JPH0546202B2 - - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Technical Field of the Invention] The present invention relates to a rice cooker that is capable of selectively executing a plurality of rice cooking courses such as white rice cooking and porridge cooking.

[Technical Background of the Invention and Problems Therewith] Generally, in a rice cooker, after cooking rice, electricity is supplied to a heat-retaining heater to perform a heat-retaining operation, and a lamp is turned on to indicate this. Nowadays, rice cookers whose rice cooking is controlled by a microcomputer, for example, have multiple rice cooking courses, such as a brown rice cooking course, a rice porridge cooking course, and a rice porridge cooking course, in addition to the general white rice cooking course. It is being considered to enable selective execution. but,
If such a rice cooker performs the warming operation after finishing rice cooking as usual, when the porridge cooking course is selected and the porridge is cooked, the cooked porridge will be maintained at a high temperature for a long time. A problem arises in that the porridge becomes gelatinous and loses its taste. Therefore, in order to deal with this, it is possible to not execute the keep warm operation after executing the porridge cooking course, but it is possible to simply not execute the keep warm operation and keep the keep warm operation notification lamp lit as usual. If this is done, the user may be under the illusion that a warming operation is being performed. On the other hand, if you disable the keep warm operation and the lamp does not light up, the display will be blank after the porridge cooking course is completed, so you cannot confirm at a glance that the porridge is cooked. will occur.

[Object of the invention] Therefore, the object of the present invention is to prevent the porridge from becoming gelatinized and spoiling the taste after cooking, and
To provide a rice cooker that allows the user to easily check when the rice is cooked and prevents the user from being given an illusion.

[Summary of the Invention] The present invention is characterized in that after the execution of the rice porridge cooking course is completed, the warming operation is not performed and the notification mode of the warming operation notification means is made different from that after the execution of other rice cooking courses is completed. It is something that you have.

[Embodiments of the invention] Description will be given with reference to the drawings. 1 is full wave rectifier circuit 2
This is a constant voltage power supply circuit equipped with lines L1,
Outputs DC constant voltage to L2. 3 is a heater for cooking rice, 4 is a heater for keeping warm, and 5 is a lid heater. 6
is a microcomputer for controlling rice cooking, and each heater 3 to 5 is connected to a microcomputer 6.
Power on/off is controlled by each relay 8 connected to the output terminals R ₁₂ and R ₁₃ of 1 through an inverter 7. 9
1 is a temperature detection circuit which detects the temperature of a rice cooking pot (not shown) using a thermistor 10 and inputs temperature information to the microcomputer 6. 11 is a group of input switches provided on the operation panel of the rice cooker;
This is course selection switch 12, rice cooking switch 1
3. It consists of a timer rice cooking switch 14, a start switch 15, and a cancel switch 16. In the initial state immediately after the power is turned on, the microcomputer 6 is automatically set to a white rice cooking course, and by turning on the course selection switch 12, it can be used to cook brown rice, cook rice, or cook rice depending on the number of times the switch is operated or the time it is turned on. Alternatively, one of the porridge-cooked courses is set in place of the white rice-cooked course. The white rice cooking course is a course in which the rice-cooking heater 3 is energized with a high calorific value, and specifically, as shown in FIG. For example, heater 3
A rice cooking operation in which electricity is applied with a calorific value of 600W and the electricity is cut off when the temperature detection circuit 9 detects a so-called dry-up state of the pot, and an uneven operation in which electricity is then intermittently applied to the rice cooking heater 3 for a short time are performed in a series. Execute. The brown rice cooking course is a course in which the rice-cooking heater 3 is energized with an intermediate amount of heat, and specifically, as shown in Figure 3, the rice-cooking heater 3 is initially heated at 600W. A rice cooking operation in which the temperature detection circuit 9 detects that the temperature of the pot has reached 90 degrees Celsius, and after 4 minutes has elapsed, the electricity is supplied with a heat output of 300 W until it reaches a dry-up state.
A series of irregular operations similar to those described above are performed. still,
The amount of heat generated by the rice-cooking heater 3 is controlled by changing the energization duty ratio to the rice-cooking heater 3.
As shown in FIG. 4, in the rice-cooking/rice-cooking course, the steaming and rice-cooking operations similar to the brown rice cooking course are sequentially executed, and then an uneven operation is executed in which the rice-cooking heater 3 is turned off for a predetermined period of time. Also,
In the rice porridge cooking course, the rice cooking heater 3 is energized with a low calorific value, and specifically, as shown in Fig. 5, the rice porridge cooking course is the same as the above-mentioned soaking operation, and the rice cooking heater 3 is initially energized with a calorific value of 600W. After 4 minutes have elapsed since the temperature detection circuit 9 detects that the temperature of the pot has reached 90°C, the power is applied for 6 minutes with a heat output of 300W, and thereafter the rice cooker heater 3 is heated with a heat output of 150W. A rice cooking operation in which electricity is applied for a predetermined period of time and an uneven operation in which the rice cooking heater 3 is kept in a power-off state for 5 minutes after the rice cooking operation are executed in series. Among the rice cooking courses, in each course of white rice cooking, brown rice cooking, rice cooking, and rice cooking, after the uneven operation, the rice cooking heater 3, the warming heater 4, and the lid heater 5 are energized with a small amount of heat. is executed, and the heat retention operation is not executed during the porridge cooking course.
Incidentally, when the timer rice cooking switch 14 is turned on, the waiting time until the start of execution of each rice cooking course can be set according to the operation. When the rice cooking switch 13 is turned on, each course starts from the rice cooking course, omitting the soaking operation. When the start switch 15 is turned on, the previous operations of the input switch group 11 are invalidated, or each operation is interrupted during the execution of the rice cooking course. 17 is a course display lamp installed on the operation panel, which consists of 4 LEDs.
The set rice cooking course is displayed by lighting. 18 is 4
This is a time display section consisting of 7-segment LED digits, which displays the remaining time during standby operation when the timer rice cooking switch 14 is turned on, and also uses each of the 4 digits to display the remaining time during the rice cooking course. The execution of each operation of soaking, cooking, cooking, and keeping warm is indicated by continuous lighting. In this case, the heat retention operation is not executed in the porridge cooking course, but when the steaming operation is finished in the same course, the time display section 18 corresponding to the display of the heat retention operation
The 4th digit of `` is blinking to make it different from after the execution of other rice cooking courses. 19 is an initialization circuit, which connects the initialization terminal INIT of the microcomputer 6 when the power is turned on.
Outputs a signal to. 20 is a power failure compensation circuit, which includes a capacitor 21, a comparator 22, and an inverter 2.
The output terminal R1 of the microcomputer 6 is charged to the capacitor ₂₁ at a high level at the start of standby operation, uneven operation, or rice cooking operation, and the output terminal R1 of the microcomputer 6 is charged at a high level at the end of the uneven operation. Ro is set to high level to discharge the charge in the capacitor 21 via the inverter 23. As a result, even if there is a power outage during the standby operation or the rice cooking course, the capacitor 21 maintains its charged state, so that the output of the comparator 22 and the input terminal _J8 of the microcomputer 6 go to a high level after the power outage returns. Therefore, it can be determined that the standby operation or rice cooking course was in progress before the power outage. If there is a power outage while the standby operation or rice cooking course is being executed, the input terminal _J8 will be at a high level when a signal is given to the initialization terminal INIT of the microcomputer 6 upon recovery from the power outage. As shown in determination processes A and B in the flowchart of FIG. 7, the brown rice cooking course is uniformly executed regardless of what rice cooking course was initially set. In addition, especially in this embodiment, when the brown rice cooking course is executed after recovery from a power outage as described above, all the course display lamps 17 are turned off so that it can be confirmed that there has been a power outage. There is.

As described above, according to this embodiment, the heat retention operation is not performed after the completion of the porridge cooking course, so the heat retention operation that maintains the deliciously cooked rice porridge at a high temperature for a long period of time causes it to gelatinize and lose its taste. Damage can be prevented. Furthermore, since the fourth digit of the time display section 18 flashes after the completion of the porridge cooking course, it can be confirmed at a glance that the porridge has been cooked, greatly improving usability. In addition, the notification mode after the completion of the porridge cooking course is flashing, which is clearly different from the notification mode of the keep warm operation after the completion of execution of other rice cooking courses, which is a continuous light, so the user does not have to worry about the completion of the porridge cooking course. There is no illusion that a warming operation is being performed afterwards.

In the above embodiment, the fourth digit of the time display section 18 is made to blink after the completion of the porridge cooking course, but the present invention is not limited to this. The characters "OFF" may be displayed in the second to fourth digits. Alternatively, in the case where a buzzer is used as a warming operation notification means and the buzzer is made to sound continuously after the rice cooking course is finished, the buzzer may be made to sound intermittently after the porridge cooking course is finished. .

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, the present invention is configured such that after the completion of the porridge cooking course, the warming operation is not performed and the notification mode of the warming operation notification means is made different from that after the completion of the other rice cooking courses. Therefore, it is possible to prevent the cooked porridge from becoming gelatinized and becoming bad in taste, and there is no illusion that the porridge is being kept warm, and it can be confirmed at a glance that the porridge is completely cooked. It has excellent effects.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

The drawings show one embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 1 is an overall circuit diagram, and FIGS. 2 to 5 are operation explanatory diagrams of a white rice cooking course, a brown rice cooking course, a rice cooking course and a rice porridge cooking course, respectively. , FIG. 6 is a front view of the operation panel section, and FIG. 7 is a flowchart. In the drawing, 3 is a rice cooking heater, 4 is a heat retention heater, 6 is a microcomputer, 9 is a temperature detection circuit, 12 is a course selection switch, 17 is a course display lamp, 19 is an initialization circuit, and 20 is a power failure compensation circuit. .

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a device that selectively executes a plurality of rice cooking courses such as white rice cooking and porridge cooking, and after the completion of the rice cooking course, a warming operation is executed and a notification is made by a warming operation notification means,
A rice cooker characterized in that after the execution of a porridge cooking course is completed, the warming operation is not executed, and the notification mode of the warming operation notification means is made different from that after the execution of other rice cooking courses is completed.