Patent Application
20180317694
The present invention concerns a food or beverage preparation machine, in particular a home appliance. It relates more particularly to a beverage preparation machine such as coffee preparation machine using any pre-portioned beverage ingredient within enclosing packaging.
Although the invention is hereafter generally described in reference to the example of a coffee machine using capsules, it should be understood that the invention relates to any beverage preparation machine. In particular, a “beverage” is meant to include any liquid food, such as tea, coffee, hot or cold chocolate, milk, soup, baby food or the like. A capsule is meant to include any pre-portioned beverage ingredient within enclosing packaging of any material, in particular air tight packaging, e.g. plastic, aluminium, recyclable and/or bio degradable packaging, and of any shape and structure, including soft pods or rigid cartridges containing an ingredient.
Certain beverage preparation machines use capsules containing ingredients (e.g. ground coffee) to be extracted or to be dissolved.
Said capsules are generally employed along with a beverage machine adapted for their use. Such machines are generally provided with means for storing and heating water, introducing the heated water into the capsule to create a beverage, and dispensing the beverage into a container for consumption.
The beverage may be prepared by inserting a capsule into the beverage machine. More particularly, the machine comprises a receptacle for accommodating said capsule and a fluid injection system for injecting a fluid, preferably water, under pressure into the capsule. The part of the machine forming said receptacle is called “capsule holder”. A capsule holder for holding a capsule is intended to be inserted in and removed (completely or partially) from a corresponding cavity or receptacle of the machine. When a capsule holder is loaded with a capsule and inserted within the machine in a functional manner, the water injection means of the machine can form a fluid connection with the capsule to inject water therein for food or beverage preparation. A capsule holder was described for example in applicant's European patent EP 1967100 B1.
Thus, the principle of extracting and/or dissolving the contents of a closed capsule under pressure consists typically of inserting the capsule into a receptacle or cavity of a machine, injecting a quantity of pressurized water into the capsule, generally after piercing a face of the capsule with a piercing injection element such as a fluid injection needle mounted on the machine, so as to create a pressurized environment inside the capsule either to extract the substance or dissolve it, and then release the extracted substance or the dissolved substance through the capsule. Capsules allowing the application of this principle have already been described for example in applicant's European patents EP 1472156 B1, and EP 1784344 B1.
Water injected under pressure into the capsule, for the preparation for example of a coffee beverage, is preferably hot, that is to say at a temperature above 70° C. However, in some particular instances, it might also be at ambient temperature, or even chilled. The pressure inside the capsule chamber during extraction and/or dissolution of the capsule contents is typically about 1 to about 8 bar for dissolution products and about 2 to about 12 bar for extraction of roast and ground coffee.
Machines allowing the application of this principle have already been described for example in patents CH 605 293 and EP 242 556. According to these documents, the machine comprises a receptacle or cavity for the capsule and a perforation and injection element made in the form of a hollow needle comprising in its distal region one or more liquid injection orifices. The needle has a dual function in that it opens the top portion of the capsule and in that it also forms the water inlet channel into the capsule.
The machine further comprises a fluid tank—in most cases this fluid is water—for storing the fluid that is used to dissolve and/or infuse and/or extract under pressure the ingredient(s) contained in the capsule. The machine comprises a heating element such as a boiler or a heat exchanger, which is able to warm up the water used therein to working temperatures (conventionally temperatures up to 80-90° C.). Finally, the machine comprises a pump for passing the water from the tank to the capsule, optionally through the heating element.
Fluid (e.g. water) is pumped until the user manually stops the operation of the machine, or until a predefined quantity has been measured by a flow meter embedded in the machine.
However, some drawbacks still exist in the known systems. First, manual systems are simple and efficient, and make it possible to deliver the desired quantity of beverage, but they lack the advantages of an automatic stop for the beverage delivery. Automatic systems are more expansive than manual ones. However, when a customer has bought a manual machine, it may not be easily upgraded to an automatic one. In addition, automatic machines are often complex and bulky. There is a need for a beverage machine having so-called “flow stop” characteristics (i.e. able to stop automatically when a predefined amount of beverage has been delivered into the cup), that is less expensive, less bulky, and more reliable than the existing machines.
More generally, the purpose of the invention is to provide a simple and reliable solution for consumers to upgrade their manual machines into automated ones, whereby at least one operating parameter, preferably at least the volume of prepared beverage, can be automated, in such a way that the machine automatically stops once the desired volume of beverage has been delivered to the cup.
