Patent ID: 7895845

Claim:
A frozen product dispenser, comprising: a freeze barrel; means for delivering liquid product into said freeze barrel; a refrigeration system operable in chilling cycles to freeze product in said freeze barrel; means for dispensing frozen product from said freeze barrel; means for defrosting said freeze barrel; means for monitoring the values of at least two variable parameters of said frozen product dispenser that are each representative of a need to defrost said freeze barrel; and means responsive to the values of at least two of said parameters for initiating operation of, and for adaptively adjusting the times of operation of, said defrosting means in defrost cycles, wherein the value of product throughput comprises one of said at least two variable parameters to which said initiating and adjusting means is responsive to adaptively adjust said time interval tD between the end of one defrost cycle and the beginning of the next defrost cycle of said defrosting means, such that as product throughput increases, tD is decreased, and as product throughput decreases, tD is increased.