WO2008043124A1

WO2008043124A1 - Contact toaster

Info

Publication number: WO2008043124A1
Application number: PCT/AU2006/001509
Authority: WO
Inventors: Craig Robert Johnson
Original assignee: Tom Stoddart Pty Ltd
Priority date: 2006-10-12
Filing date: 2006-10-12
Publication date: 2008-04-17

Abstract

There is provided a split lid contact toaster including a toaster body including a heated platen, spaced mountings supported on one side of the toaster body and extending behind the side and above the plane of the upper surface, two pairs of spaced control arms each pivoted to respective said mountings and spanning the surface away from said side, the ends of each pair of the control arms remote from the mountings being conjoined by a respective handle, and heated upper platens suspended below respective pairs of the control arms on spaced struts fixed to the platens substantially within the footprint thereof, and pivoted to the respective control arms.

Description

CONTACT TOASTER

Field of the Invention

This invention relates to a contact toaster.

This invention has particular but not exclusive application to a commercial - standard, flat contact toaster, and for illustrative purposes reference will be made to such application. However, it is to be understood that this invention could be used in other applications, such as panini grills or the like. Background of the Invention

Contact toasters in the form of a horizontally disposed, two-sided cooking apparatus (otherwise known as clamshell cooking systems or grills) are capable of simultaneously cooking two sides of various food products, including toasted sandwiches, hamburger patties, sausage patties, chicken, or other foodstuffs.

The apparatus generally includes one or two upper heated platens and a lower heated platen on a base. The one or more upper platens are coupled to one or more side mounted operating arms with handles, pivoted to the base for swinging the upper platens between a lowered cooking position overlying the lower platen and a raised position.

In these contact toasters^" there is usually provided a pair of spaced operating arms for the upper platen, each pivoted from the rear edge of the apparatus and interconnected at their front ends by an insulated or self-cooling handle. The platen is pivoted at its sides between the operating arms at a balance point. In use, the handle is lifted to raise the platen to admit a sandwich to the lower platen. The operating arms may be spring loaded to so retain the platen and/or to control platen pressure on the product. Disadvantages of this kind of construction includes the overall difficulty in cleaning about the hinge area and limits to the ability to accommodate differing thicknesses, despite the inherent self levelling nature of the balance point pivoting arrangement.

Dual platen or split lid contact toasters are preferred for use as sandwich toasters since the respective halves can be used independently. This form of apparatus has the additional disadvantage of significantly reduced net cooking area. Split lid contact toasters such as the STAR^® branded product of Star

Manufacturing International, lnc utilizes a torsion bar arrangement articulating a pair of control arms to which upper heated platens are mounted by a rocker mount. The arrangement is a high precision-machined arrangement of supports, torsion elements and the like, which are exposed and difficult to clean. The machine is expensive to manufacture.

Description of the Invention

With the foregoing and other objects in view, this invention in one aspect resides broadly in a contact toaster including: a toaster body including a heated platen; a pair of spaced mountings supported on one side of the toaster body and extending behind the side and above the plane of the upper surface; a pair of spaced control arms each pivoted to a respective said mounting and spanning the surface away from said side, the ends of the control arms remote from the mountings being conjoined by a handle; a heated upper platen suspended below the control arms on spaced struts fixed to the platen and pivoted to the respective control arms.

The toaster body may comprise a housing wherein control means for the apparatus may be housed. The toaster body may include a user interface included but not limited to temperature and time displays, user selectable inputs such as setting of temperatures and times, or the like. The control means may include the means for supplying electrical power to the upper platen assembly, such as by means of a flexible cable. The control means may include thermostatic control elements such as electronic or electromechanical thermostats. The control means may include timer elements such as electronic or electromechanical switching and/or displaying timers. The respective heated platens may be controlled separate thermostats.

The heated platen and the upper heated platen may have contact surface portions each of the same or different material selected from cast iron, stainless steel, mild steel, copper or other metal or metal laminate such as ALINOX^®. The respective platens may be coated with non-stick material of organic or inorganic material, such as polyfluoroolefin polymers, including but not limited to polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and its compositions. The control arms may be located over the top of the upper heated platen in use. This enables the upper platen to substantially cover to footprint of the heated platen without the control arms extending beyond the lateral footprint of the body as a whole. The geometry of the platen suspension and control arm pivoting arrangement, the position rearward of the body and upward of the heated platen of the control arm pivot mounting, and the shape and configuration of the control arms, may be selected to allow the upper heated platen a raddle scope on closure to provide self levelling in use, and may also allow an open loading position wherein the upper heated platen contact surface is about 40° from the vertical when opened to a selected position with the lower edge thereof over the back edge of the heated platen. "Raddle scope" as used herein is the capacity of the upper heated platen to self level and maintain substantially even pressure on product to be toasted of a range of different thicknesses. The control arms may be readily configured by stamping or laser cutting from flat bar or sheet.

The control arms may cooperate with means to allow the upper heated platen to be retained in selection of positions. For example, apart from the position where the platen is in use toasting product, there may be provided a first position where product may be loaded onto the heated platen and a second position where the machine is fully open for cleaning. In the case of the preferred flat bar or sheet control arms there may be formed an integral detente sector portion adapted to cooperate with a spring loaded detente bar associated with the pivot mountings. In addition as this arrangement may be fully enclosed except for the flat bar exit slots for the control arms the mechanism may be substantially protected from contamination by a simple eg. stainless steel removable cover.

In the case of a split lid contact toaster, the position of the arms over the top of each of the upper heated platens means that the Upper heated platens may operate very close together. By this means the upper heated platens may in use overlie substantially the entire heated surface of the heated platen. In practice, the thermally massive heated portion of the upper heated platens may extend over substantially the entire heated platen surface in use. The upper platen body housing the heating element and attaching the struts may be slightly smaller in footprint, allowing flat struts to be entirely within the footprint of the upper platen heated portion. Bringing the upper platens and the handles closer together has resulted in the unexpected advantage of reducing he potential hazard of trapping the users thumbs or hand between the handles or the platens.

The simple plain rods providing both the pivot and spring loaded detente functions of the preferred arrangements allows the use of simple bushes and slots for articulating them, avoiding the complexity of torsion bar/torque tube based constructions.

The bottom platen may be provided with a gutter to assist in cleaning. In a further aspect, this invention in one aspect resides broadly in a split lid contact toaster including: a toaster body including a heated platen; spaced mountings supported on one side of the toaster body and extending behind the side and above the plane of the upper surface; two pairs of spaced control arms each pivoted to respective said mountings and spanning the surface away from said side, the ends of each pair of the control arms remote from the mountings being conjoined by a respective handle; heated upper platens suspended below respective pairs of the control arms on spaced struts fixed to the platens substantially within the footprint thereof, and pivoted to the respective control arms.

Brief Description of the Drawings

In order that this invention may be more readily understood and put into practical effect, reference will now be made to the accompanying drawings which illustrate a preferred embodiment of the invention and wherein:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of apparatus in accordance with the present invention;

FlG. 2 is a side view of the apparatus of FIG. 1 ; FIG. 3 is a top view of the apparatus of FIG. 1 ;

FIG. 4 is a front view of the apparatus of FIG. 1 ; FIG. 5 is an exploded view of the apparatus of FIG. 1 ; FIG. 6 is a complementary part assembly of the view of FIG. 5. Description of the Embodiment(s)

In the figures there is provided a split lid toaster including a body 1 supporting a bottom hot plate support 2 via a bottom plate support infill 3. A crumb tray 4 is located at the front, and a gutter 5 is about the remaining three sides. A bottom platen 6 is formed of ALINOX sheet and is supported above a 1200W lower element 23. Top plates 7 of ALONOX form the working surfaces of upper heated platens.

The components LH lid 8, RH lid 9, arm 10, pivot pin 11 , spring pin 12, base 13 PVC Tube 14, RH outer spring support 15, pivot plate 16, spring brace 17, spring lid 18, LH outer spring support 19, RH inner spring support 20, LH inner spring support 21, 500W element 22, bottom plate fixing angle 24, bottom element cover 25, top element cover 26, internal support 27, probe clamp 28, thermostat bracket 29, aluminium heat reflector 30, decal 31 , LH top plate fixing angle 32, RH top plate fixing angle 33, cam spring holder 34, shaft 35, bush 36, pivot pin bush 37, body gasket 38, heat reflector plate 39, cam spring pin bush 40, crumb tray spacer 41 , mushroom head screws 42, washers 43, torsion springs 44, flexible conduit elbow 45, 15-amp ceramic terminal block 46, switch 47, and indicator light 48 are as indicated in FIG 5. The componenets 500W element 119, 1200W element 120, decal 128, washers 129, torsion spring 130, switch 133, indicator light 134, bush 142, PVC tube 144, cam spring pin bush 145, 1200W element 149, needle roller bearing 150, 270° thermostat 151 , circuit board 152, stainless steel extension spring 153 and 72° thermal fuse 154 are as indicated in FIG 6.are as indicated., Apparatus in accordance with the foregoing embodiment has the advantages of brining together the two top platens to give the cooking surfaces a greater area. This also allows compact overall size of the unit relative to cooking surface area. The "Alinox" stainless steel/aluminium plates are even heating and easy to keep clean. The selectable detentes hold the top platens up at an approx angle of 40° from horizontal, as well as fully open for cleaning. The gutter in the bottom plate assists in the cleaning of the plates and to assist in the removal of the cooked product. Moving the side arms to the top of the top platen has the obvious advantage of cooking surface maximisation, and also allows the handles to be brought closer together. This reduces the potential hazard of trapping the user's thumbs or hand between the handles or the plates. The new rear spring housing/hinge assembly with a position locking mechanism using bushes and springs is simple and economical to manufacture. The machine has enhanced cleanability of the platens and the unit as a whole. The hinging arrangement is robust. The positive locking into the half up position of the top platens is safe. The durability of the unit is enhanced by its construction, and the use of and the use of an electromechanical thermostat provides reliability to the unit.

