KR100921374B1 - Method for Controlling Operation of Food Storage - Google Patents

Abstract

The present invention relates to a food storage control method, and in particular, the defrosting step of defrosting operation according to the temperature of the reservoir and the determination step of determining whether the defrosting operation time is more than the limit time and the number of times the defrosting operation time is more than the limit time. It includes a counting step of counting, and relates to a food storage control method that can improve the reliability of detection of defects.

Defrost, driving

Description

Method for Controlling Operation of Food Storage

The present invention relates to a food storage control method, and in particular, the defrosting step of defrosting operation according to the temperature of the reservoir and the determination step of determining whether the defrosting operation time is more than the limit time and the number of times the defrosting operation time is more than the limit time. It includes a counting step of counting, and relates to a food storage control method that can improve the reliability of detection of defects.

Conventional food storage control method is that presented in Korea Patent Publication No. 2005-0098487.

In the case of the mixed kimchi storage, at least one upper opening and closing storage 20 is partitioned on the inner upper side of the main body 10 forming an exterior, and the door 30 for opening and closing the storage 20 is the back of the main body 10. It is hinged to the upper end, and the bottom of the upper opening and closing storage 20 is provided with a drawer storage compartment that slides open and close to the front of the main body 10.

In addition, the lower end of the drawer storage compartment is divided into a machine room in which a compressor constituting a cooling system and a condenser and a blower (not shown) are arranged.

In addition, the upper opening and closing the storage 20 and the outer wall of the drawer storage chamber is connected to the compressor of the cooling system disposed inside the machine room, respectively, the evaporator made of refrigerant pipes are arranged at a predetermined interval winding.

In particular, in the case of the drawer type storage chamber, the evaporator may be disposed over the upper surface and the side surface of the outer wall of the drawer storage chamber, or may be disposed over the back surface and the side surface of the outer wall of the storage chamber.

As such, the evaporators are connected to the compressor and the condenser (not shown) of the machine room, respectively, to supply cold air to the respective reservoirs 20 through the circulation of the refrigerant.

In addition, a heater that is a heating device is provided below the evaporator surrounding the outer wall of the upper opening and closing reservoir 20 so as to provide a heating temperature required when the kimchi is aged in the upper opening and closing reservoir 20. .

In the case of the drawer type storage chamber, since the front slide door 90 slides open and closes in a drawer type, a guide rail for opening and closing the slide door 90 is provided in the storage chamber.

A shelf is mounted on the guide rail, and the shelf is withdrawn from the drawer storage chamber according to opening and closing of the slide door 90.

On the other hand, in the case of the drawer-type storage chamber, as described above, the temperature inside the drawer-type storage chamber is supplied with cold air from an evaporator installed on the outer wall of the storage chamber and maintained at a storage temperature band for storing kimchi for a long time. In the process of supplying cold air into the inside of the room, condensate may be generated on the walls and guide rails of the drawer storage chamber according to the temperature change, and there is a concern that frost may be formed when the condensate is frozen.

Therefore, if the frost is formed on the wall surface and the guide rail portion of the drawer storage compartment as described above, the operation of opening and closing the front slide door 90 may not only cause difficulty but also adversely affect the reliability of the product itself. There was a problem that it could.

Therefore, in the kimchi storage having a conventional drawer storage chamber is usually programmed to perform the defrosting operation periodically during the operation through the storage mode in order to prevent the problem caused by frost in the drawer storage chamber.

In addition, even if frost is inevitably formed, it is essentially equipped with an operation control method capable of performing defrosting to remove frost.

On the other hand, when the defrosting operation is performed periodically to prevent the formation of frost in the drawer storage room during the long-term storage of kimchi as described above, after the defrosting operation to increase the temperature inside the drawer storage room to about 8 ~ 10 ℃ do.

Then, the temperature inside the drawer storage room rises to about 8-10 ° C., and then the inner temperature of the drawer storage room returns to 0 ° C. or less (eg, about −1 ± 0.5 ° C.), which is a storage temperature band. It takes about a minute.

The reason why it takes about 90 minutes for the internal temperature of the drawer type storage chamber to reach below 0 ℃ by starting the compressor by the storage mode after the defrosting operation is as follows.

When supplying the cold air into the drawer storage room through the conventional storage mode, the compressor of the cooling system is first turned on and the temperature detected by the temperature sensor (not shown) installed adjacent to the evaporator is set to the lower limit value of the temperature control specification (eg For example, when it reaches -2 ℃), it is detected by the temperature sensor and sent to the controller, thereby turning off the starting state of the compressor (OFF).

In this case, when the temperature sensed by the temperature sensor conventionally reaches a lower limit value (for example, -2 ° C.) of the temperature control specification, the initial starting time of the compressor is somewhat different depending on the performance and capacity of the compressor, but usually It takes about 3 to 4 minutes, and in particular, although the temperature detected by the temperature sensor installed on the outer wall of the drawer is -2 ° C, the actual temperature inside the drawer is about 3 ° C to 4 ° C. It is understood.

After the compressor is turned off, when the temperature detected by the temperature sensor rises to an upper limit value (for example, about 0 ° C.) of the temperature control specification, the temperature sensor detects this and sends it to the controller. Will restart the compressor by turning it on again.

At this time, it is understood that the time taken for the compressor to be initially turned off and the refrigerant temperature in the evaporator to rise to about 0 ° C typically takes about 15 minutes.

On the other hand, the compressor is driven again and the operating time of the compressor until the temperature detected by the temperature sensor reaches -2 ° C., the lower limit of the temperature control specification, and the compressor is turned off again, the first compressor is turned on / off. It can be seen that the time is slightly faster as the temperature change is smaller than when the / OFF) is used.

As such, when the kimchi storage is operated through the conventional storage mode, the compressor is repeatedly turned on and off in the same manner as described above, thereby lowering the internal temperature of the storage compartment while starting and stopping the temperature. After a certain time has elapsed to the storage temperature band, and after reaching the storage temperature band, the temperature control specification by the storage mode is set to be maintained at a constant storage temperature band at all times.

At this time, in the process of the compressor repeatedly on / off (ON / OFF) through the temperature control specification according to the storage mode as described above, in the process of the initial on / off of the compressor, the temperature width in which the temperature inside the storage chamber falls It is known that this large size is stabilized by decreasing the temperature drop width sequentially through repeated on / off of the compressor.

Therefore, when the temperature inside the storage chamber rises to about 8 to 10 ° C. due to the conventional defrosting operation, the compressor repeatedly turns on / off about 5 to 6 times as described above. It can be reached only by performing a start and stop process that is turned on and off. As a result, it takes about 90 minutes.

However, such a conventional Kimchi refrigerator has a problem that when the defrosting-related parts are broken during the defrosting operation, the inside temperature of the storage is increased due to the defrost heater, and the food inside the storage is deteriorated.

The present invention has been made to solve the above-described problem, the detection step of detecting the temperature of the defrosted storage and the defrosting step of defrosting operation according to the temperature of the storage and the determination to determine whether the defrosting operation time is longer than the limit time. It is an object of the present invention to provide a food storage control method that can improve the reliability of detection of a defect, including a counting step of counting the number of steps and the defrosting operation time is greater than or equal to the limit time.

Food storage control method of the present invention for achieving the above object, the defrosting step of defrosting operation according to the temperature of the reservoir and the determination step of determining whether the defrosting operation time is more than the limit time and the defrosting operation time is more than the limit time And a counting step of counting the number of times.

According to this structure, there exists an advantage which can improve the reliability of defect detection.

After the counting step, if the number is two or more times in a row comprising a display step for displaying a failure message, the user can immediately recognize the failure of the device.

In the displaying step, the food storage is allowed to operate normally, so that even if the device breaks down, food stored in the food storage can be easily deteriorated until the user repairs it.

