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US 12,498,158 B2Granted
Refrigerator ice maker with shut off arm position sensor
AssigneeMidea Group Co., Ltd.
InventorsVinayak Naik, Eric L. Scalf
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A refrigerator utilizes an ice maker including a shut off arm position sensor capable of sensing a plurality of positions of a shut off arm. Doing so may enable, for example, false full or empty indications to be detected, and in some instances, enable detection of potentially fused ice in a storage bin.
Claims23
A refrigerator, comprising:
- a cabinet including one or more food compartments and one or more doors closing the one or more food compartments;
- an ice maker disposed in the cabinet to produce ice;
- a storage bin configured to store ice produced by the ice maker;
- a shut off arm positioned to sense an amount of ice stored in the storage bin;
- and
- a shut off arm position sensor operably coupled to the shut off arm and configured to sense a plurality of positions of the shut off arm, wherein the shut off arm position sensor comprises an encoder.
3 more elements
A refrigerator, comprising:
- a cabinet including one or more food compartments and one or more doors closing the one or more food compartments;
- an ice maker disposed in the cabinet to produce ice;
- a storage bin configured to store ice produced by the ice maker;
- a shut off arm positioned to sense an amount of ice stored in the storage bin;
- a shut off arm position sensor operably coupled to the shut off arm and configured to sense a plurality of positions of the shut off arm;
- and
- a controller coupled to the ice maker and the shut off arm position sensor, wherein the controller is configured to determine, using the shut off arm position sensor, a storage bin ice level in connection with performing an ice drop operation with the ice maker, and to detect a false full event based upon the storage bin ice level determined using the shut off arm position sensor.
4 more elements
A refrigerator, comprising:
- a cabinet including one or more food compartments and one or more doors closing the one or more food compartments;
- an ice maker disposed in the cabinet to produce ice;
- a storage bin configured to store ice produced by the ice maker;
- an ice mover disposed in the storage bin and configured to move ice stored, in the storage bin to a dispenser output in response to user input to dispense ice;
- a shut off arm positioned to sense an amount of ice stored in the storage bin;
- a shut off arm position sensor operably coupled to the shut off arm and configured to sense a plurality of positions of the shut off arm;
- and
- a controller coupled to the ice maker, the ice mover and the shut off arm position sensor, the controller configured to detect potentially fused ice in the storage bin using the shut off arm position sensor, receive user input to dispense ice, and in response to the receiving the user input to dispense ice after detecting potentially fused ice in the storage bin using the shut off arm position sensor, temporarily disable the ice mover and alert a user of potentially fused ice in the storage bin.
5 more elements
A refrigerator, comprising:
- a cabinet including one or more food compartments and one or more doors closing the one or more food compartments;
- an ice maker disposed in the cabinet to produce ice;
- a storage bin configured to store ice produced by the ice maker;
- a shut off arm positioned to sense an amount of ice stored in the storage bin;
- a shut off arm position sensor operably coupled to the shut off arm and configured to sense a plurality of positions of the shut off arm;
- and
- a controller coupled to the ice maker and the shut off arm position sensor, wherein the controller is configured to detect potentially fused ice in the storage bin using the shut off arm position sensor, and wherein the controller is configured to detect potentially fused ice in the storage bin by detecting a drop in ice level in the storage bin using the shut off arm position sensor;
- wherein the controller is further configured to detect a predetermined event during operation of the refrigerator, and to detect potentially fused ice in the storage bin by detecting the drop in ice level in the storage bin using the shut off arm position sensor after detecting a presence or absence of the predetermined event;
- wherein the predetermined event is a door open event when a door to a freezer compartment has been opened, an ice dispense event when ice is dispensed from an ice dispenser, a defrost event when a defrost cycle is run in the freezer compartment, or an above freezing event when an above freezing temperature is detected in the freezer compartment.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.