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US 4,303,818 AGranted
Microwave oven humidity sensing arrangement
AssigneeGeneral Electric Company
InventorPeter H. Smith
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A microwave oven including a resonant cavity humidity sensor operated by microwave energy sampled from the power produced for the cooking operation. The arrangement provides for a flow of moist air from the cooking cavity through an active resonant chamber and a flow of dry air from the atmosphere through a passive resonant chamber. Control circuitry governs the microwave energy flow into the cooking cavity in response to moisture conditions in the cavity so indicated by the sensor.
Claims12
In a microwave oven,
- a microwave heating cavity;
- a source of microwave energy;
- a waveguide for coupling said source of microwave energy to said cavity;
- a pair of resonant microwave chambers, including an active chamber and a passive chamber;
- a splitter electromagnetically coupled to each of said waveguide and said active and passive chambers for sampling a portion of microwave energy from said source and coupling a substantially equal amount of the sample to each of said chambers;
- means for establishing direct communication between said cavity and said active chamber whereby humidity conditions in said cavity are represented in said active chamber and influence the strength of the electric field in said active chamber;
- means for sensing the field strength in each of said chambers and providing individual field strength signals corresponding thereto;
- and
- means for comparing the field strength signals from both said chambers and providing a comparator output signal indicative of the humidity condition in said cavity.
6 more elements
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.