The objective set out above is met with a capsule holder for a beverage preparation machine, said capsule holder comprising a cavity for receiving an ingredient capsule for beverage preparation, the capsule holder comprising communication means for communicating with a main assembly of a beverage preparation machine adapted to receive said capsule holder. The communication means has a variable element, and the capsule holder comprises electronic circuitry configured to set a state of the variable element.
The communication means makes it possible to provide to the rest of a beverage preparation machine a signal according to which an operating parameter of the machine may be based. For example, when the desired quantity of beverage has been delivered, the beverage delivery may be stopped.
According to an embodiment, the variable element may be a position or an intensity of a magnetic field, the communication means comprising either:
In another embodiment, the variable element of the communication means comprises a mobile mechanical piece, the position of said mobile mechanical piece defining its state.
The capsule holder may comprise a flow meter. The flow meter may be an optical sensor configured to detect the width of a fluid flow at an outlet opening of the capsule holder.
The capsule holder may comprise a reception module configured to receive data from an external flow-meter assembly.
The electronic circuitry may be configured to change the state of the variable element upon reception of a signal that a predefined fluid quantity has been delivered.
The capsule holder may comprise one of a scrolling wheel, a capacitive button or buttons, or a mechanical button for manually adjusting a fluid quantity to be delivered.
The invention also relates to a beverage preparation machine having at least one operating parameter and comprising a main assembly and a capsule holder as previously described, wherein the main assembly comprises a sensor for detecting the state of the variable element of the communication means of the capsule holder and wherein the main assembly is configured to set an operating parameter based on said state of the variable element.
At least one state of the variable element may cause the same output from the sensor as an absence of the capsule holder.
The set operating parameter may be the operation of a fluid pump for fluid injection into the capsule holder, and the beverage preparation machine may be configured to stop the operation of the fluid pump upon detection of a given state of the variable element.
The beverage preparation machine may be configured to stop the operation of the fluid pump upon detection of the absence of the capsule holder.
In a variant of the invention, the main assembly may comprise a magnetic field sensor, the main assembly being configured to detect that the capsule holder is absent when no magnetic field is detected by the magnetic field sensor.
In another variant of the invention, the main assembly may comprise a light source and an optical sensor, wherein the mobile mechanical piece of the capsule holder is a light reflector configured to reflect light from the light source to the light sensor in a first state and impairs transmission of light from the light source to the sensor in a second state causing the same output from the sensor as an absence of the capsule holder.
In an embodiment where the capsule holder comprises a reception module configured to receive data from an external flow-meter assembly, the external flow meter assembly may be comprised in a fluid tank of the beverage preparation machine.
Additional features and advantages of the present invention are described in, and will be apparent from, the description of the presently preferred embodiments which are set out below with reference to the drawings in which:
The beverage preparation machine shown in
The main assembly comprises a housing 11 containing a heater 12, a pump 13 and control means 14. Further, the device comprises a fluid tank 15, an extraction head 16 and a base 17 which is preferably provided with feet for standing the device thereon in a stable manner. The device further comprises a stand 18 for a receptacle such as a cup, having an upper surface preferably provided with a grid on which the receptacle is positioned.
The fluid tank 15 is provided in order to supply liquid such as water to the heater 12 and the pump 13, and hence to the extraction head 16 and an injection member (not shown in
The fluid tank 151 may be provided with a handhold 152 for facilitating its handling. An outlet 153 which is preferably situated at the bottom of the fluid tank 15 enables a fluid connection between the reservoir 15 and the fluid pipe system of the beverage preparation machine.
The extraction head 16 of the beverage preparation machine comprises a closing mechanism 161 for selectively enclosing a capsule 3 provided to the device in the capsule-holder 2, and a control lever 162 for selectively supplying either cold or hot water to the extraction head 16 and hence to the capsule 3.
Thereby, the control lever 162 is connected at least to the control means 14 (e.g. circuitry configured to control the functions of the beverage preparation machine) comprised in the main assembly 1 of the beverage preparation machine. By moving the control lever 162, a user can choose whether to provide cold or hot water to the capsule provided to the device in order to prepare a cold or hot beverage.
As represented in
Details of a capsule holder 2 are represented in
The capsule holder 2 comprises a handle 23 to enable a convenient handling.
The capsule holder represented in
Furthermore, the capsule-holder 2 of
In other embodiments of the invention, the capsule holder may be designed to receive another kind or other kinds of package containing an ingredient for beverage preparation such as a sachet, or any other suitable package containing said ingredient.
Such location of the flowmeter is also space-saving. Indeed, the flow-meters currently used on the beverage preparation machine require a large space inside the machine not only due to the size of this component, but also because of the configuration that the incoming pipe must take to ensure flow-meter measurement will be sufficiently accurate. This may require providing an additional pipe into the machine.
The flow meter 4 may comprise a contactless sensor, which may be for example an optical system configured to detect the width of the flow at the capsule outlet. Alternatively, the flow meter may be an ultrasonic sensor that emits an ultrasonic wave and then acquires a reflected signal. The sensor may also be a temperature and humidity sensor used as flow meter. In an embodiment, the contactless temperature and humidity sensor is a capacitive sensor. An optional temperature measurement may be done with an infrared sensor. The use of a contactless sensor makes it possible to measure the flow at the outlet of the capsule holder without any contact with the dispensed fluid before it is poured into the cup. This is clean, and avoids cross-contamination of one product, by the preceding product that was prepared with the same machine.
In another embodiment, the capsule holder may be provided with a reception module for wireless communication with a flow meter comprised in the fluid tank 151. In this embodiment, a flow meter comprised in a flow meter assembly comprising a transmission module communicates the volumes of pumped fluid exiting from fluid tank 151 to the reception module of the capsule holder.
In another embodiment, the volume of delivered fluid is estimated based on the operation time of the fluid pump 13. The impact of scaling on the flow rate may be taken into account in the estimation of the quantity of fluid delivered.
Regarding the optional measure of the fluid temperature, by using a contactless temperature sensor, a direct temperature measurement of the fluid is performed, which is more accurate than the temperature measurement performed on the prior art beverage preparation machines. Indeed, the temperature of the beverage is generally measured indirectly by measuring the temperature of an aluminum mass heated for heating the water pipes. This leads to poor measurement accuracy because of the mass inertia of the aluminum and the several materials that the heat must cross before reaching the temperature sensor.
In the embodiment shown in
The capsule holder 2 also comprises communication means 6 for communicating with the main assembly 1 of the beverage preparation machine which is adapted to receive it.
More particularly, the communication means of the capsule holder has a variable element, adapted to take at least two states. The electronic circuitry of the PCB 5 is configured to set the state of the variable element. The state of the variable element may be detected by a sensor of the main assembly of a beverage preparation machine, to set an operating parameter of the beverage preparation machine.
The variable element may be of various types. The variable element may be the position or the intensity of a magnetic field. The variable element may more generally be the emission or absence of emission of a signal (e.g. optic, acoustic, etc.) by the capsule holder. The variable element may be position of a mobile mechanical piece of the capsule holder, or a data based on said position of a mobile mechanical piece. For example, the mobile mechanical piece may be a light reflector configured to reflect or not (depending on its state) a light emitted by a light source of the main assembly of the beverage preparation machine to a light sensor of said main assembly of the beverage preparation machine. According to another example, the mobile mechanical piece may be configured to engage a part of the main assembly of the beverage preparation machine in a state and not in another state.
The invention is more particularly exemplified in the accompanying Figures in embodiments in which the variable element is the position or intensity of a magnetic field.
In a general manner, the communication means 6 enable an interaction, i.e. an exchange of information such as a signal of presence of the capsule holder, between the capsule-holder 2 and the main assembly 1.
For example, the communication means 6 comprises, in the embodiment represented in
The electromagnet 61 may be detected, when active (i.e. powered, resulting in a non-zero magnetic field intensity), by a magnetic field sensor—such as for example a Reed-sensor—comprised in the main part 1 of the beverage preparation machine, not visible in
In the represented embodiment of the invention, the PCB 5 is configured to control the energizing of the electromagnet 61. For example, the PCB may energize the electromagnet as long as a predefined quantity of beverage has not been delivered, i.e. has not been metered by the flow meter 4. The energy for energizing the electromagnet may be provided by the main assembly 1, or more likely by a battery comprised in the capsule holder 2 (e.g. on the PCB 5).
According to another example represented in
The permanent magnet 65 may be detected by a magnetic field sensor—such as for example a Reed-switch of a Reed-sensor—comprised in the main part 1 of the beverage preparation machine, not visible in
In the represented embodiments of a capsule holder of
The beverage preparation machine which is partially represented in
In the represented embodiment, the communication means between the capsule holder 2 and the main assembly 1 comprise an electromagnet 61, potentially provided with encoding means 62 comprised in the capsule holder, and a magnet 63 potentially provided with a decoding means 64. The magnet 63 may be an electromagnet or a magnet of any other sort (e.g. a permanent magnet).
