CN110693299B

CN110693299B - Full-automatic cooking system

Info

Publication number: CN110693299B
Application number: CN201910767505.3A
Authority: CN
Inventors: 徐柏龄; 徐千又
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2019-07-17
Filing date: 2019-08-20
Publication date: 2023-05-02
Anticipated expiration: 2039-08-20
Also published as: CN110693299A; TWI708581B; CN211722720U; TW202103617A

Abstract

The invention discloses a full-automatic cooking system, which mainly realizes unmanned and full-automatic meal cooking through a mobile conveying device, a plurality of cooking devices, a plurality of heating devices and other peripheral equipment devices; the movable conveying device forms a circulating travel by a circulating conveying belt, and a charging station, a heating station, a discharging station, a cleaning station and the like are arranged in the travel, and each station area is provided with corresponding equipment, such as a charging device, a heating device, a cleaning device and the like; the cooking device is provided with a rotating mechanism arranged on the circulating conveyor belt and a heating container combined with the rotating mechanism, so that the heating container can stir food materials during heating and pour food when cooking is finished; the heating device is an electric heating device or a gas heating device and is used for heating and cooking food materials of the heating container, so that the purpose of full-automatic cooking is achieved.

Description

Full-automatic cooking system

Technical Field

The present invention relates to a cooking system, and more particularly to a fully automated cooking system for feeding, cooking, dumping, cleaning, etc. by an automated production line.

Background

Many organizations today provide their members with meals or groups of meals, such as schools, hospitals, armies, factories, etc., and because the organization has a large number of members, its central kitchen must use a large amount of manpower to serve the meal and its surroundings in order to provide sufficient meals in a short time, the labor cost is a significant expense of such central kitchens. Moreover, current manual cooking of the snack balls is easy to cause the difficulty in controlling the quality of the snack balls due to complex factors such as cook quality, cooking technology, seasoning control, fire control and the like. Therefore, how to create a fully automatic cooking device capable of fully automatically controlling technology and equipment is a problem to be actively overcome by the invention.

Disclosure of Invention

The invention mainly aims to provide a full-automatic cooking system, which can realize standard process and whole-process computer control of cooking food by a mobile conveying device, a plurality of cooking devices arranged on the mobile conveying device and a plurality of heating devices for generating heat energy, thereby achieving the purpose of unmanned full-automatic cooking.

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a fully automatic cooking system, which comprises: the movable conveying device is provided with a driving wheel set, a circulating conveying belt wound on the driving wheel set and a plurality of supports arranged on the circulating conveying belt, the driving wheel set drives the circulating conveying belt, and the circulating conveying belt drives the supports to horizontally and circularly move. The cooking devices are provided with a rotating mechanism arranged on the bracket and a heating container combined with the rotating mechanism, the bracket drives the cooking devices to horizontally and circularly move among a plurality of station areas, the station areas at least comprise a charging station, a heating station, a discharging station and a cleaning station, and the rotating mechanism can drive the heating container to overturn and pour out the cooked food at the discharging station. The heating devices are arranged at the heating station in the moving stroke of the cooking device, and are an electric heating device or a gas heating device, and the heating devices transfer heat energy to the heating container so as to heat and cook food in the heating container. Therefore, the unmanned full-automatic cooking effect can be achieved.

It is another object of the present invention to provide a fully automatic cooking system, which is capable of arranging cooking processes into an in-line circulation process structure, a circular circulation process structure or a triangular circulation process structure by forming a moving conveyor by a sprocket and a chain, so as to satisfy the demands of each kitchen.

The present invention provides a fully automatic cooking system, which uses a power supply system to provide power to a rotating mechanism of the cooking device, so that the rotating mechanism can drive the cooking container to repeatedly or unidirectionally rotate continuously when heating, and turn over and simultaneously rotate when cooking is completed to pour out cooked food.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a fully automatic cooking system, which uses a range hood and a cleaning system to achieve the purpose of fully automatically keeping the cooking environment clean and the appliances clean.

Another object of the present invention is to provide a fully automatic cooking system, which can automatically and quantitatively add liquid food and solid food into a heating container of a cooking device through a liquid feeding device and a solid feeding device, so as to achieve the purpose of automatic feeding.

