Rice cooker

• US 6,028,297 A
• Filed: 06/11/1998
• Issued: 02/22/2000
• Est. Priority Date: 06/13/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Matsushita Electric Industrial Company Limited (Panasonic Holdings Corporation)
• Inventors: Takechi, Mitsuru, Arihisa, Megumi, Koyama, Masahiro, Hamada, Hironori
• Primary Examiner(s): Walberg, Teresa
• Assistant Examiner(s): PWU, JEFFREY C
• Application Number:
  US09/096,253
• Time in Patent Office: 621 Days
• Field of Search: 219/497, 219/501, 219/506, 219/625, 219/496, 219/492, 219/441, 99/DIG. 14, 99/426, 99/333, 99/327, 99/332, 99/335, 99/403, 99/326, 99/331
• US Class Current: 219/625
• CPC Class Codes: A47J 27/04 for cooking food in steam; Devices for extracting fruit juice by means of steam ; Vacuum cooking vessels steam-heated vessels for hotels, restaurants or canteens A47J27/16
• CPC Class Codes: A47J 27/62 by devices for automatically controlling the heat supply by switching off heaters or for automatically lifting the cooking-vessels
• CPC Class Codes: Y10S 99/14 Induction heating

Abstract

A rice cooker does not cause malfunction if the operation unit is touched by mistake when closing the lid, and is capable of preventing boil-over without lowering the rice cooking performance. The rice cooker includes a main body, a lid for covering the top of the main body, an inner pan detachably accommodated in the main body, a heater for induction heating of the inner pan, a controller for controlling the supply of high frequency power to the heater, an operating unit, and a lid opening and closing detector or a rice gruel detector disposed in a steam tube of the lid. The controller inhibits operation signal input of the operating unit when detecting an open state of the lid, and controls the power supply to the heater when detecting a rise in the rice gruel. Therefore, the rice cooker prevents a wrong input in rice cooking when opening or closing the lid, and prevents boil-over of the rice gruel.

Claims

1. A rice cooker comprising:

a rice cooker main body;

a lid covering the rice cooker main body;

a lid detector to detect an open and close state of the lid;

an inner pan detachably accommodated in the rice cooker main body;

heating means for heating the inner pan;

control means for supplying and controlling electric power to the heating means, and for receiving a signal from the lid detector indicating an open or close state of the lid; and

an operation unit for instructing a start of rice cooking and for instructing a selection of a rice cooking function,

wherein the control means is adapted to inhibit at least one instruction input of the operation unit if an open state of the lid is detected by the lid detector.

2. A rice cooker of claim 1, wherein the control means inhibits input instruction to start the rice cooking when detecting an open state of the lid.

3. A rice cooker of claim 1, further comprising display means for displaying the state of the rice cooking function and the open or closed state of the lid.

4. A rice cooker of claim 1, wherein the control means determines when a manipulation signal of the operation unit is entered when the lid is open.

5. A rice cooker of claim 1, wherein the control means inhibits input of a manipulation signal of the operation unit for a specific time even after the lid is closed.

6. A rice cooker of claim 1, wherein the control means permits an input of a manipulation signal of the operation unit, if the lid is open, as far as a specific manipulation signal of the operation unit is entered.

7. A rice cooker of claim 1, wherein the control means determines when the open state of the lid is detected for a specific time in a specific process during rice cooking.

8. A rice cooker comprising:

an inner pan for containing the material;

heating means for heating the inner pan;

rice gruel detecting means for detecting a rise of rice gruel above an upper end of the inner pan; and

heating control means for controlling the heating means,

wherein the heating control means changes the heating capacity of the heating means depending on the state of detection by the rice gruel detecting means.

9. A rice cooker of claim 8, wherein the heating control means stops heating during detection of the rice gruel by the rice gruel detecting means.

10. A rice cooker of claim 8, wherein the heating control means stops heating for a specific time after detection by the rice gruel detecting means that the rice gruel is no longer rising.

11. A rice cooker of claim 8, further comprising failure detecting means for detecting failure of the rice gruel detecting means, wherein the heating control means changes the heating capacity of the heating means when a failure is detected by the failure detecting means.

12. A rice cooker of claim 11, wherein the heating control means does not start the rice cooking operation when a failure is detected by the failure detecting means.

13. A rice cooker of claim 11, further comprising input means for entering into the heating control means, wherein the heating control means is constituted so as to change the state of the rice cooker by input of plural times when failure is detected by the failure detecting means.

14. A rice cooker of claim 13, wherein the heating control means is constituted so as to invalidate the inputs made so far when input of plural times is not done within a specific time.

15. A rice cooker of claim 11, wherein the failure detecting means judges a failure when a rise of rice gruel is detected continuously for more than a specific time by the rice gruel detecting means.

16. A rice cooker of claim 8, wherein the heating control means controls the heating means, regardless of the detecting result of the rice gruel detecting means, when the temperature in the rice cooker is within a specified range.

17. A rice cooker of claim 8, wherein the heating control means controls the heating means, regardless of the detecting result of the rice gruel detecting means, when the cooking time is within a specified range.

18. A rice cooker of claim 8, wherein the heating control means controls the heating means, regardless of the detecting result of the rice gruel detecting means, in a specific rice cooking process.

19. A rice cooker of claim 8, further comprising display means for displaying the state of the rice cooker, and display control means for controlling the display means, wherein the display control means changes the operation of the display means depending on at least one detection state of the rice gruel detecting means and failure detecting means.