Food Processor Assembly with Base-Isolated Interlock for Cleaning Ease

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Solution Overview

Problem

Existing food processors with interlock components in their bowls and lids are difficult to clean due to mechanical mechanisms that prevent complete sealing, leading to trapped food and bacteria in crevasses and require complex cleaning procedures.

Innovation Solution

A food processor assembly with a separable bowl and lid that eliminates interlock components, featuring a single-piece plastic bowl and ergonomic handle, allowing for easy cleaning and dishwasher safety, along with a plunger mechanism that interacts with the base to disengage the bowl from interlock components, ensuring all cleaning can be done without the base.

Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles

VSEngineering Contradiction Analysis

1Reliability

If interlock components are integrated into the bowl and lid, then safety and compliance are improved, but cleaning difficulty increases due to trapped food in crevasses

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesafety complianceVSAvoidcleaning ease

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSEase of operation

Solution Approach 1:

The interlock mechanism is extracted from the bowl and lid components and relocated entirely to the base. This allows the bowl and lid to be completely separated from mechanical interlock parts, eliminating crevasses and trapped food areas, while the base retains all interlock functionality to maintain safety compliance.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #2Taking out (Extraction)

Solution Approach 2:

The food processor is segmented into three distinct cleaning zones: the base containing all interlock components (non-removable), the bowl (completely separable), and the lid (completely separable). This segmentation allows the bowl and lid to be freely removed for thorough cleaning without any interlock mechanisms to trap food.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #1Segmentation

2Reliability

If interlock mechanisms are present in the bowl and lid, then safety function is improved, but device complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvesafety functionVSAvoidmechanical mechanism complexity

Core Design Contradiction:

ReliabilityVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

All interlock mechanisms are merged into a single location - the base. The bowl and lid no longer contain separate interlock components, reducing their complexity to simple processing vessels. The base consolidates all mechanical interlock functions, simplifying the overall system architecture.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #5Merging (Combining)

3Ease of operation

If the bowl is made as a single-piece plastic component, then ease of cleaning is improved, but structural complexity increases

Engineering Contradiction:

Improvecleaning easeVSAvoidbowl structure

Core Design Contradiction:

Ease of operationVSDevice complexity

Solution Approach 1:

Instead of adding mechanical interlock components to the bowl to achieve safety functions, the invention inverts the approach by making the bowl a simple, interlock-free component and implementing all safety functions in the base. This simplifies the bowl structure to a single-piece design that is trivial to clean.

Inventive Principle:

Principle #13The other way round (Inversion)

Data Source

PatentUS11903523B2Food processor assembly

Publication Date: 2024.02.20 VITA MIX MANAGEMENT CORPORATION

AI summary

A food processor assembly is provided with a bowl base adapted to receive a rotary input, and an interlock. A bowl is separate from, and sized to be supported upon, the bowl base, to receive and process food products therein. A lid is sized to attach to the bowl to enclose the bowl and to interact with the bowl base interlock. The interlock of the bowl base is isolated from the bowl and the lid.