It is still another object of the present invention to provide a fully automated cooking system that achieves the goal of pre-cooking condiments, etc., by providing a pre-cooking system.

Drawings

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the description serve to explain the invention and do not constitute a limitation on the invention. In the drawings:

FIG. 1 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a preferred embodiment of a single-tier automated cooking system of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic cross-sectional view of a preferred embodiment of the multi-layered fully automated cooking system of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic top view of a preferred embodiment of the driving wheel set and endless conveyor belt of the mobile conveyor apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic side view of a preferred embodiment of the drive wheel set and endless conveyor belt of the mobile conveyor apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a schematic view of the in-line flow structure of the endless belt and the arrangement of the station areas of the mobile conveyor apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a schematic view of the circular flow structure of the endless belt and the arrangement of the station areas of the mobile conveyor apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a schematic diagram of the triangular flow structure of the endless belt and the arrangement of the station areas of the mobile conveyor apparatus according to the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a side view of a preferred embodiment of the cooking apparatus of the present invention.

Fig. 9 is a perspective view of a cooking vessel according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a schematic top view of a preferred embodiment of the cooking vessel of the present invention.

FIG. 11 is a side view of a preferred embodiment of the power supply system of the present invention.

FIG. 12 is a schematic top view of a preferred embodiment of the track structure of the power supply system of the present invention.

FIG. 13 is a schematic side view of a preferred embodiment of the gas heating device and range hood of the present invention.

Fig. 14 is a schematic diagram showing the operation of the rotating mechanism of the present invention to turn the cooking vessel upside down to pour out food.

FIG. 15 is a schematic view of the operation of a preferred embodiment of the water jet and air jet of the cleaning system of the present invention.

FIG. 16 is a schematic side view of a cooking vessel embodying the present invention as a shallow bottom frying pan and its rotation mechanism.

FIG. 17 is an exploded view of the quick release structure of the rotary mechanism of the shallow frying pan of the present invention.

FIG. 18 is a schematic view of a preferred embodiment of the liquid feeding apparatus of the present invention.

FIG. 19 is a schematic view of a solid feeding device and a screw pushing rod for quantitatively pushing a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 20A is a schematic diagram of the action of a separate metering rod of the solid feed device of the present invention for bulk feed.

FIG. 20B is a schematic diagram of the action of the separate metering rod of the solid feed device of the present invention for small-volume feeding.

FIG. 21 is a schematic diagram of a precooking system according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Symbol description:

10-moving the conveying device;

11-driving wheel groups; 111-a base; 112-a rotating shaft; 113-a first motor; 114-sprocket; 12-circulating conveyor belt; 121-a chain; 13-a bracket; 131-caulking groove; 132-stop; 133-quick-release clamps; 14-adjusting means; s1, a charging station; s11, a feeding preheating station; s2, a heating station; s3, a discharging station; s4, a cleaning station;

20-a cooking device;

21-a rotation mechanism; 211-cantilever; 212-a roll-over stand; 213-a second motor; 214-a third motor; 215-a fourth motor; 22-heating the container; 221-spiral ribs;

30-a heating device; 31-an electric heating device; 32-a gas heating device;

40-a power supply system; 41-track; 42-conducting strips; 43-conductive means; 431-lever; 432-conductive wheels; 433-an elastic element; 44-insulator; 45-protecting cover;

50-a range hood; 51-fume hood; 52-fume exhaust pipe;

60-cleaning system; 61-a water spray pipe; 62-gas nozzles;

70-liquid charging means; 71-a liquid container; 72-pump; 73-an electric cylinder; 74-a one-way valve;

80-a solids charging device; 81-charging barrel; 82-a vibration motor; 83-a screw pushing unit; 831-a screw push rod; 832-a fifth motor; 833-separate metering rod; 84-flexible connection; 85-end caps; 86-shaft sleeve; 87-the rear end of the spiral pushing rod; 88-a discharge hole;

90-precooking system; 91-an indexing seat; 92-a turntable; 93-precooking device; 931—a rotation mechanism; 932—heating the container; 94-heating means; 95-circuit rotary connector.