It will of course be realised that while the above has been given by way of illustrative example of this invention, all such and other modifications and variations thereto as would be apparent to persons skilled in the art are deemed to fall within the broad scope and ambit of this invention as defined in the claims appended hereto.

Claims

1. A contact toaster including: a toaster body including a heated platen; a pair of spaced mountings supported on one side of the toaster body and extending behind the side and above the plane of the upper surface; a pair of spaced control arms each pivoted to a respective said mounting and spanning the surface away from said side, the ends of the control arms remote from the mountings being conjoined by a handle; a heated upper platen suspended below the control arms on spaced struts fixed to the platen and pivoted to the respective control arms.

2. A contact toaster according to claim 1 , wherein the toaster body includes a housing containing control means for the apparatus may be housed.

3. A contact toaster according to claim 2, wherein the control means includes one or more of temperature and time displays, user selectable inputs including temperature and time setting inputs, thermostatic control elements selected from electronic or electromechanical thermostats, and timer elements including electronic or electromechanical switching timers.

4. A contact toaster according to claim 3, wherein the respective heated platens are controlled separate thermostats.

5. A contact toaster according to claim 1 , wherein the heated platen and the upper heated platen have contact surface portions formed of the same or different material selected from cast iron, stainless steel, mild steel, copper or other metal or metal laminate.

6. A contact toaster according to claim 5, wherein the heated platen and the upper heated platen contact surface portions are each formed of aluminium/stainless steel laminate.

7. A contact toaster according to claim 5, wherein the heated platen and the upper heated platen contact surface portions are coated with non-stick polyfluoroolefin poiymer containing material.

8. A contact toaster according to claim 1 , wherein the control arms are located over the top of the upper heated platen in use.

9. A contact toaster according to claim 8, wherein the geometry of the platen suspension and control arm pivoting arrangement, the position rearward of the body and upward of the heated platen of the control arm pivot mounting, and the shape and configuration of the control arms, are selected to allow said upper heated platen a raddle scope on closure to provide self levelling in use, and an open loading position wherein the upper heated platen contact surface is about 40° from the vertical when opened to a selected position with the lower edge thereof over the back edge of the heated platen.

10. A contact toaster according to claim 1 , wherein the control arms cooperate with means to allow the upper heated platen to be retained in selection of positions.

11. A contact toaster according to claim 10, wherein the control arms are provided with means retaining the upper heated platen in a first position where product may be loaded onto the heated platen, wherein the upper heated platen contact surface is about 40° from the vertical.

12. A contact toaster according to claim 11, wherein the control arms are provided with means retaining the upper heated platen in a second position where the machine is fully open for cleaning.

13. A contact toaster according to claim 10, wherein the control arms are flat bar or sheet metal control arms having formed therewith an integral detente sector portion adapted to cooperate with a spring loaded detente bar associated with the pivot mountings.

14. A contact toaster according to claim 13, wherein the detente sector includes a detente retaining the upper heated platen in a first position where product may be loaded onto the heated platen, wherein the upper heated platen contact surface is about 40° from the vertical.

15. A contact toaster according to claim 13, wherein the detente sector includes a detente retaining the upper heated platen in a second position where the machine is fully open for cleaning.

16. A contact toaster according to claim 13, wherein the detente sectors, control arm pivots, and spring loaded detente bars are enclosed and substantially protected from contamination by a removable cover.

17. A contact toaster according to any one of the preceding claims, wherein there are two upper heated platens forming a split lid contact toaster.

18. A contact toaster according to claim 17, wherein the control arms are located over the top of the respective upper heated platens, and the upper heated platens in use overlie substantially the entire heated surface of the heated platen.

19. A contact toaster according to claim 18, wherein a heated portion forming the contact surface of the upper heated platens extends over substantially the entire heated platen surface in use, the upper platen body housing the heating element and attaching the struts being smaller in footprint, allowing said struts to be entirely within the footprint of the upper platen heated portion.

20. A split lid contact toaster including: a toaster body including a heated platen; spaced mountings supported on one side of the toaster body and extending behind the side and above the plane of the upper surface; two pairs of spaced control arms each pivoted to respective said mountings and spanning the surface away from said side, the ends of each pair of the control arms remote from the mountings being conjoined by a respective handle; heated upper platens suspended below respective pairs of the control arms on spaced struts fixed to the platens substantially within the footprint thereof, and pivoted to the respective control arms.