CN211882053U

CN211882053U - Ice cream vending machine and flower-cylinder supply mechanism thereof

Info

Publication number: CN211882053U
Application number: CN201922300384.XU
Authority: CN
Inventors: 严勇; 张雷
Original assignee: Shengdoushi Shanghai Technology Development Co Ltd
Current assignee: Shengdoushi Shanghai Science and Technology Development Co Ltd
Priority date: 2019-12-19
Filing date: 2019-12-19
Publication date: 2020-11-10
Anticipated expiration: 2029-12-19
Also published as: WO2021121315A1

Abstract

The utility model provides a flower tube supply mechanism for ice cream vending machine, this flower tube supply mechanism includes storage unit and alignment unit, wherein, storage unit includes the feed bin that arranges along the vertical direction, and the lower port of feed bin is opened, and the bore of this lower port is set up to allow a plurality of flower tubes to hold in its holding chamber mutually superpose and can not drop from the feed bin, and allow the most advanced of the flower tube that is located the bottommost to stretch out to the outside of feed bin; the aligning unit comprises a collar arranged horizontally and with its opening aligned with the lower port of the magazine, and arranged to allow controlled vertical movement to align the position of the lowermost sleeve to extend in a vertical direction. The utility model also provides an ice cream vending machine, it includes according to the utility model discloses a flower section of thick bamboo supply mechanism.

Description

Ice cream vending machine and flower-cylinder supply mechanism thereof

Technical Field

The utility model relates to a food is automatic to be made and sell, especially relates to ice cream vending machine and flower section of thick bamboo supply mechanism thereof.

Background

Traditional dessert shop is when selling the ice cream, by staff and consumer's demand such as the taste and the quantity that need purchase, then accept consumer's order after, the staff snatchs the ice cream flower section of thick bamboo, places the flower section of thick bamboo in ice cream machine's distribution mouth below, presses the handle of pressing of ice cream machine through manual, makes the ice cream flow from the distribution mouth. During the process of ice cream flowing into the flower cylinder, the flower cylinder can be rotated, so that the ice cream forms a specific shape on the flower cylinder. After the ice cream is made, it is manually delivered to the customer.

The above-described method has numerous drawbacks. For example, the quality of the manufactured products is uneven due to low standardization of manual operation. For another example, manual operation requires manpower to complete all manufacturing processes, which is labor intensive, prone to fatigue of operators during a large number of operations, long in idle time during non-business peak hours, and inefficient. In addition, manual operation is easily influenced by the hygiene habits of staff, and potential safety hazards such as food pollution are easily caused in the manufacturing process.

SUMMERY OF THE UTILITY MODEL

The utility model provides a flower tube supply mechanism for ice cream vending machine, this flower tube supply mechanism includes storage unit and alignment unit, wherein, storage unit includes the feed bin that arranges along the vertical direction, and the lower port of feed bin is opened, and the bore of this lower port is set up to allow a plurality of flower tubes to hold in its holding chamber mutually superpose and can not drop from the feed bin, and allow the most advanced of the flower tube that is located the bottommost to stretch out to the outside of feed bin; the aligning unit comprises a collar arranged horizontally and with its opening aligned with the lower port of the magazine, and arranged to allow controlled vertical movement to align the position of the lowermost sleeve to extend in a vertical direction.

Advantageously, the magazine unit further comprises a rotary table which is driven by the rotary shaft under control, the rotary table being provided with a plurality of openings, each opening correspondingly supporting one magazine, the tip of the lowermost cylinder projecting from the corresponding opening to below the rotary table.

Advantageously, the turntable is arranged such that when a magazine vertically above the collar is empty of cartridges, the turntable is driven to rotate until the lower port of the next magazine containing cartridges is aligned with the collar.

Advantageously, when only the last magazine of the plurality of magazines has a cartridge, a warning prompt is automatically issued to replenish the magazine with a cartridge.

Advantageously, the device further comprises a controller and a sensor in communication with the controller, the sensor being configured to detect whether a cartridge is received in the collar, wherein when the collar is raised to a maximum limit and the sensor does not detect the presence of a cartridge in the collar, the controller controls the turntable to rotate until the lower port of the next silo is aligned with the collar.

Advantageously, the apparatus further comprises a control button arranged to rotate the dial or to move the collar vertically in response to manual manipulation by an operator.

Advantageously, the aligning unit further comprises a screw mechanism connected to the collar and arranged to drive the collar to move vertically under control to align the position of the lowermost sleeve to extend in a vertical direction.