Detailed Description

In order to make the technical problems, technical schemes and beneficial effects to be solved more clear and obvious, the structural features, actions and purposes of the present invention are described in detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings and embodiments.

Referring to fig. 1 and 2, the full-automatic cooking system of the present invention is a cooking system for fully automatically cooking food, and is used for performing the processes of automatic feeding (such as cooking oil, spice, seasoning, food material, etc.), adding water, heating and cooking, ripening and pouring food, cleaning container, etc. required for cooking in an automatic circulation operation process. The preferred embodiment of the present invention comprises a mobile conveyor 10, a plurality of cooking devices 20 and a plurality of heating devices 30, wherein:

referring to fig. 1, the present invention forms a full-automatic cooking system with a set of mobile conveying devices 10, and referring to fig. 2, two or more sets of mobile conveying devices 10 can be implemented to form a multi-automatic cooking system, so as to achieve the effects of effectively utilizing space and improving meal output efficiency. Referring to fig. 3 and 4, the moving conveying device 10 mainly includes a driving wheel set 11, a circulating conveying belt 12 wound around the driving wheel set 11, and a plurality of supports 13 disposed on the circulating conveying belt 12, wherein the driving wheel set 11 drives the circulating conveying belt 12, and the circulating conveying belt 12 drives the supports 13 to horizontally and circularly move; the driving wheel set 11 has a base 111, at least two rotating shafts 112 rotatably disposed on the base 111, a first motor 113 connected to the rotating shafts 112, and sprockets 114 respectively coupled to the rotating shafts 112; the endless conveyor 12 is a chain 121 wound around the sprocket, and the chain 121 is coupled to the bracket 13. In addition, an adjusting device 14 for adjusting the distance between the rotating shafts 112 is disposed on one side or the bottom surface of the base 111, the adjusting device 14 can be a dovetail groove seat set, a T-shaped groove seat set or a linear sliding rail block set, and the motor or the hand wheel controls the lead screw to enable the adjusting device 14 to push the two movably assembled bases 111, so as to adjust the distance between the rotating shafts 112 and the tightness of the chain 121.

The cooking device 20 is a device for using a container to hold food materials to enter a cooking process, and the cooking device 20 is driven by the support 13 of the moving conveying device 10 to horizontally and circularly move among a plurality of station areas and can stay at fixed points in each station area, as shown in fig. 5, 6 and 7, the station area preferably comprises a plurality of charging stations S1, a charging preheating station S11, a plurality of heating stations S2, one or more discharging stations S3 and one or more cleaning stations S4. Referring to fig. 8, each cooking device 20 mainly includes a rotating mechanism 21 disposed on the support 13, and a heating container 22 coupled to the rotating mechanism 21, so that the rotating mechanism 21 can drive the heating container 22 to overturn and pour out the cooked food at the discharging station S3.

One embodiment of the rotating mechanism 21 includes two cantilevers 211 disposed on the bracket 13, a roll-over stand 212 disposed between the cantilevers 211, a second motor 213 driving the roll-over stand 212, and a third motor 214 disposed at the bottom of the roll-over stand 212, whereby the heating container 22 is rotatably disposed on the roll-over stand 212, and the third motor 214 drives the heating container 22 to rotate repeatedly or unidirectionally. Referring to fig. 9 and 10, the heating container 22 is a metal pot, and a single-rotation or multi-rotation spiral rib 221 is formed on the inner wall of the heating container 22, so that different stirring functions are generated when the heating container 22 intermittently rotates left and right, for example, the food is stirred in the left-to-right direction, the food is stirred in the right-to-left direction, the oil, the spice, the seasoning and the food materials can be evenly heated and evenly mixed, and when the food materials are cooked to the discharging station S3, the heating container 22 is rotated in a downward direction and then accelerated to rotate, so that the cooked food can be poured out from the heating container 22 quickly and without sticking the pot.

Referring to fig. 1 and 5-7, the heating device 30 is a device for cooking food in the heating container 22, which is disposed at a fixed point in the heating station S2 and the feeding preheating station S11 in the moving process of the cooking device 30, and the heating device 30 may be an electric heating device 31 (as shown in fig. 11) or a gas heating device 32 (as shown in fig. 13 or 16), so that the heating device 30 transfers heat energy to the heating container 22 to heat and cook the food in the heating container 22. The electric heating device 31 may be a ceramic heating unit or other electric heating unit, and the gas heating device 32 may be a gas stove or a natural gas stove.

