Beverage dispensing apparatus with remote dispensing operative controls

Abstract

A beverage dispensing apparatus having a nozzle and multiple fluid lines in fluid communication with the nozzle where the beverage dispensing apparatus has a body with a plurality of apertures, a plurality of buttons, each protruding through a respective one of the apertures and configured to control a flow of fluid through a respective one of the multiple fluid lines, the plurality of buttons having at least one active dispensing button configured to mechanically dispense a fluid and at least one remote dispensing button, and a remote dispensing device located remotely from the body configured to regulate dispensing a fluid through one of the multiple fluid lines so that when the at least one remote button is depressed, the remote dispensing device dispenses a fluid through the fluid line.

Claims

1. A beverage dispensing system comprising: a flexible line containing multiple fluid lines; a remote dispensing device coupled to a first end of the flexible line and configured to dispense a first fluid through a first fluid line of the multiple fluid lines; a bar gun coupled to a second end of the flexible line, opposite the first end of the flexible line, the bar gun comprising: a body having a plurality of apertures; a nozzle; a plurality of buttons, each protruding through a respective one of the apertures, the plurality of buttons comprising an active dispensing button configured to directly mechanically actuate a valve within the body to dispense a second fluid from a second fluid line of the multiple fluid lines, and a remote dispensing button; and a sensing assembly configured to sense depressions of the active dispensing button and to sense depression of the remote dispensing button; and a controller configured to actuate the remote dispensing device to dispense the first fluid through the nozzle in response to initially receiving a first signal from the sensing assembly indicating the remote dispensing button has been depressed and subsequently receiving a second signal from the sensing assembly indicating that the active dispensing button is depressed and is directly mechanically actuating the valve so that the second fluid is being dispensed from the nozzle.

2. The beverage dispensing apparatus of claim 1 wherein the sensing assembly comprises: a sensing element disposed on the active dispensing button; and a sensor disposed on the body and aligned with the sensing element, wherein when the active dispensing button is depressed to directly mechanically actuate the valve the sensor interacts with the sensing element to sense that the active dispensing button is depressed.

3. The beverage dispensing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the remote dispensing device is a solenoid valve.

4. The beverage dispensing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the remote dispensing device is a solenoid pump.

5. The beverage dispensing apparatus of claim 1, wherein the active dispensing button is configured to directly mechanically actuate a second valve within the body to dispense a third fluid from a third fluid line of the multiple fluid lines, and wherein the first, second, and third fluids are dispensed through the first valve, second valve, and remote dispensing device, in response to initially receiving a first signal from the sensing assembly indicating the remote dispensing button has been depressed and subsequently receiving a second signal from the sensing assembly indicating that the active dispensing button is depressed and is directly mechanically actuating the valve and the second valve.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

(1) FIG. 1 illustrates a conventional bar gun handle beverage dispensing apparatus.

(2) FIG. 2 illustrates one type of a bar gun with a sensing assembly in accordance with provisional application No. 62/044,144.

(3) FIG. 3 illustrates an alternative view of the bar gun with a sensing assembly of FIG. 2.

(4) FIG. 4 illustrates a top view of a bar gun in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.

(5) FIG. 5 illustrates a side view of the bar gun of FIG. 4.

(6) FIG. 6 illustrates a top view of remote dispensing devices and brixing apparatus in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.

(7) FIG. 7 illustrates a side view of the remote dispensing devices and brixing apparatus of FIG. 6.

(8) FIG. 8 illustrates a perspective view of the combined bar gun and remote dispensing devices with brixing apparatus of FIGS. 4-7.

(9) FIG. 9 shows a diagram of the remote operation of the remote dispensing device in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

(10) Hand held beverage dispensers, which allow an operator to dispense a number of different beverages by merely pressing an appropriate button on the dispenser, have been around for many years. One exemplary bar gun is as described in Applicant's pioneering patent, U.S. Pat. No. 4,986,449 to Valiyee, the entirety of which is incorporated herein by reference. An exemplary tower is described in Applicant's patent application, U.S. Application No. US2011/0315711 A1 to Hecht. Other similar bar guns and towers are commercially available from Automatic Bar Controls at www.wunderbar.com.

(11) Regarding a bar gun, as seen in Valiyee and illustrated in FIG. 1 the bar gun 1 has a handle 3 that has a nozzle 5 at one end for dispensing the beverage. At the other end, the handle 3 is connected to a flexible line 7 that connects to a brixing device 9 that contains shut off and flow valves for controlling the flow of beverage components to the bar gun. The brixing device 9 is in turn connected to a beverage source (not shown). The bar gun, also has buttons 11 on the handle 3 that activate valves inside the handle 3 for dispensing a single beverage component or a mixed beverage solution depending on the button 11 pushed by the operator and the configuration of the bar gun 1. Beverage dispensing towers can be configured similarly with a nozzle, a tower, dispensing and flow control valves and buttons for dispensing the beverage, except the buttons are installed on the fixed tower assembly rather than on the handle of a hand held bar gun.

(12) The buttons on a bar gun handle or a tower beverage dispenser allow an operator to select particular beverage components and/or dispense the beverage components in predetermined or customizable flow rates and volumes. These buttons can be numerous, or merely be a single button, depending on the intend use of the operator or establishment utilizing the bar gun or tower. In the conventional bar gun, beverage dispensing valves, operable by the buttons, are located within the bar gun handle and are directly beneath the button such that when a button is depressed, the valve is actuated and a beverage fluid is dispensed.

(13) In the conventional bar gun a soda button S and water button W can be depressed to dispense only soda or water, respectively. When either the soda button S or the water button W is depressed, they directly activate the soda and water valves located in the bar gun to dispense the selected fluid. In the circumstance where an operator wants to dispense cola, for example, the operator would depressed the cola button C, which mechanically activates both a cola valve and the soda valve. The cola button C is located adjacent the soda button S to allow the depressing of the cola button C to mechanically depressed both buttons, using a mechanical device referred to as a butterfly plate inside the bar gun which is described in detail in Valiyee.

(14) Other dual component beverages can be dispensed with either a soda base or water base by configuring the buttons surrounding the soda button S and water button W to dispense the water and/or soda base with a beverage additive. Such beverages can include, root beer, lemon-lime soda, ginger ale and other kinds of beverages or even cocktails. Given the necessity that the cola button C, be located adjacent the soda button S, as described in the example above, beverages with more than two beverage components, such as a vanilla flavored cola, which has a soda base, cola syrup and a vanilla flavoring shot, are not possible in the conventional bar gun.

(15) Embodiments in accordance with the present invention provide a mechanism for sensing and monitoring the depressing of a bar gun button for dispensing of a beverage or beverage component from a beverage dispenser like a bar gun where a remote dispensing device that can be a valve, pump or actuator or similar regulating device, that regulates the dispensing of the a fluid, is not located in the bar gun handle underneath the button, but instead at a remote location from the bar gun handle.

(16) Sensing and monitoring of the button can be provided in any number of ways. One such manner of sensing the depressing of the remote button can be done is by way of a sensing assembly in accordance with Applicants provisional application, U.S. Application No. 62/044,144, which is incorporated herein in its entirety and briefly described as follows in connection with FIG. 2 and FIG. 3. Sensing occurs when a magnet installed in the bar gun button is located within a particular distance of a sensor on a sensor plate. The sensor and magnet can be controlled to send a signal to an intelligence system that can record when a button has been depressed. The sensing assemblies can be magnetic sensors, such as Hall-Effect or reed sensors, among others, which positionally detect corresponding magnets coupled to the individual buttons of the bar gun. The type of sensor, cooperating magnet and relative positions between the sensor and magnet can be configured so that detection of the button activation i.e. travel, can be accurately sensed and determined to be inactive (not dispensing) or active (dispensing a beverage) even with a rather small change in the position of the magnet being monitored by the sensors. Other types of sensing of the dispensing of the flow are possible with various kinds of sensing methods including, the sensing of the position of the sensing element and buttons, as described here, as well as optically sensing the button movement or even optically.

(17) The support circuitry for the sensing of the depressing of the remote button may be either simple and directly wired to a suitable monitoring circuit, or completely self-contained with the ability to transmit activation data to a system such as can be used for monitoring the activity of a venue such as a bar or restaurant. This support circuitry can also be interfaced via the monitoring circuit (or directly) to device driving means (with associated programming if desired) to activate one or more remote devices such as solenoids controlling the dispensing of beverage additives (described in greater detail below).

(18) A controller can be connected to the sensing assembly that can detect motion of the button and can operate the remote dispensing devices. The signal from the sensing assembly can be in the form of a 4-20 mA current and can be transmitted to a current measuring device. The current measuring device may be part of the direct support circuitry of the sensing assembly or a self-contained unit with the ability to transmit data to a system, such as Skyflo. Other configurations for measuring, collecting and transmitting the current information are also possible.

(19) The above aspects of the invention can be further understood with reference to the exemplary devices shown in FIGS. 4-7, although the invention is not limited to the depicted embodiments and may include many variations in accordance with the principles and aspects described herein.

