Auger lift mechanism for automatic ice dispensers
AssigneeShelley Manufacturing Company
InventorsGeorge R. Shelley, Robert J. Shelley, Jr., Arthur B. Dixon, Bruce F. House
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
An improved elevating mechanism for combinative use with a vertically rotating auger for elevating crushed or cube ice in automatic ice dispensing equipment, comprising a bent-metal abutment slide member partially surrounding the auger and operative to constrain ice being elevated thereby to movement in the upward direction to a dispensing chute, and having an outwardly-extending wing portion serving as a guide at an open side of the slide member for moving ice being directed into the mouth by a rotating ice feeder disc at the lower end of the auger into lower end portions thereof for continuous supply thereto as ice is being displaced toward the upper end of the auger.
Claims6
An ice dispenser comprising, in combination, an ice receiving cabinet, rotative auger means for lifting ice from the interior of said ice receiving cabinet for dispensing at a position near the upper end of said ice receiving cabinet, said auger means comprising an elongated auger and an ice elevating abutment slide member partially surrounding said auger, to define a side opening co-extensive with said auger, an auger disc concentrically affixed to the lower end of said auger for rotation in unison therewith, an electric drive motor, means releasably interconnecting said electric drive motor with said auger for rotating said auger and said auger disc in unison within said ice receiving cabinet, and means on the upper surface of said auger disc for urging ice in said ice receiving cabinet in the direction of said side opening of said ice elevating abutment slide member, the upper end of said ice elevating abutment slide member having a discharge opening for the dispensing of ice, said ice elevating abutment slide member being substantially co-extensive with said auger and being formed with a pair of relatively right-angularly-bent side wall portions of substantially equal width, an angularly-bent side wall portion defining an angle of approximately 45.degree. with one of said side wall portions and being directed opposite and outwardly of the other of said side wall portions, the vertically-extending outer edge of said angularly-bent side wall portion merging into an outwardly-bent side wall portion extending substantially parallel with respect to said other of said side wall portions.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.