According to the food storage control method of the present invention as described above, has the following effects.

Including defrosting step of defrosting operation according to the temperature of the storage, determining whether the defrosting operation time is more than the limit time and counting step of counting the number of times the defrosting operation time is more than the limit time, improve the reliability of the detection of the defect You can.

After the counting step, if the number is two or more times in a row comprising a display step for displaying a failure message, the user can immediately recognize the failure of the device.

In the displaying step, the food storage is allowed to operate normally, so that even if the device breaks down, food stored in the food storage can be easily deteriorated until the user repairs it.

Hereinafter, a preferred embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

For reference, among the configurations of the present invention to be described below, the same configuration as the prior art will be referred to the above-described prior art, and a detailed description thereof will be omitted.

2 is a flow chart of a food storage control method according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

As shown in Figure 2, the food storage control method of the present embodiment, the defrosting step of defrosting operation according to the temperature of the reservoir and the determination step of determining whether the defrosting operation time is more than the limit time (S7) and the defrosting operation It includes a counting step (S9) for counting the number of times the time is more than the time limit.

In the defrosting operation, when the accumulated time is accumulated over a predetermined time, the defrosting operation starts defrosting by the defrost heater configured in the evaporator and stops the compressor.

Subsequently, the temperature of the defrosted storage is sensed through a sensor such as a temperature sensor proposed in the prior art, and it is determined whether the temperature of the storage detected by the temperature sensor is equal to or higher than a temperature (defrost OFF temperature) at which defrosting should start. (S3) The temperature sensor may be installed to be attached to the evaporator.

If the temperature of the reservoir is equal to or higher than the defrost OFF temperature, the compressor is operated again after a predetermined time delay after stopping the defrost heater to stop the defrost.

If the temperature of the reservoir is less than the defrost OFF temperature, it is returned to maintain the defrosting operation (S1).

This completes the defrosting step (S1, S3, S5).

Subsequently, in the defrosting steps S1, S3, and S5, a determination step S5 of determining whether the defrosting operation time is longer than the limit time is performed.

The limit time can be determined by measuring the defrosting operation time under the general worst condition and adding a safety factor (10 to 100%) thereto. For example, if the defrosting operation time is about 20 minutes in the worst case condition, the limit time may be 22 minutes to 40 minutes.

When the defrosting operation time is greater than or equal to the limit time, the count is added to count the number of times that the defrosting operation time is greater than or equal to the limit time.

When the defrosting operation time is less than the limit time proceeds to the normal operation (S17) step.

After the counting step, it is determined whether the number of times is two or more times in succession. (S11) The determination of whether the number of times is two or more times in this way may be determined by storing the integration of all cycles in a microcomputer or the like.

When the number of times is accumulated two times in succession, a fault message is displayed on the outside so that the user can immediately recognize the fault. (S13) In this way, the user can be notified of the fault so that the A / S action can be promptly received. Subsequently, the food storage can be operated normally, thereby minimizing the deterioration of food stored in the food storage until the user repairs even if the device breaks down.

If the number of times is not accumulated two times in a row immediately proceeds to the normal operation (S17) step.

As described above, although described with reference to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, those skilled in the art various modifications or variations of the present invention without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention described in the claims below Can be carried out.

The present invention can be applied to a direct-cooling or inter-cooling refrigerator, wine cellar, kimchi refrigerator, and the like.

1 is a perspective view of a conventional kimchi refrigerator.

2 is a flow chart of a food storage control method according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Claims (3)

A defrosting step according to the temperature of the reservoir; A determination step of determining whether the defrosting operation time is longer than a limit time; A counting step of counting a number of times that the defrosting operation time is greater than or equal to a limit time; And a determination step of determining whether the number is two or more times in a row. The method of claim 1, After the counting step, And a display step of displaying a fault message if the number of times is two or more times in a row. The method of claim 2, In the displaying step, the food storage control method characterized in that the normal operation of the food storage.

Images