In the present invention, the cooking device 20 is driven by the moving conveyor 10 to stop at each station for performing each cooking operation and then to move in a recycling manner, so that the method for supplying power to the cooking device 20 is specially designed, as shown in fig. 11 and 12, one of the preferred embodiments of the present invention further comprises a power supply system 40 for supplying power to the cooking device 20, the preferred embodiment of the power supply system 40 has a track 41 extending parallel to the endless conveyor 12, two conductive strips 42 disposed on the track 41 or on one side, two sets of conductive devices 43 disposed on the support 13, and a protective cover 45 for covering the track 41, the conductive strips 42 and the conductive devices 43; the track 41 may be provided with an insulator 44 to block the conductive strip 42, the conductive strip 42 being a copper conductive strip and surrounding along the track 41; the conductive device 43 preferably has a lever 431 movably disposed on the bracket 13, a copper conductive wheel 432 disposed at one end of the lever 431, and an elastic element 433 (e.g. an extension spring, a compression spring, a torsion spring or a spring sheet) acting on the lever 431 to make the conductive wheel 432 contact the conductive strip 42, so as to make the conductive wheel 43 contact the conductive strip 42 for rolling movement, preventing spark due to poor contact, and an insulation structure is provided between the conductive wheel 432 and the lever 431; by connecting the electric wires of the motors of the cooking device 20 to the conductive wheels 432 of the two sets of conductive devices 43, the electric power required for operation can be supplied through the conductive wheels 432 during the movement.

Referring to fig. 13, the preferred embodiment of the present invention further comprises a range hood 50, wherein the range hood 50 has a hood 51 surrounding the endless conveyor 12, a fume exhaust pipe 52 and a fan (not shown) for automatically exhausting fume. The present invention further provides one or more cleaning systems 60 at the cleaning station S4, wherein the cleaning system 60 has at least a water spray pipe 61 and a gas spray pipe 62 facing the heating container 22, and other cleaning devices can be optionally added, and when the heating container 22 is emptied of cooked food at the discharging station S3 (as shown in fig. 14), the empty heating container 22 is brought to the cleaning station S4 by the moving conveyor 10, and the water spray pipe 61 and the gas spray pipe 62 of the cleaning system 60 can be used for cleaning and air drying.

In addition, referring to fig. 16, the heating container 22 of the present invention may be implemented as a shallow frying pan, and the rotating mechanism 21 includes a cantilever 211 disposed on the support 13, and a fourth motor 215 disposed on the cantilever 211, thereby rotatably disposing the shallow frying pan on the cantilever 211, so that the fourth motor 215 can drive the shallow frying pan to flip and pour out the decocted or baked food. Referring to fig. 1, 2, 8, 11, 13, 14, 15 and 21, the shallow frying pan or the heating container 22 may need to be brushed or maintained for replacement, so the cantilever 211 and the bracket 13 of the frying pan and the heating container 22 (as shown in fig. 8) can be implemented into a quick-dismantling structure, and a caulking groove 131, a block 132 and a quick-dismantling clamp 133 can be arranged on the bracket 13, thereby one end of the base of the cantilever 211 is clamped between the caulking groove 131 and the block 132, and the other end is clamped by the quick-dismantling clamp 133, so that the quick-dismantling effect can be achieved.

