An automatic ice maker which is mounted on a refrigerator such as a household refrigerator includes an ice tray, an ice detecting member and a drive unit. The drive unit is provided with a position detecting device for detecting positions of the ice tray and the ice detecting lever and a drive part for driving the ice tray and the ice detecting member within a unit case (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. Hei 8-313132 and Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-304733).
As shown in FIG. 12, a refrigerator provided with the automatic ice maker described above has been conventionally mounted with a control circuit 190X in a refrigerator main body 100X for controlling the entire refrigerator including the automatic ice maker 1X. Therefore, the control circuit 190X outputs control signals to the automatic ice maker 1X based on detection results of a temperature of the ice tray, a position of the ice tray or the ice detecting member obtained by using a position detecting device and the like which are outputted from the automatic ice maker 1X. In this manner, a water supply device and a motor 13 provided in the drive part of the automatic ice maker 1X are controlled so that water supply to the ice tray, detection of an ice quantity in an ice storage part, an ice separating operation from the ice tray and the like are performed. Accordingly, the automatic ice maker 1X and the refrigerator main body 100X are electrically connected with each other through a wiring group 59 and a connector 590.
However, in the structure shown in FIG. 12, when the automatic ice maker 1X is to be installed into a refrigerator where the automatic ice maker 1X is not mounted or, when an existing automatic ice maker 1X is to be exchanged for another automatic ice maker 1X whose specification is different, the control circuit 190X which is mounted on the refrigerator main body 100X is required to be changed.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds