Ice maker for a refrigerator

Abstract

An automatic ice maker for a refrigerator includes an ice mold body, an ice stripper and an ice rake. The ice mold body has front, back, and end sides, a top peripheral rim and a plurality of ice chambers. Each ice chamber has a top opening having a frontal portion adjacent the front side and a back portion adjacent the back side. The ice stripper is sealingly disposed on the top peripheral rim, has a unitary one-piece construction and forms extensions of the front, back and end sides. The ice stripper extends over the frontal portion of the top openings and extends over the back portion of the top openings to prevent spillage. The ice rake is disposed between the front and back sides and includes a rotatable shaft, and rake fingers extending outward from the shaft for moving ice cubes out of the respective ice chambers and onto the ice stripper.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0001]The disclosed embodiments relate generally to an ice maker for a refrigerator. More particularly, the aspects of the disclosed embodiments relate to an automatic ice maker for use on a door of a refrigerator.[0002]A refrigerator generally includes a freezer compartment and a fresh food compartment. The compartments are partitioned from each other to store various foods at different temperatures in appropriate states for a relatively long time. The freezer compartment is also used to make and store ice.[0003]It is now common practice in the art of refrigerators to provide an automatic ice maker. In a “bottom freezer” type refrigerator where the freezer compartment is arranged below or beneath a top mounted fresh food compartment, convenience necessitates that the automatic ice maker be disposed in a thermally insulated ice compartment mounted or formed on the door for the top mounted fresh food compartment. Ice is delivered through an opening on the d...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009]Still another aspect of the disclosed embodiments relates to an ice stripper for an automatic ice maker of a refrigerator. The automatic ice maker includes an ice mold body having a front side, a back side and end sides forming a peripheral top rim, a plurality of ice chambers and partition walls disposed between adjacent ice chambers. The ice stripper includes a front wall, a back wall extending over a back portion of the ice chambers for substantially preventing water spillage from the back portion, end side walls connecting the front and back walls. The end side walls are configured to substantially prevent water spillage from the end sides of the ice mold body, where the front, back and end side walls form a peripheral interface rim configured to sealingly engage the peripheral top rim of the mold body for mounting the ice stripper to the ice mold body. A plurality of raised stripper fingers depend from the front wall and extend over respective ones of the partition walls. A web cover extends between adjacent stripper fingers configured to extend over a frontal portion of respective ones of the ice chambers for substantially preventing water spillage from frontal portion. The ice stripper is formed in a unitary one-piece construction.

Problems solved by technology

One of such challenges is water spillage.

Such water spilling is not desirable.

Additionally, the spilled water will likely fall into the ice storage bin positioned below the ice maker, causing the ice cubes in the ice storage bin to clump together.

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