US 7159410 B2
A vending machine apparatus comprising a housing defining an internal cavity and an article storage compartment positioned inside the cavity. The article storage compartment has a cooling unit associated therewith for cooling the article storage compartment. The article storage compartment is subdivided into a plurality of article storage sub-compartments, each sub-compartment having an opening at a dispensing end thereof for passage therethrough during a dispensing operation of articles stored therein. At least one of a first-type thermal separator arrangement is positioned at the dispensing end of at least one sub-compartment of the cooled article storage compartment, for thermally separating the interior of the sub-compartment from the remainder of the interior of the internal cavity, the first-type thermal separator arrangement having structure that operates individually with respective ones of said sub-compartments, so as to allow articles stored in the sub-compartments to pass therethrough during the dispensing operation.
1. A vending machine apparatus comprising,
a housing defining an internal cavity,
a cooled article storage compartment positioned inside the cavity, the article storage compartment being subdivided into a plurality of article storage sub-compartments, each sub-compartment having an opening at a dispensing end thereof for passage therethrough during a dispensing operation of articles stored therein; and
at least one of a first-type thermal separator arrangement positioned at the dispensing end of at least one sub-compartment of the cooled article storage compartment for thermally separating the interior of the sub-compartment from the remainder of the interior of the internal cavity, said first-type thermal separator arrangement having structure that operates individually with respective ones of said sub-compartments, so as to allow articles stored in the sub-compartments to pass therethrough during the dispensing operation.
2. The apparatus of
3. The apparatus of any prior claim, including a second-type thermal separator which is in addition to the first type thermal separator, said second-type thermal separator operating in common with a plurality of said sub-compartments.
4. The apparatus of any of
5. The apparatus of
6. The apparatus of
7. The apparatus of
8. The apparatus of
9. The apparatus of
10. The apparatus of
11. The apparatus of any of
12. The apparatus of
This application claims priority under 35USC 120 of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/360,128 filed Feb. 26, 2002, entitled “Thermal Barrier For A Refrigerated Compartment In A Vending Machine”. For US purposes, the entire disclosure of this patent application is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The present invention is directed to a method and apparatus for providing a thermal barrier at an open end of a refrigerated article storage compartment. More particularly, the present invention provides a displaceable thermal separator, such as a thermal separating flap, across an access opening of an article storage compartment in a refrigerated (i.e., frozen or merely cooled) vending machine.
The accompanying drawings, which are incorporated herein and constitute part of this specification, illustrate exemplary embodiments and details of the invention, and, together with the general description given above and the detailed description given below, serve to explain the features of the invention.
It is noted that compartment 12 may be of the “static” type, which has the evaporator coils distributed along and in thermal contact with the inside walls which form the main interior volume of compartment 12, and the condenser coils thermally insulated from the evaporator coils and distributed along and in thermal contact with the walls which form the outside perimeter of storage compartment 12. With this type of freezer, no fans are required for the refrigeration system since the cooling effect of the evaporator coils is directly radiated to the interior of compartment 12, and the heat generated by the refrigeration system is directly radiated by the outside walls of compartment 12 to the external environment. Such chest freezers are commonly available from many sources. Other techniques for developing a cooled environment in compartment 12 could just as easily be used with the present invention, such as what is conventionally known as a forced air system, having a separate refrigeration unit for developing cooled air, which cooled air is then directed to the interior of compartment 12.
In operation, after a user of the vending machine has inserted the proper payment and made a valid selection of an item stored in the vending machine, a control mechanism 40 of machine 10, of conventional design, causes an article pickup carriage 20 having a suction hose 22 and pickup head 52 hanging therefrom, to be laterally positioned over the section 72 which stores at least one of the selected articles. In the illustrated embodiment, movement of carriage 20 causes door 14 to become displaced, via cable 68 and rollers 70, so as to provide entry and egress of article pickup head 52. The control mechanism 40 then causes a motor in carriage 20 to operate so that the article pickup head 52 controllably enters the selected compartment 72, suction generated by a blower motor 7 is conducted thereto via hose 22 (the full length of hose for connection to blower motor 7 is not shown in this Fig., but as one of ordinary skill in this art would realize, is required), and an article 74 thereby becomes secured to the article pickup head 52. The motor in carriage 20 is operated again, this time in a reverse direction, so as to extract article pickup head 52, and the selected article, from compartment 72, and then deposit the selected article 74 in a customer retrieval area 16 by removing the suction force from pickup head 52 when the pickup head 52 is in positioned over the open top of customer retrieval area 16. A customer access door 18 allows the user access to retrieve the dispensed article.
In view of the public availability of my above-noted patent, and the widely known construction and operation of vending machines of this type, no further description of how to make and use a vending machine of the type described so far, is considered necessary.
With such a device, during normal machine operation, the thermal barriers between the cooled areas and ambient areas located inside of housing 11, in this case doors 14 and 18, are opened and closed many times, thereby repeatedly exposing warm air from housing 11 to the cooled air in compartment 12. Since cold air is heavier than warm air, when the door 14 is opened, the colder air tends to stay in the storage compartments 72, however, typically there is some unwanted mixing of the ambient air with the refrigerated air at the top of the storage compartments 72, at least partially due to air currents caused movements of the picker head, the opening and closing of door 14 and other parts of machine 10, thereby introducing unwanted heat into the freezer. At least some of this unwanted hot air was generated by the compressor and condenser as described above.
It is one object of the present invention reduce this unwanted mixing of hot air in compartment 12.
