Combination ice/beverage dispensing machines are designed to dispense both ice and beverages. These machines include a plurality of beverage dispensing valves connected to a cooled supply of beverages for dispensing beverages into a cup or other suitable receptacle held below the valves. Such dispensers also include an ice retaining bin having an ice dispensing mechanism for delivering ice on demand into the cup or receptacle. A bin cover is removable from an upper opening to the ice bin to permit manual filling of the bin. In the absence of an icemaker being associated with the ice/beverage dispenser, filling is accomplished by manually lifting and emptying buckets of ice into the bin until it is sufficiently full.
To eliminate difficulties associated with manually filling an ice bin, it is known to mount an icemaker above an ice/beverage dispenser, so that as ice is automatically made it drops directly from the icemaker into the ice bin. However, the particular icemaker selected for mounting on top of an ice/beverage dispenser can be from one of a number of different manufacturers having various and differently dimensioned footprints that may or may not accommodate direct mounting of the icemaker on top of a given ice/beverage dispenser. In addition, because icemakers are manufactured as separate units from ice/beverage dispensing machines, the cost of the two units as mechanically combined with the icemaker atop the ice/beverage dispenser is greater than if an ice/beverage dispenser and an icemaker were manufactured as a single unit. Further, cooling is required in an icemaker to form ice and in an ice/beverage dispenser to cool water for being dispensed into beverages. If one mechanical cooling system were used for both functions, ice-building and water chilling, that would leverage the capabilities of a combined unit in a cost effective manner. One obvious benefit would be the ability to downsize a cold plate of the ice/beverage dispenser, because water-chilling circuits could be eliminated from the cold plate. At the same time, a more compact, less complicated and lower cost cold plate would result. It would therefore be desirable to have a combined ice and beverage dispensing machine with an integral ice making capacity that provides gains in efficiency of operation and a lower total overall cost.
Ice/beverage dispensers require that water be chilled for dispensing into beverages, which typically is accomplished by flowing water through a cold plate that is in heat exchange contact with ice produced by an icemaker. The process of using an icemaker to produce ice that is then placed in heat exchange relationship with the cold plate to take up heat from the cold plate is thermally and energy inefficient. A typical cube type icemaker evaporator has one side configured and dedicated to molding ice cubes while an opposite side contains the required refrigerant lines that produce the necessary cooling for removing heat from water flowing over the one side in order to freeze the water and build ice cubes. In this configuration, only half of the available surface area presented by the evaporator structure is used to exchange heat and produce ice. Physical constraints, cost and complexity dictate this arrangement where, as conventional, the icemaker is separate from the ice/beverage dispenser. It would be desirable to use the other side of the icemaker evaporator, opposite from the ice cube freezing side, to chill water for use in dispensed beverages.
Both ice/beverage dispensers and icemakers require drain, water supply and electrical connections. When an icemaker is mounted on top of an ice/beverage dispenser, separate drain, water and electrical connections are commonly provided to each. The cost of making such separate connections to each machine is expensive and tedious. It would be desirable to have each of the ice/beverage dispenser and icemaker share common drain, water and electrical connections.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds