Valve device
AssigneeDe' Longhi Appliances S.R.L. Con Unico Socio
InventorsPaolo Evangelisti, Nicola Piovan, Davide Bonotto
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Abstract
A valve device suitable to selectively obstruct a flexible tube, includes a first body and a second body operatively associated with each other, which are mobile with respect to each other along a sliding axis, thus configuring an open operating position and a closed operating position and thus defining a passage gap configured to be passed through by the flexible tube. The invention also concerns a machine for preparing beverages which includes a valve device and a corresponding functioning method.
Claims14
A valve device of the normally closed type, suitable to selectively obstruct a flexible tube and comprising a first body and a second body operatively associated with each other, wherein said first and second bodies define a passage gap between them delimited on the entire perimeter and configured to be passed through by said flexible tube, and are mobile with respect to each other along a sliding axis, thus configuring an open operating position and a closed operating position, wherein said valve device comprises elastic means operatively associated with at least one of either said first or second body, said elastic means being configured to maintain said valve device in said closed operating position, and an actuation portion, integral with the first body, drivable to axially move said first body toward said open operating position, wherein said second body comprises an interference element which in said closed operating position is disposed protruding in said passage gap and in said open operating position is positioned outside said passage gap, and wherein said second body has a flat portion provided with through holes in which there are inserted longitudinal segments present in said first body, said first body in turn including a U-shaped housing portion having a transverse segment delimiting said passage gap.
A method of operating a machine for preparing beverages, comprising:
- providing the machine comprising a tank, a pump and a mobile brewing unit, all fluidically connected by a hydraulic circuit:
- providing a valve device disposed along a hydraulic branch located downstream of said pump, the valve device being of a normally closed type and suitable to selectively obstruct a flexible tube, the valve device comprising a first body and a second body operatively associated with each other, wherein said first and second bodies define a passage gap between them delimited on the entire perimeter and configured to be passed through by said flexible tube, and are mobile with respect to each other along a sliding axis, thus configuring an open operating position and a closed operating position, wherein said valve device comprises elastic means operatively associated with at least one of either said first or second body, said elastic means being configured to maintain said valve device in said closed operating position, and an actuation portion, integral with the first body, drivable to axially move said first body toward said open operating position, wherein said second body comprises an interference element which in said closed operating position is disposed protruding in said passage gap and in said open operating position is positioned outside said passage gap;
- and
- when the machine is powered on, or at the start of a beverage preparation cycle:
- priming of the pump to feed the water from the tank to the brewing unit;
- verifying a correct priming of said pump, and
- performing a venting step that drives the valve device in order to take said valve device into the open operating position and allow possible air bubbles present in said pump or along the hydraulic circuit to exit through said hydraulic branch located downstream of the pump.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.