Electrical food grinder with an electronically controlled movable rotor drive motor and method

摘要

A grinder (30) has a toolessly attached ingredient hopper assembly (50) overlying a toolessly attached fixed grinding burr (134) defining the top of a grind chamber (158) within which is received a mating rotary grinding burr (150) that is slidably mounted to a rotary drive motor (154) for adjustment relative to the fixed grinding burr (134). Adjustment is achieved automatically by control of a stepper motor (168) that pushes on the end of an elongate control shaft (393) passing through a hollow rotary drive axle (392) and carrying the rotary grinding burr (150) at an opposite end. In a similar embodiment (FIG. 23), the non-rotary burr (314) is adjusted by movement of a control shaft (393) contained within a hollow motor axle (392). In other embodiments (FIGS. 17-22), a movable axle (304) of a movable rotor motor (300) and attached to the rotary burr (312) is moved to make the adjustments.

主权项

1. In a food grinder having a frame, a grinding chamber, a hopper for holding food ingredient to be ground with a chute for selectively passing the food ingredient to the grinding chamber, the improvement being a coarseness controllable grinding mechanism, comprising;
an electrical, rotary, drive motor with a motor frame supporting a fixed stator surrounding a rotor mounted for elongate movement relative to the stator, said rotor fixedly attached to a central, rotary, motor axle with opposite ends that are accessible outside of opposite ends of the motor frame, respectively; a fixed grinding burr contained within the grinding chamber; a rotary grinding burr contained within the grinding chamber and separable from the fixed grinding burr by a grinding gap; means attaching the rotary grinding burr to one of the opposite ends of the motor axle; and a controllable electromechanical adjustment device engaged with another one of the opposite ends of the motor axle for automatically selectively, longitudinally moving the motor axle relative to the motor frame to adjust the grinding gap.