Ice crushing device

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-11530859-B2
Application number	US-201816610898-A
Country	US
Kind code	B2
Filing date	Apr 25, 2018
Priority date	May 5, 2017
Publication date	Dec 20, 2022
Grant date	Dec 20, 2022

Abstract

The present invention provides an ice crushing device, of which a fixed ice cutter and a rotary ice cutter can cooperate to cut and process big ice cubes that enter a drum into small ice cubes. Besides, based on the operation mode that the drum rotates, the probability that crushed ice is adhered onto an inner wall of the drum can be effectively reduced. Thus, the frequency of cleaning the inner wall of the drum can be reduced.

First claim

What is claimed is:

1. An ice crushing device, comprising a shaft seat with an ice outlet formed in the bottom, a fixed shaft fixedly disposed on the shaft seat, a drum rotationally disposed on the shaft seat by taking the fixed shaft as a rotation axis and an ice-incoming baffle plate disposed at a top of the drum, wherein an ice cutter component is disposed inside the drum, and comprises at least one fixed ice cutter secured to the fixed shaft and at least one rotary ice cutter secured to an inner wall of the drum and capable of rotating with the drum; the rotary ice cutter has a first rotation direction for rotation relative to the fixed ice cutter to cut a whole piece of ice in the drum into crushed ice; the ice outlet is located at one side of the fixed shaft and provided with a crushed-ice discharge side for discharging the crushed ice; when rotating in the first rotation direction, the rotary ice cutter enters a space at an upper portion of the ice outlet from a position right above the crushed-ice discharge side of the ice outlet; the fixed ice cutter is located in a space at the upper portion of the ice outlet and provided with a cutter edge side for cutting the whole piece of ice; and the cutter edge side of the fixed ice cutter faces the crushed-ice discharge side;
the ice-incoming baffle plate is secured to the fixed shaft and provided with an ice inlet that allows the whole piece of ice at the top of the drum to enter the drum, the ice inlet is located at one side of the fixed shaft, and the ice inlet and the ice outlet are mutually staggered in the first rotation direction; a first side edge and a second side edge of the ice inlet are respectively defined at two opposite inlet edges of the ice inlet in view of the first rotation direction, the first side edge and the second side edge are respectively equipped with saw-toothed structures to cut the whole piece of ice located in the ice inlet into crushed ice in response to rotation of the drum relative to the ice-incoming baffle plate in the first rotation direction.

2. The ice crushing device according to claim 1 , wherein the rotary ice cutter further has a second rotation direction, which is opposite to the first rotation direction and allows the whole piece of ice to be directly pushed into the ice outlet; the ice outlet is provided with a whole-piece-of-ice discharge side; when rotating in the second rotation direction, the rotary ice cutter enters the space at the upper portion of the ice outlet from a position right above the whole-piece-of-ice discharge side of the ice outlet; and a distance between a side, away from the cutter edge side, of the fixed ice cutter and the whole-piece-of-ice discharge side is larger than the size of the whole piece of ice.

3. The ice crushing device according to claim 2 , wherein the ice outlet takes the shape of a sector, the center of a circle where the sector is located is positioned at the fixed shaft, and the crushed-ice discharge side and the whole-piece-of-ice discharge side respectively constitute two radiuses of a central angle of the sector.

4. The ice crushing device according to claim 1 , wherein the rotary ice cutter and the fixed ice cutter which constitute the ice cutter component are staggered along the fixed shaft from top to bottom.

5. The ice crushing device according to claim 4 , wherein one fixed ice cutter is disposed at a lowermost end of the ice cutter component, and a distance between the cutter edge side of the fixed ice cutter at the lowermost end and the crushed-ice discharge side is smaller than the size of the whole piece of ice.

6. The ice crushing device according to claim 4 , wherein the ice cutter component is provided with at least two fixed ice cutters, all the fixed ice cutters are laminated and spaced in a vertical direction, and a distance between the two adjacent fixed ice cutters in the vertical direction is smaller than the size of the whole piece of ice.

7. The ice crushing device according to claim 1 , wherein one rotary ice cutter is disposed at an uppermost layer of the ice cutter component.

8. The ice crushing device according to claim 1 , wherein the size of an overlap of projections of the ice inlet and the ice outlet in a vertical direction is smaller than the size of the whole piece of ice.

9. The ice crushing device according to claim 1 , wherein the rotary ice cutter is provided with a cutter edge side for cutting the whole piece of ice; in the first rotation direction, the cutter edge side of the rotary ice cutter is located on a front side of the rotary ice cutter; and when the rotary ice cutter rotates in the first rotation direction, the cutter edge sides of the rotary ice cutter and the fixed ice cutter perform a cutting motion relative to each other.

10. The ice crushing device according to claim 9 , wherein the cutter edge sides of the rotary ice cutter and the fixed ice cutter are designed into saw-toothed structures.

11. The ice crushing device according to claim 9 , wherein a first rotation hole is formed in the rotary ice cutter, the rotary ice cutter is rotationally disposed on the fixed shaft through the first rotation hole, and two ends of the rotary ice cutter are secured to the inner wall of the drum.

12. The ice crushing device according to claim 1 , further provided with an ice exiting channel located below the ice outlet, wherein the ice exiting channel comprises a funneled ice receiving portion and a pipeline portion communicated with a lower end of the ice receiving portion; a channel inlet butted with the ice outlet is formed in a top end of the ice receiving portion; the lower end of the ice receiving portion spirally extends downwards to form the pipeline portion; a tangent line of a spiral trend line in the center of the pipeline portion at a joint of the ice receiving portion and the pipeline portion and a plane where the channel inlet is located intersect at a first side in the center of the channel inlet; and a projection of a geometric gravity center of the ice outlet on the plane where the channel inlet is located falls within the range of the channel inlet and is shifted toward the first side.

13. The ice crushing device according to claim 12 , wherein the ice exiting channel includes a first housing and a second housing which are separately detachable, two pairs of assembly edges that are fastened to be assembled to form the ice exiting channel are disposed between the first housing and the second housing, the assembly edges and extend in a direction from an edge of the channel inlet to an edge of the channel outlet, the ice exiting channel is further provided with a funneled ice-receiving inner cover, the ice-receiving inner cover is embedded into the ice receiving portion and matches an inner wall of the ice receiving portion.

14. The ice crushing device according to claim 13 , wherein two through holes are formed in the ice receiving portion of the first housing and two through holes are also formed in the ice receiving portion of the second housing, an outer wall of the ice-receiving inner cover protrudes and extends outwards to form a bulge being embedded into the through holes, the bulge is embedded into the through holes to secure the ice-receiving inner cover to the inner side of the ice receiving portion.

15. The ice crushing device according to claim 1 , wherein the shaft seat includes a shaft seat bottom disposed at the bottom of the shaft seat and a drum shell extending upwards from a periphery of the shaft seat bottom, the drum is embedded into the drum shell, the drum is driven by a motor, a round of engaging teeth are formed in a peripheral sid

Assignees

• Qingdao Haier Joint Stock Co Ltd

Inventors

• Miller Charles
• Gilkey Nick
• Xue Jianjun
• Cui Chuan

Classifications

• F25C5/046 Primary

  Ice-crusher machines · CPC title