The decoding means 64 makes it is possible to transmit information such as a code or signal for example from the capsule-holder 2 inserted into the aperture of the main assembly 1 of the beverage preparation machine.
Hence, the decoding means 64 of the device may for example read a code or detect a signal transmitted by the capsule-holder 2 in order to detect the presence of the capsule-holder 2 within the aperture of the extraction head 16.
As previously described, in a preferred embodiment the capsule-holder is equipped with at least one electromagnet 61. Hence, when the electromagnet 61 is active, the capsule-holder 2 inserted into the main assembly 1 is attracted to the magnet 63 which may be provided at the rear wall of the aperture of the extraction head 16.
In the insertion position of the capsule-holder 2 in the aperture of the extraction head 16, a magnetic attraction of the electro-magnet 61 and the magnet 63 is established whereby the capsule-holder 30 comes into contact with the rear wall of the aperture. Contact may be established directly between electro-magnet 61 and the magnet 63 or indirectly through a physical engagement of surfaces of the capsule-holder 30 the aperture, as a result of the creation of the magnetic field. Therefore, a correct position of the capsule-holder within the capsule-holder receiving aperture of the extraction head can be assured.
In particular, the decoding means 64 provided in the main assembly 1 may be a Reed-sensor designed to detect a magnetic field or any other equivalent electrical or electronic switch operated by an applied magnetic field.
The presence of a capsule-holder 2 equipped with the electromagnet 61 can therefore be detected by the decoding means 64.
As the decoding means 64 are connected to control means (not shown) of the beverage preparation machine, the operation of the beverage preparation machine can be controlled depending on the information supplied by the decoding means 1 to the control means. For example, when the presence of the capsule-holder inside the aperture of the main assembly 1 is detected by the decoding means 64, the control means may enable the operation of the pump 13 (not shown in
If no magnetic field is detected, the absence of the capsule holder 2 is assumed and the pump 13 cannot be operated.
This feature is known in the prior art beverage preparation machines, but uses a permanent magnet in the capsule holder. By using an electromagnet, or any other device able to generate a controlled magnetic field or to move a magnetic field inside or outside a spatial detection range, it is thus possible to control the operation of the beverage preparation machine (in particular of its pump), either by enabling its operation by generating a magnetic field by activating the electro-magnet 61, or impairing it by stopping the generation of a magnetic field. In other words, when the electromagnet 61 is not active (or, when a permanent magnet 65 is in such a position that it is not detected), the beverage preparation machine reacts as if the capsule holder 2 is absent or not properly inserted, and impairs or stops the fluid pump and thus the beverage delivery.
It is therefore made possible to stop the beverage delivery in a simple an efficient way when it is determined that a desired predefined (e.g. using the system shown on
This also makes it possible to transform in a very simple way a prior art beverage preparation machine configured for a manual stop of beverage delivery into a beverage preparation machine providing an automatic stop of beverage delivery.
Indeed, if the prior art machine is provided with a system for detecting the presence of the capsule holder and to stop fluid delivery if it determines that the capsule holder is absent, the prior art capsule holder is replaced by a capsule holder configured to make the system for detecting if the capsule holder is present or absent believe that the capsule holder is absent when the flow meter determines that the desired given fluid quantity (i.e. the predefined fluid quantity) has been delivered. In other words, the sensor provided in the prior art machine is deceived (the capsule holder is still in right position, but no more detected) in order to stop fluid delivery. The method for transforming a beverage preparation machine configured for a manual stop of beverage delivery into a beverage preparation machine providing an automatic stop of beverage delivery may comprise the steps of:
If a flow meter is not provided with the replacement capsule holder, which, in this case, comprises a module for receiving data from an external flow meter assembly, the method may further comprise replacing the fluid tank of the beverage preparation machine by a fluid tank comprising a flow meter assembly configured to wirelessly communicate with the reception module of the capsule holder.
It should be understood that various changes and modifications to the presently preferred embodiments described herein will be apparent to those skilled in the art. Such changes and modifications can be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention and without diminishing its attendant advantages. It is therefore intended that such changes and modifications be covered by the appended claims.
For example, the operating parameter of the beverage preparation machine defined based on the detected state of the variable element of the capsule holder may be of many type, for example: the operation of a fluid pump as previously described, the operation or the power output of a fluid heater, the injection pressure of the fluid, etc.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 15193251.4 | Nov 2015 | EP | regional |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/EP2016/076260 | 10/31/2016 | WO | 00 |
