Cake decorating system
OwnerJohn Kitosinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A cake decoration system employing an integrated work surface having integral cake positioning guides in a first portion of the surface, a flat bed image scanner in a second portion of the surface, and an operator interface with display and entry keys incorporated in a third portion of the work surface provides an efficient self-contained cake decorating station. A motion control system using a traveling arm extending over the work surface to carry a colorant cartridge with a drop on demand colorant expulsion system all under the control of a central processor allows transfer of images obtained on the scanner to the surface of a cake to be decorated by use of a pixel map. Use of a multiple orifice drop on demand colorant expulsion system allows one pass three color printing on the article being decorated.
Claims7
A self contained automatic cake or food decorating system comprising:
- a single integrated horizontal work surface;
- workpiece positioning guides integral to a first portion of the work surface for positioning a cake or other food article to be decorated;
- a flatbed scanner integral with a second portion of the work surface displaced from said first portion;
- an operator interface, incorporating a display for menu instructions and input means for operator response to said instructions, integral with a third portion of the work surface;
- a multi-axis motion system carrying a color cartridge disposed over said work surface, said color cartridge comprising a drop-on-demand colorant expulsion system having a plurality of orifices receiving edible colorant from at least three reservoirs of different colorant, said plurality of orifices arranged in at least two offset columns;
- and
- integral control means providing the menu instructions to the operator display and receiving signals from the input means, said control means further receiving input from the scanner and controlling the motion system and color cartridge to reproduce a photographic quality image on the cake or food article from the scanner responsive to the signal inputs from the operator interface.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.