Mandoline Slicer Cam Adjustment for Uniform Slice Thickness
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing mandoline-type food slicers face challenges in maintaining a parallel relationship between the blade, runway, and landing, leading to uneven slice thickness and increased resistance, making it difficult to select a consistent slice thickness due to tilting or shifting of components during adjustment.
Innovation Solution
A rotatable adjustment mechanism using cams that simultaneously pivot the runway and landing relative to the frame, ensuring the blade, runway, and landing planes remain parallel, allowing for precise adjustment of the vertical offset between the blade edge and the runway to maintain a constant slice thickness.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If the blade is offset from the runway to select slice thickness, then the slice thickness can be adjusted, but the blade plane may tilt relative to the runway, resulting in uneven slice thickness and increased resistance
Solution Approach 1:
The patent combines the adjustment of the runway and landing into a single integrated mechanism. When the runway is adjusted to change slice thickness, the landing is simultaneously adjusted to maintain its parallel relationship with the blade plane, ensuring uniform slice thickness throughout the slicing process
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a parallelism maintenance mechanism as an intermediary between the runway and landing adjustments. This mechanism ensures that when the runway position changes, the landing position is automatically adjusted to maintain the correct geometric relationship with the blade, preventing tilting and ensuring precision
2Force
If the blade edge is set at an oblique angle to ease entrance into the food, then the initial cutting force is reduced, but the resistance force pushes the food to one side, creating uneven slicing
Solution Approach 1:
The patent uses the landing positioned downstream of the blade to counterbalance the lateral pushing force generated by the oblique blade edge. The landing provides a supporting surface that prevents the food from being pushed sideways, effectively counterweighting the harmful lateral force while allowing the oblique entry angle to reduce initial cutting resistance
3Length of moving object
If the runway is tilted downward to increase cut thickness, then thicker slices can be produced, but the offset between blade edge and runway varies across the V-shape, resulting in non-uniform slicing
Solution Approach 1:
The patent merges the adjustment of runway tilt and landing position into a coordinated system. When the runway is tilted downward to increase slice thickness, the landing is simultaneously repositioned to maintain a constant offset relationship with the blade edge across the entire V-shaped cutting surface, ensuring uniform thickness throughout the slice
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
The solution enables precise control over slice thickness, reducing resistance and ensuring a consistently even cross-section of the sliced food, improving user experience and precision in slicing.
Implementation Method 1
a rotatable adjustment mechanism comprising cams and adapted for coupling to the runway and the landing for simultaneously moving the runway and landing to adjust a vertical offset between the blade edge and the runway
Data Source
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AI summary
A food slicer having a blade is disclosed having a runway for supporting food prior to cutting by the blade and a landing for supporting the blade and the food after being cut. The runway and landing are adjustable for selecting a thickness of a food slice. The runway and landing are simultaneously adjusted, by a single mechanism, so that the blade and runway are maintained generally parallel with respect to each other. The adjusting mechanism includes a plurality of rotatable cam portions that engage with respective portions on the runway and landing so that each of the runway and landing may be oppositely pivoted around an end to maintain the parallel relationship. The food slicer also includes on-board storage for inserts, such asjulienning or cubing inserts. The storage is located on a bottom of the runway, which is pivoted upward for storage.