(20) FIG. 4 and FIG. 5. shows a top and side view, respectively, of a bar gun in accordance with one embodiment of the present invention. The bar gun 2 has a body 4 that extends from a back end 6 to a front end 8. Under the front end 8, a nozzle 10 extends from the body 4 for dispensing a beverage component into a suitable container (not shown). On the top side of the body 4 ten buttons 12 protrude up through the body 4. There are two distinct sets of buttons including an array of active buttons 16 which are configured in the same way buttons of a conventional bar gun. A second array of buttons includes remote activation buttons 18. The remote buttons 18 are located at the back end of the body and are not located adjacent a soda or water button.

(21) The buttons of the active button array are connected with valves (not shown) inside the body 4, which work in connection with the brixing device 20, shown and in FIG. 6 and FIG. 7, for dispensing a beverage component when a button is depressed. A soda button S, dispenses Soda and a cola button C is configured to dispense Cola in the manner previously described in the conventional bar gun. The other soda based buttons CI, CII and CIII can all configured to dispense varying soda based beverages.

(22) The remote buttons 18 are not directly connected to valves in the bar gun body 2 and thus do not directly mechanically actuate a fluid dispensing valve. Instead, a sensing assembly is connected to the button that can sense when one of the remote button is depressed. In some embodiments, a conventional bar gun can be retrofitted such that the valve beneath a button can be replaced with a bypass device that functions as though the valve was permanently open so that the remote device can actuate at the appropriate time. The fluid channels within the bar gun handle can also be configured as dedicated fluid paths that do not have the added expense of being machined for valves or bypass devices.

(23) FIG. 9 shows a diagram of one embodiment of the remote dispensing operation in accordance with the present invention. When a remote button 18 is depressed the sensing assembly 26 detects button being depressed and sends a signal to the controller 28. The controller 28 sends a signal to the remote dispensing device 22 shown in FIG. 6 and FIG. 7 to operate to dispense the requisite fluid. The controller 28, remote buttons 18 and sensing assembly 26 can be configured in various manners. In some embodiments, the remote buttons 18 can be toggle buttons, where when a button is depressed the button can mechanically be toggled. The controller 28 can also store in a memory an operation mode where the remote dispensing device 22 dispenses a fluid whenever one of the other beverage buttons, such as the cola button C is depressed, thereby adding a flavor shot to the dispensed beverage.

(24) In some embodiments the controller 28 can be configured to store a control signal to dispense a fluid from the remote device when a remote button is depressed to have a time out feature. This can be configured in short duration increments, for example for 3 or 5 seconds. This can be done to avoid the circumstance where one of the buttons might accidentally be bumped during operation by an operator, but a flavor additive is not desired to be dispensed with a beverage. In such a case, the time out feature would prevent accidental dispensing of an undesired beverage components, which can lead to less waste due to throwing out undesired beverages.

(25) In operation when an operator desires to dispense a flavor enhanced beverage, such as cola with a vanilla flavoring, the operator can press a remote button 18, like the vanilla flavor button V. The other flavor additive buttons VI, VII and VIII, all included in the remote button array 18, can all be configured to dispense varying flavor components for beverages. These flavor components can include all types of fluids or such as mixers for cocktails, in addition to the flavor additives described herein. This action is sensed by the sensing assembly 26 and a signal is transmitted to the controller 28. Then the operator can subsequently press the cola button C. The controller can be configured such that when the cola button C is depressed, the controller operates the remote dispensing device 22 to dispense the vanilla flavor component through the fluid line 24. Simultaneously, the cola button C mechanically actuates the dispensing valves in the bar gun body 2 for the soda and cola as described above. All of the fluid streams, includes the base (soda), syrup (cola) and flavor (vanilla) all exit the bar gun at the dispensing ports at the front end 4 of the bar gun and mix in the nozzle 10 to ultimately be dispensed into a suitable container.

(26) This sensing and remote operation increases the utility of bar guns in that conventionally the actuation of a single button on bar gun provided only the basic beverage such as a cola or root beer, a bar gun in accordance with the present invention can now add one or more flavor additions (either as portion controlled shots or continuously pour) during the dispensing of the selected beverage. This functionality can be further enhanced to provide individual flavor additives (shots) for use in beverage types not dispensed by the bar gun such as the flavoring of cocktails.

(27) The above description is illustrative and is not restrictive. A recitation of a, an or the is intended to mean one or more unless specifically indicated to the contrary. Many variations of the disclosure will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon review of the disclosure. One or more features from any embodiment described herein may be combined with one or more features of any other embodiment without departing from the scope of the disclosure. The scope of the disclosure should, therefore, be determined not with reference to the above description, but instead should be determined with reference to the pending claims along with their full scope or equivalents.