Ingredient supplying device, and ingredient storage equipment including the same
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Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional food ingredient supplying devices struggle to reliably and simply separate frozen or viscous ingredients like pastes from their containers, preventing successful ingredient extraction and supply to cooking containers.
Innovation Solution
An ingredient supplying device with a container rack, a transporting mechanism that inverts and moves containers, and a separating mechanism featuring a narrower extracting hole and a container collecting chute, ensuring effective separation and collection of ingredients, even for frozen or viscous substances, by utilizing an ingredient container inverting unit and a drop guide to maintain the container's inverted state during extraction.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Ease of operation
If the food ingredient container is rotated to take out ingredients, then ingredients can be extracted from the container, but frozen or viscous ingredients cannot be successfully separated from the container
Solution Approach 1:
The ingredient container is inverted vertically so that the opening faces downward. This inversion allows gravity to act on the ingredients, enabling frozen or viscous ingredients to be successfully separated from the container by the ingredient separating mechanism, resolving the problem where conventional rotation methods failed to extract such ingredients.
Solution Approach 2:
The ingredient container transporting mechanism changes the orientation parameter of the container from horizontal to vertical inversion. This parameter change enables the ingredient separating mechanism to effectively separate frozen or viscous ingredients by allowing them to fall through the ingredient extracting hole under gravity, rather than attempting to scrape or rotate them out.
2Reliability
If the ingredient container is horizontally moved and vertically inverted, then frozen or viscous ingredients can be separated, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The ingredient container transporting mechanism combines multiple functions into a single device: it horizontally moves the container from the rack, vertically inverts the container, and positions it for separation. By merging these functions, the patent reduces overall system complexity while achieving reliable ingredient separation.
Solution Approach 2:
The ingredient container transporting mechanism is designed as a multi-functional device that performs transportation, inversion, and positioning operations. This universal design eliminates the need for separate mechanisms for each function, thereby reducing device complexity while maintaining reliable ingredient separation capability.
3Reliability
If the ingredient extracting hole is narrower than the container opening, then ingredients are effectively separated, but the container cannot be easily removed from the extracting hole
Solution Approach 1:
The ingredient container is inverted vertically, reversing the conventional approach where the container opening faces upward. This inversion allows the narrower ingredient extracting hole to effectively separate ingredients while the container can be easily removed by pushing it downward in the inverted position, resolving the contradiction between extraction efficiency and container removal ease.
4Extent of automation
If the container collecting chute is provided to collect empty containers, then manual labor is reduced, but the device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The container collecting chute enables empty containers to be automatically collected and removed from the system after ingredient extraction. This self-service function reduces manual labor by automatically handling container disposal, while the simple chute design minimizes the increase in device complexity.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Enables reliable and simple extraction of frozen or viscous ingredients, ensuring they are automatically supplied to cooking containers while allowing for the separate collection of empty containers, reducing manual labor and ensuring ingredients are kept in suitable temperature conditions until use.
Implementation Method 1
an ingredient container transporting mechanism for horizontally moving and carrying out the ingredient containers, which have been separately taken out from a lower part of the ingredient container rack and vertically inverted
Implementation Method 2
the ingredient separating mechanism has an ingredient supplying sleeve that has an ingredient extracting hole that is narrower than the upper opening of the ingredient containers and is opened at an end of the sleeve
Data Source
AI summary
Provided are an ingredient supplying device that reliably and simply separates ingredients only from an ingredient container and automatically supplies the ingredients to a cooking container, and ingredient storage equipment that includes this device. An ingredient container transporting mechanism has an ingredient container inverting unit provided at a container carrying-out end of the container transporting mechanism to vertically invert an upper opening of an ingredient container downward, and an ingredient separating mechanism has an ingredient supplying sleeve has an ingredient extracting hole that is narrower than an upper opening of the ingredient container and is opened at an end of the sleeve.