The above-mentioned multiple feeding stations S1 and feeding preheating stations S11 are used for feeding liquid and solid food or preheating simultaneously, and in order to achieve the purpose of full-automatic feeding, the preferred embodiment of the present invention further comprises a liquid feeding device 70 (shown in fig. 18) and a solid feeding device 80 (shown in fig. 19) disposed at the feeding stations S1 and the feeding preheating stations S11. The liquid charging apparatus 70 has a liquid container 71 for holding edible oil, sauce, soup or water, a pump 72 connected to the liquid container 71 through a pipe and a check valve 74, and an electric cylinder 73 for pushing the pump 72 to linearly move, whereby when the operation to the charging station S1 and the charging preheating station S11 is suspended, the pump 72 is driven by the electric cylinder 73 to suck the liquid in the liquid container 71, and then the liquid is quantitatively extruded to the heating container 22. The solid feeding device 80 mainly comprises a barrel 81 for storing solid food or seasoning, a vibration motor 82 coupled to the barrel 81, and a screw pushing unit 83 connected to the bottom of the barrel 81, wherein the screw pushing unit 83 comprises a replaceable screw pushing rod 831 and a fifth motor 832 for driving the screw pushing rod 831; the bottom of the cylinder 81 is connected to the spiral pushing unit 83 through a flexible connecting member 84, for example, the flexible connecting member 84 may be a leather sheath or other connecting sleeve, so as to prevent the vibration force of the vibration motor 82 to the cylinder 81 from being transferred to the spiral pushing rod 831, thereby playing a role in vibration absorption and ensuring the feeding accuracy of the spiral pushing rod 831.

As shown in fig. 19, the spiral pushing unit 83 further has a rapidly detachable end cover 85, and a food-grade wear-resistant and heat-resistant self-lubricating shaft sleeve 86 is disposed on the end cover 85, the front end of the spiral pushing rod 831 is detachably connected with the fifth motor 832 (for example, a clamping connection can be adopted), and the rear end 87 is rotatably connected with the shaft sleeve 86, so that the two ends of the spiral pushing rod 831 support uniformly distributed loads, the elastic modulus (E) and the rotational inertia (I) of the spiral pushing rod 831 are reduced, the load capacity (W) of the spiral pushing rod 831 is increased, the pushing distance (X) of the spiral pushing rod 831 and the distance (Z) from the two ends to the central shaft/surface are increased, and the transmission process of the spiral pushing rod 831 of the embodiment is more stable and the feeding is more accurate. In this embodiment, the discharge port 88 of the spiral pushing unit 83 is disposed at the bottom of the housing near the rear end of the spiral pushing rod 831, and the solid food or seasoning can be directly discharged downward from the bottom discharge port 88 under the action of gravity.

In addition, the spiral pushing rod 831 can be replaced by a separate quantitative feeding rod 833, and the separate quantitative feeding rod 833 can be the specification of a large pushing space (as shown in fig. 20A) and also can be replaced by the specification of a small pushing space (as shown in fig. 20B), so as to conform to different quantitative food materials and condiments; in this embodiment, the separation quantitative feeding rod 833 includes a central rotating shaft and more than two separating sheets arranged at intervals in the radial direction of the rotating shaft, a quantitative space is formed between two adjacent separating sheets, a large pushing space or a small pushing space is realized by designing the diameter of the rotating shaft and the size of the separating sheets, and the quantitative feeding of the separation quantitative feeding rod 833 is realized by controlling the rotating angle of the central rotating shaft. The separation quantitative feeding rod 833 of the embodiment can also adopt a two-end supporting structure as shown in fig. 19, so that the transmission process of the separation quantitative feeding rod 833 is more stable and the feeding is more accurate.

In addition, referring again to fig. 21, the present invention may preferably be implemented with a pre-cooking system 90 disposed in the charging station S1, the charging preheating station S11 and/or the heating station S2, the pre-cooking system 90 mainly having an index base 91, a turntable 92 disposed on the index base 91, a pre-cooking device 93 disposed on the turntable 92, a heating device 94 and a circuit rotary connector 95; the pre-cooking device 93 may be constructed in the same manner as the cooking device 20 described above, and has a rotation mechanism 931 and a heating container 932 coupled to the rotation mechanism 931, and the power supply line of the pre-cooking device 93 is connected to the circuit rotary connector 95, and the turntable 92 is prevented from winding the power supply line during rotation by the circuit rotary connector 95; therefore, the present invention can cook special seasonings in advance in the heating container 932, and then the cooked food is poured into the heating container 22 located in the feeding station S1, the feeding preheating station S11 or the heating station S2 by the pre-cooking device 93, so that the full-automatic cooking system of the present invention can cook more various flavors of meals.

