Foods and beverages: apparatus – Cooking – Automatic control
Patent
1997-08-28
1998-06-30
Simone, Timothy F.
Foods and beverages: apparatus
Cooking
Automatic control
99329P, 99329RT, 99389, 99391, 219492, 219521, A47J 3708
Patent
active
057717800
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention concerns an electric toaster whose casing has a toasting enclosure of parallelepipedal shape overall having on a top face a slot for the insertion of slices of bread, and enclosing at least one heating element, at least one bread-carrier carriage mounted so as to move vertically on a guide device by means of a lowering and raising mechanism arranged between the casing and the toasting enclosure and designed on the one hand to lower the said carriage to a low position called the toasting position situated at the bottom of the said enclosure and on the other hand to raise the said carriage, after a previously fixed toasting period has elapsed, to a high position called the extraction position for the slices of bread situated in the top part of the casing.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In the toasters of this type known in the prior art, the guide devices used and associated with lowering and raising mechanisms are either of complex design, having a structure using parallelism and guaranteeing proper linear guidance, or of mediocre design generally giving rise to a jamming of the bread-carrier carriage inside the enclosure. Furthermore, in the case of the complex design, the result is that there is considerable congestion in the toasting enclosure and the manufacturing time and cost are high.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The aim of the invention is to overcome these drawbacks by producing a guide device for the bread-carrier carriage whose design, though simple, makes it possible, on the one hand, to minimize the congestion in the toasting enclosure and reduce the time and cost of manufacture of the toaster and, on the other hand, to ensure perfect linear guidance.
According to the invention, the guide device has a single sliding column on which a slider is movably mounted, and the said bread-carrier carriage is attached only to the slider in such a way that it is mounted so as to project on the said column.
By means of the guide device according to the invention, the number of components and therefore the congestion inside the toasting enclosure are appreciably reduced, along with the time and cost of manufacture of the toaster. Furthermore, by virtue of the use of a single slider, friction in the guide device, and therefore noises generated by the various components, are minimized.
According to another particularly advantageous characteristic of the invention, the lowering and raising mechanism of the bread-carrier carriage includes an electric motor unit whose output shaft is equipped with a crank which, through its free end, engages with a runner formed in the slider so as to communicate to it a vertical movement along the said column, thereby bringing the bread-carrier carriage either from the high position to the low position for the purpose of toasting slices of bread, or from the low position to the high position after the slices of bread have been toasted.
Thus, by virtue of the single column/slider assembly, friction between the components having been minimized, it is possible to use a small low-power electric motor unit. Preferably, the said motor unit has a synchronous motor with a rotor with free starting in both directions of rotation.
By virtue of this motor, audible and electrical noise are minimized and the cost of manufacture is substantially reduced.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
Other characteristics and advantages of the invention will, moreover, emerge from the description that follows, taken by way of non-limitative example, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
FIG. 1 depicts diagrammatically an overall perspective view of an electric toaster according to the invention;
FIG. 2 is an enlarged partial perspective view of a guide device for a bread-carrier carriage according to the invention mounted in the toaster;
FIG. 3 is a lateral perspective view in the direction of the arrow X in FIG. 2 illustrating a lowering and raising mechanism according to the invention associated with the guide device;
FIG. 4 is a view, parti
REFERENCES:
patent: 3684860 (1972-08-01), Snyder
patent: 4986173 (1991-01-01), Hahnewald et al.
patent: 5072662 (1991-12-01), Yip
patent: 5095814 (1992-03-01), Ott et al.
patent: 5598765 (1997-02-01), Yip
Arnedo Julian
Basora Antonio
Moulinex (S.A.)
Simone Timothy F.
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