As shown in
In a modification of this embodiment of the invention, a single flap 4′, enlarged as compared to the flap 4 shown in
In operation, when a thermal separating door, such as door 14 shown in
It is noted that flaps 4 and 6 could be constructed of a thin and flexible material in order that the above-noted functions can be easily provided. Such materials may comprise a plastic, silicon or even an insulating foam sheet material having a thickness, in a typical application, of approximately 0.5 to 0.001 inches, depending upon the flexibility of the material used to make the flaps. In accordance with one aspect of the invention, the flaps can be manufactured of a material that is so flexible that they offer substantially no resistance to the passage of the article pickup head 52 therethrough, (especially if serrations are provided therein, as to be described more fully in conjunction with
Thus, one aspect of the invention is to provide at least one displaceable thermal separator which is individual to an open end of a plurality of the refrigerated storage compartments in an article storage area, which individual displaceable thermal separator may be in addition to a thermal separator function which is in common with the plurality of refrigerated storage compartments, such as provided by door 14. This will allow access to selected articles in given sub-portions of the article storage compartments when the common thermal separator, if one is used, is displaced, without exposing the remainder of the refrigerated storage compartments in the article storage area to the ambient environment. Additionally, such an arrangement minimizes egress of warm air into the selected sub portion of the article storage area before and after the article pickup head 52 passes therethrough.
It is noted that the thermal separator which is common to the plurality of article storage compartments, can be provided by the displaceable door shown by 14 in
It is noted that the bins 72 could be individually removable from compartment 12, and in fact compartment 12 could be wholly or partially removable from inside of housing 11 in order to facilitate reloading of the compartments 72 will articles to be vended.
Many variations of this invention are possible, both in the manner of forming/attaching the individual displaceable thermal separators over the openings of the article storage compartments 72, as well as the dimensioning, structure, shape and choice of materials for the thermal separators.
Alternatively, the opposed ends of flaps 10 and 12 shown in
Irrespective of weather flaps 10 and 12 overlap each other or not, flaps 10 and 12 will rest upon the top-facing outer edges 13 that define the open top end of compartment 72 and therefore not be displaceable towards the interior of the storage compartment, yet be freely displaceable in a direction extending outwardly from the storage compartment. This type of construction allows flaps 10 and 12 to be made of a more substantial material, which may provide a benefit in certain environments and/or applications. In order to allow pickup head 52 free access into and out of the storage compartments 72 to retrieve articles from therein, flaps 10 and 12 can include serrations so as to form sub-flaps 14, 16, 18 and 20 which are susceptible to bi-directional displacement due to hinging action provided by the material which forms the rear of each flap.
In an alternative embodiment, such as shown in
In operation, certain ones of the bi-directional flaps shown in
In a further alternative embodiment of the invention, the thermal separating flaps of the invention can be provided redundantly, so as to possibly further improve the thermal separation of the stored articles from the ambient environment. Use of redundant flaps is illustrated in
While the present invention has been disclosed with reference to certain embodiments, numerous modifications, alterations and changes to the described embodiments are possible without departing from the sphere and scope of the present invention, as defined above, and claims which follow at the end of this description.
For example, it is noted that the invention described herein is not limited to any specific type of article retrieving device (such as the illustrated pickup head 52). For example, it may be desirable for the robotic positioning mechanism to include a rotary device (R, θ) of the type including an I beam of fixed length (or telescopic sections), for establishing an “R” movement for pickup head 52, and where pivoting of the I beam establishes a “θ” movement. Alternatively, in other environments for the invention, the pickup head positioning mechanism may include an articulated arm or scissor system, or use a totally different dispensing technique, such a the more conventional spiral wire dispenser mechanism. Other types of suitable pickup devices include a mechanical claw or scoop, a magnetic attracting device, a portable suction generator, etc.
Furthermore, other types of storage compartments are usable in the environment of the present invention, such as article storage compartments including horizontally oriented stacks of stored articles, wherein the storage area has one or more vertically oriented openings at the dispensing end thereof. All that is required of the storage/dispensing arrangement is that the selected article requires passage through the dispensing end of the article storage compartment.
Even furthermore, it is noted that compartment 12 can be mechanically mounted and electrically connected within housing 11 so as to be at least partially removable therefrom, such as by the use of sliding tracks mounted between a bottom portion of compartment 12 and a floor portion of housing 11, so as to assist repositioning of compartment 12 to be at least partially outside of housing 11, thereby facilitating access to the interior of compartment 12 during re-loading of compartment 12 with fresh articles to be vended. If necessary, any electrical connection to compartment 12 required for operating the cooling equipment associated therewith, could be selectively disconnectable, so as to facilitate the repositioning of compartment 12.
In a still further alternative embodiment of the invention shown by the top and side views of
With this arrangement, the thermal separating flaps of the present invention can be attached, for example by using an adhesive, to a set of tabs 9, or to compartment walls positioned near the top of the compartment, such as shown by flaps 4 and 6 in the top view of
As noted above, while the present invention has been disclosed with reference to certain embodiments, numerous modifications, alterations and changes to the described embodiments are possible without departing from the sphere and scope of the present invention. For example, although a sliding door 14 is shown for covering opening 15, a different type of door, or even no door at all, may be required to achieve the advantageous of the invention. Furthermore, the flaps can be formed integrally with a cap arrangement which can be placed over individual or groups of the compartments 72. Alternately, the flaps can be made of a more rigid material and utilize a more traditional mechanical mechanism, such as a hinge. Accordingly, it is intended that the present invention not be limited to the described embodiments, but that it has the full scope defined by the above language and the claims which follow, as well as equivalents thereof.
Citations de brevets