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US 2024/0328696 A1Published application
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.
Claims24
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.
3 more elements
An ice maker, comprising:
- an ice mold configured to produce ice;
- an ice drop mechanism configured to drop ice produced by the ice mold into a storage bin;
- 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.
2 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
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.