In view of the above, the full-automatic cooking system of the present invention is practical and creative, and the technical means is novel and undoubted, and the efficacy and design purpose are well-met, and the full-automatic cooking system is reasonably advanced to the best.

Moreover, the foregoing description describes preferred embodiments of the invention, and as previously mentioned, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to the forms disclosed herein but is not to be construed as limited to other embodiments, but is capable of use in various other combinations, modifications and environments and is capable of changes or modifications within the scope of the inventive concept described herein, either as a result of the foregoing teachings or as a result of the knowledge or skill of the relevant art. And that modifications and variations which do not depart from the spirit and scope of the invention are intended to be within the scope of the appended claims.

Claims

1. A fully automated cooking system, comprising:

the movable conveying device is provided with a driving wheel set, a circulating conveying belt wound on the driving wheel set and a plurality of brackets arranged on the circulating conveying belt, the driving wheel set drives the circulating conveying belt, and the circulating conveying belt drives the brackets to horizontally and circularly move;

the cooking devices are provided with a rotating mechanism arranged on the bracket and a heating container combined with the rotating mechanism, the bracket drives the cooking devices to horizontally and circularly move among a plurality of station areas, the station areas at least comprise a charging station, a heating station, a discharging station and a cleaning station, and the rotating mechanism can drive the heating container to overturn and pour out cooked food at the discharging station;

the heating devices are arranged at the heating station in the moving stroke of the cooking device, and are an electric heating device or a gas heating device, and the heating devices transfer heat energy to the heating container so as to heat and cook food in the heating container.

2. The full automatic cooking system according to claim 1, wherein the driving wheel set has a base, at least two rotating shafts rotatably provided on the base, a first motor connected to the rotating shafts, and sprockets respectively coupled to the rotating shafts; the circulating conveyer belt is a chain wound on the chain wheel, the chain is combined with the bracket, and the base is provided with an adjusting device for adjusting the distance between the rotating shafts.

3. The full-automatic cooking system according to claim 1, wherein the moving conveyor means of two or more groups are included to constitute a multi-layered full-automatic cooking system.

4. The fully automated cooking system of claim 1, further comprising a power supply system for supplying power to the cooking device, the power supply system having a track parallel to the endless conveyor, two conductive strips disposed on the track, and a conductive device disposed on the rack; the conductive device is provided with a lever movably arranged on the bracket, a conductive wheel arranged at one end of the lever and an elastic element acting on the lever so that the conductive wheel contacts the conductive strip to enable the conductive wheel to contact the conductive strip for rolling movement.

5. The full-automatic cooking system according to claim 1, wherein the rotating mechanism comprises two cantilevers provided on the rack, a roll-over stand provided between the two cantilevers, a second motor driving the roll-over stand, and a third motor provided on the roll-over stand; and the heating container is rotatably arranged on the roll-over stand, and the third motor drives the heating container to rotate.

6. The fully automated cooking system of claim 1, wherein the rotation mechanism comprises a cantilever arm disposed on the rack, and a fourth motor disposed on the cantilever arm; and the heating container is rotatably arranged on the cantilever, and the fourth motor drives the heating container to overturn and pour out the food.

7. The fully automated cooking system of claim 1, further comprising a range hood having a hood surrounding the endless conveyor belt.

8. The full-automatic cooking system according to claim 1 or 7, further comprising a cleaning system disposed at the cleaning station, the cleaning system having a water spray pipe and a gas spray pipe facing the heating container.

9. The fully automated cooking system of claim 1, further comprising a liquid feeding device and a solid feeding device disposed at the feeding station; the liquid feeding device is provided with a liquid container for containing edible oil, sauce, soup or water, a pump connected with the liquid container, and an electric cylinder for pushing the pump; the solid feeding device is provided with a material cylinder for storing solid food materials, a vibration motor combined on the material cylinder, and a spiral pushing unit connected to the bottom of the material cylinder, wherein the spiral pushing unit is provided with a replaceable spiral pushing rod or a separated quantitative feeding rod.

10. The full-automatic cooking system according to claim 1 or 2, further comprising a pre-cooking system provided at the feeding station, the pre-cooking system having an index base, a turntable provided on the index base, a pre-cooking device provided on the turntable, the pre-cooking device pouring the cooked food into the heating container.