity to the driven magnet and thus operating the pump by rotation; an evaporator within the bowl; a cooling device adapted to cool the beverage circulated by the pump and placed in heat exchange relationship with the evaporator; a partition plate provided within the base and dividing the base into a low-pressure side chamber and a high-pressure side chamber; an opening formed in the partition plate; a condenser and a compressor provided in the low-pressure side chamber of the base; and a condenser and compressor provided in the rear wall of the base for introducing air into the low-pressure side chamber from the outside of the base. an air inlet hole and an air outlet hole provided in at least one of the side walls of the base for discharging air from the chamber on the high pressure side of the base to the outside of the base; the air inlet hole for cooling the condenser, compressor, and motor; an axial flow fan disposed within the opening to cause a flow of air through the base through the low-pressure side chamber and the high-pressure side chamber to the air outlet hole; the cooling beverage, the compressor being located in a position directly in front of the hole, and the compressor being mounted on the bottom of the base in front of the condenser, and the motor being in the chamber on the high pressure side and configured to drive the fan. Feeding device.