Advantageously, the screw mechanism comprises a screw and a connecting rod, the connecting rod being fixedly connected to the collar, the connecting rod being provided with a nut which is fitted over the screw to allow the connecting rod to drive the collar to move in a vertical direction when the screw is rotated under control.

Advantageously, the screw mechanism further comprises a stepper motor, an output shaft of the stepper motor being connected to the screw for driving the screw to rotate under control.

The utility model also provides an ice cream vending machine, it includes according to the utility model discloses a flower section of thick bamboo supply mechanism.

Drawings

Further details and advantages of the invention will be described in further detail below with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which:

figure 1 shows a particular example of a refill mechanism for ice cream vending machines according to the present invention;

fig. 2 and 3 are partial cross-sectional views from two opposite perspectives of fig. 1, with the cover plate of the electric cabinet 3 removed to show the internal construction thereof.

The drawings described above are for illustration and example only and are not necessarily to scale, nor are they intended to depict all of the components or details relevant to the particular environment of use. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the conception and specific use of the invention may be readily utilized as a basis for the designing of other structures, methods and systems for carrying out the several purposes of the present invention.

Detailed Description

The terms "first," "second," and the like, as may be used in the following description, are not intended to limit any order, but merely distinguish between various separate components, features, structures, elements, and the like, which may be the same, similar, or different. Meanwhile, descriptions about orientations, such as "upper", "lower", "inner", "outer", "left", "right", "radial", "axial", and the like, which may be used in the following description, are only for convenience of description unless explicitly stated, and are not intended to form any limitation on the technical solution of the present invention.

The ice cream vending machine described herein comprises a food preparation unit configured to enable the automatic preparation of finished ice cream without human intervention, which generally comprises: a cylinder supply mechanism for storing a plurality of cylinders for making ice cream; a food material storage tank storing at least one material for making the food and dispensing a measured amount of the material to the cartridge when the cartridge is positioned below the dispensing opening thereof; a robotic arm configured to grasp one of the cartridges from the cartridge replenishment mechanism and move the cartridge under the dispensing opening of the food material reservoir to receive a measured amount of material.

Fig. 1 shows a particular example of a mechanism for supplying a cartridge for an ice cream vending machine according to the present invention. On the whole, the cylinder supply mechanism comprises a storage unit and an adjusting unit. Wherein the magazine unit comprises a turntable 20 which is allowed to be driven under control by a spindle 2, and on which a number of openings are arranged, each opening position correspondingly supporting one magazine 1 arranged in a vertical direction. In the figure, eight silos 1 are shown in total, i.e. the turntable 20 is provided with eight openings. In the interior of each magazine 1, a plurality of cartridges are accommodated one above the other. The lower port of the cartridge 1 is opened, and the caliber of the lower port is set to allow the tip of the lowermost cylinder 19 to protrude to the outside of the cartridge without falling off the cartridge. Furthermore, the tips of the lowermost cylinders 19 project from the respective openings to below the turntable 20.

The aligning unit in the figure comprises a collar 10 of substantially circular ring shape. The collar 10 is arranged horizontally and aligned with the lower port of the cartridge 1. The collar 10 is arranged to allow controlled vertical movement to align the position of the lowermost sleeve 19 to extend in a vertical direction. The extension of the tube in the vertical direction is very important for the quality assurance of ice cream production. In particular, since in the automatic manufacture of ice cream the cartridge is gripped by the jaws of a robot arm. If the cylinder is not oriented correctly, the clamping jaws or the cylinder cannot exert enough gripping force, so that the cylinder is easy to fall off from the clamping jaws in the moving process of the mechanical arm, and the production failure is caused. Or, when the cylinder direction is incorrect, the clamping jaws easily damage the cylinder due to improper force application to the cylinder in the grabbing process. In this application, through the up-and-down motion of the lantern ring 10 that is located under the lower port of feed bin, can effectively straighten out crooked section of thick bamboo of flowers, guarantee that the section of thick bamboo of flowers is in the vertical direction before being snatched by the clamping jaw.

Fig. 2 and 3 are partial sectional views of fig. 1, in which a cover plate of the electric cabinet 3 is removed to expose its internal components, based on fig. 1.

As shown in the figure, the aligning unit includes a screw rod mechanism connected with a sleeve ring, the screw rod mechanism includes a screw rod 12 and a connecting rod 14, the connecting rod 14 is fixedly connected with the sleeve ring 10, the connecting rod 14 is provided with a nut, and the nut is sleeved on the screw rod 12. The screw rod mechanism further comprises a stepping motor 11, an output shaft of the stepping motor 11 is connected with the screw rod 12 to drive the screw rod to rotate under control, and therefore the connecting rod 14 can drive the lantern ring 10 to move in the vertical direction.

