This invention relates to commercial cooking equipment, in particular, a bearing assembly for a roller grill for cooking hot dogs, bratwursts, sausages, and other food products having an elongated shape.
The use of a roller grill to cook hot dogs dates back at least as early as 1939. At that time, Dumas, in U.S. Pat. No. 2,185,979, recognized the advantage of using a plurality of rollers to quickly and uniformly cook hot dogs or other similarly shaped foods. Since that time, the roller grill has been associated with America's food icon, the hot dog.
There have been numerous improvements to this device over the years where it has become a part of most commercial food service establishments, which serve large quantities of hot dogs or similarly shaped foods. Manufactures of such units spend a great of time and effort to instruct the purchasers and the equipment operators concerning safety and proper cleaning procedures. The roller grill has a plurality of cooking tubes that rotate by a drive mechanism with each roller tube anchored between opposing sides of the side panels. Each roller tube is fitted with a bearing so that it may turn freely. The present construction of this bearing mechanism is a plastic bearing that is snapped into an opening provided in a sheet metal panel. Cleaning instructions inform the operator to carefully clean each tube so that grease and particles do not get into the bearing that will substantially reduce the bearing's lifespan. Cleaning and the grease seals help prevent grease and debris from entering into the bearings and the drive mechanism which is the major source of early drive failure.
Further, operators are cautioned against using one or more roller tubes as “handles” for moving the grill or placing unusually heavy objects on the grill for storage when the grill is not in use. Present roller grill bearing surfaces are made from relatively soft plastic such as TEFLON polymer that can be easily cut by the sharp edges of the sheet metal opening if the bearing is forced out of alignment due to excessive force or accumulation of grease or dirt. TEFLON is the registered trademark of E.I. Du Pont, Wilmington, Del. for its polytetrafluoroethylene polymer.
There is not found in the prior art a roller grill bearing apparatus that substantially increases the surface area of the bearing, ensures that the bearing will not rotate when snapped in place; can concentrate the friction surface to a known location for better control of wearing, and, yet, can be easily manufactured and installed in a manner similar to present manufacturing techniques.
It is an aspect of the invention to provide a roller grill bearing assembly that can be adapted to fit on any size roller grill or roller tubes.
Another aspect of the invention is to provide a roller grill bearing assembly that substantially increases the bearing land on the roller grill housing and increases the bearing area over the land.
Still another aspect of the invention is to provide a roller grill bearing assembly that permits the bearing apparatus to be snapped in place on the stamped opening on a sheet metal side panel as done using current manufacturing methods.
Another aspect of the invention is to provide a roller grill bearing assembly that can be produced using current manufacturing techniques without significantly changing the cost of production.
Finally, it is an aspect of the invention to provide a roller grill bearing assembly that increases the life span of the bearing.
In order to better appreciate the merits of the invention, a more detailed understanding of the prior art will be undertaken. Referring now to
Since roller grills used commercially are subjected to particularly rough treatment such as picking the grill up by tubes 14, bearings 11 experience substantial adverse treatment. A typical life span of current bearings 11 is about five years but failures have occurred as early as 30 days due to improper handling. Sheet metal 16 is sharp and can cut through the relatively soft prior art bearing 11 rather quickly if tubes 14 are encountering additional stresses with improper handling as discussed above. Therefore, the inventors recognized that to improve the life span of roller grill bearings, since it was not possible to reduce the rough handling of typical users, it would be necessary to increase the bearing land size and eliminate cutting of the bearings due to sharp edge of sheet metal 16.
As shown in
The left side of bearing 10 is side 20 and the right side of bearing 10 is side 22. As with the prior art bearing, bearing 10 can be snapped into its' opening by hand. Notch 24 is provided to prevent bearing 10 from turning relative to roller tube 14. With invention 10, end housing tab 28 (See
As with the prior art bearing 11, grease seal 32 is provided to protect bearing 10 from grease and food debris.
With these improvements, it is expected that the life span of bearing 10 will be substantially greater, perhaps double or triple than that of prior art bearings. Also, it is expected that failures from improper handling be can substantially reduced as well.
Although the present invention has been described with reference to certain preferred embodiments thereof, other versions are readily apparent to those of ordinary skill in the preferred embodiments contained herein.
This application claims benefit of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 66/517,198, filed Apr. 15, 2011, pursuant to 35 USC §119(e).
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
---|---|---|---|
2185979 | Dumas | Jan 1940 | A |
3084616 | Nissen et al. | Apr 1963 | A |
3124370 | Traugott | Mar 1964 | A |
3193335 | Wing | Jul 1965 | A |
3472156 | Bardeau | Oct 1969 | A |
4494883 | Winter | Jan 1985 | A |
5129740 | Matsushita et al. | Jul 1992 | A |
7367261 | Gaskill et al. | May 2008 | B2 |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20120263404 A1 | Oct 2012 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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61517198 | Apr 2011 | US |