The flower cylinder supply mechanism in the figure further comprises a control box 3, wherein: a control board 7 for receiving the master control signal to control the operation of the mechanism; a lifting screw rod driver 8 for driving the lifting screw rod to run; a motor driver 9 for driving the motor to operate; a step motor 11 driving the driving shaft to rotate.

The controller is communicatively coupled to the plurality of sensors. For example, a rotation limit sensor 5 (and corresponding sensor stop 4) for locating the position of the turntable; a diffuse reflection sensor 13 for detecting whether a cylinder is in the collar; an upper limit sensor 15 for controlling an upper limit of the collar; a tow chain fixing seat 17 for positioning the diffuse reflection sensor wire harness; a lower limit sensor 18 (and corresponding sensor stop 16) for controlling the lower limit of the collar.

The controller may be arranged to control the turntable 20 to rotate until the lower port of the next magazine is aligned with the collar when the collar 10 is raised to the upper limit and the sensor has not detected the presence of a cartridge in the collar. Furthermore, when the magazine 1 located vertically above the collar 10 is empty of cartridges, the turntable 20 is controlled to rotate automatically until the lower port of the next magazine with cartridges is aligned with the collar 10. When only the last silo in the plurality of silos 1 has a cartridge, a warning prompt is automatically sent to replenish the silo with the cartridge.

The electric cabinet 3 is also provided with a control button 6 arranged to rotate the dial 20 or to vertically move the collar 10 according to the manual operation of the operator, when refilling the cartridge or in other situations where manual control is required.

The utility model discloses effectively realized the automation of ice cream flower section of thick bamboo prepare material, feed supplement, feed, for realizing that full-automatic ice cream machine makes and provides the condition. Furthermore, the utility model discloses can also the automatic adjustment cylinder position, effectively guarantee to have higher yield at ice cream automatic production's in-process.

The foregoing description is only exemplary of the principles and spirit of the invention. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that changes may be made in the described examples without departing from the principles and spirit thereof, and that such changes are contemplated by the inventors and are within the scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.

Claims

1. A refill mechanism for an ice cream vending machine, said refill mechanism comprising:

a stock unit including a magazine (1) arranged in a vertical direction, a lower port of the magazine being open, a caliber of the lower port being set to allow a plurality of the cylinders to be accommodated in a cavity thereof in a stacked manner without falling out of the magazine, and a tip of a lowermost cylinder (19) to be protruded to the outside of the magazine; and

an alignment unit comprising a collar (10) arranged horizontally and with its opening aligned with the lower port of the silo (1), and the collar (10) being arranged to allow controlled vertical movement to align the position of the lowermost cylinder (19) to extend in a vertical direction.

2. The supply mechanism according to claim 1, wherein the magazine unit further comprises a rotary table (20) which is driven by the rotary shaft (2) under control, a plurality of openings being arranged on the rotary table, and a plurality of magazines being arranged on the rotary table, each opening correspondingly supporting one magazine (1), the tip of the lowermost cartridge (19) projecting from the corresponding opening to below the rotary table (20).

3. The supply mechanism for a cartridge as set forth in claim 1, further comprising:

a sensor configured to detect whether a cartridge is received in the collar; and

a controller communicatively connected to the sensor and configured to control the carousel (20) to rotate until the lower port of the next silo is aligned with the collar when the collar (10) is raised to the top limit and the sensor has not detected the presence of a cartridge in the collar.

4. The supply mechanism according to claim 3, further comprising a control button (6) configured to rotate the dial (20) or vertically move the collar (10) in accordance with a manual operation of an operator.

5. The supply mechanism according to claim 1, wherein the alignment unit further comprises a screw mechanism connected to the collar (10) and arranged to drive the collar (10) to move vertically under control to align the position of the lowermost cylinder (19) to extend in a vertical direction.

6. The supply mechanism according to claim 5, wherein the screw mechanism comprises a screw (12) and a connecting rod (14), the connecting rod (14) is fixedly connected to the collar (10), the connecting rod (14) is provided with a nut, and the nut is sleeved on the screw (12) so as to allow the connecting rod (14) to drive the collar (10) to move along the vertical direction when the screw (12) is controlled to rotate.

7. The supply mechanism according to claim 6, wherein the screw mechanism further comprises a stepping motor (11), and an output shaft of the stepping motor (11) is connected to the screw (12) to drive the screw to rotate under control.

8. An ice cream vending machine comprising a mechanism for supplying a cartridge as claimed in any one of claims 1 to 7.