EP3031038A1

EP3031038A1 - Ejection system for vending machine

Info

Publication number: EP3031038A1
Application number: EP14780552.7A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Lorenzo ROSSANO; Angelo Mazzoletti
Original assignee: Ode SRL
Current assignee: Ode SRL
Priority date: 2013-08-07
Filing date: 2014-08-05
Publication date: 2016-06-15
Also published as: WO2015019169A1; CN105453147A; ITMI20130286U1; CN105453147B; HK1216561A1

Abstract

The present invention relates to an ejection system for vending machines dispensing articles that can be purchased from automatic dispensers, and more particularly relates to a particularly advantageous solution of making performing ratiomotors, which do not require presence of a microswitch.

Description

EJECTION SYSTEM FOR VENDING MACHINE

The present invention relates to an ejection system for vending articles, namely those articles that are purchased from automatic dispensers.

Said automatic dispensers, also known as vending machines, are the machines allowing the customer to purchase products independently, without the aid of sales personnel, inserting cash directly in the automatic dispenser and pressing the button or key corresponding to the desired product. The bin corresponding to the selected product has a specific ejection system, which is actuated by selecting said product, and this ejection system pushes or rotates the product that advances to reach the corresponding collection till, box or door.

The most popular goods sold in this way are snacks, soft drinks and like food articles, provided that they are contained in a package preventing product pollution by the dispensing machine. In order to meet the requirements of the big distribution chains involving the possibility of making the goods available at any time (H24), these vending systems are more and more widespread both inside and outside constructions. It is nowadays common to find also automatic dispensers of fresh food such as sandwiches or croissants (provided that they are correctly packaged), medical articles such as band-aids, disinfectants, cleaning products, H24 consumer goods and so forth. In any case, the common feature of every vending distribution system is that it can be used H24 independently by every customer and may be located practically everywhere, for instance in offices, inside or outside public rooms, shops, drugstores, restaurants, supermarkets, hotels and so on. Therefore these systems should be very reliable, resistant and performing so as to operate correctly for a countless number of vending cycles.

Therefore it is apparent that reliability of the dispensing system is the core of the correct operation of these systems and it has to be of good quality, operative for a number of dispensing cycles that cannot be determined in advance, versatile to be used and preferably simple and cheap to be manufactured, according to the market demand.

In order to better understand the object of the present innovation, it will be useful at first to describe briefly the constitution of a prior art ejection system, so as to fully recognize which are the improvements achieved by the ejection system being the object of the present invention. More particularly, a known configuration of said system will be explained as example, wherein the ejection system comprises a ratiomotor and a cascade of suitably dimensioned gears, so as to reduce the motor revolutions and increase the torque of said ratiomotor. The spiral is so dimensioned, that between two subsequent turns there is the product to be delivered. Said spiral is connected and fixed to the output shaft of said ratiomotor. To allow the machine to deliver the correct quantity of goods contained in the corresponding spiral, it is necessary to monitor the spiral position. As it is known, to determine the spiral position a sensor is used, and more particularly as a sensor it is rather common to use a microswitch. Said microswitch is generally actuated by a cam arranged on the output shaft of the ratiomotor. At each revolution of the spiral, either partial or entire, the microswitch actuated by said cam, generates a signal that can be read by an electronic control unit (ECU) of the machine. More particularly the microswitch interrupts the current circulating in the ratiomotor for few milliseconds down to null. ECU reads this signal and stops the ratiomotor. This signal for ECU means "delivery completed".

This operative solution is considered to be sufficiently functional and also an acceptable compromise between economy and good ejection reliability. However, automatic dispensing systems of this kind often give problems of wrong signals generated by said microswitch. It is known that the sliding motion of microswitch on the cam may sometimes generate little vibrations affecting the continuity between the electric contacts. This lack of continuity makes null the current absorbed by the ratiomotor, so that ECU accordingly reads a false position. Stop of the spiral in a false position often causes a missed delivery of the product as well as machine shutdown waiting for maintenance intervention on the spot. This involves high costs for restoration of the dispenser, as well as obvious and annoying troubles for the customer, leading to further economic inconveniences for the machine manufacturer deemed to be poorly reliable.

The concept on which the present invention is based, arises from the intention to solve the reliability problem of the above described dispensing system. The present invention is aimed at applying a technology that solved similar reliability problems in these and other different fields, which resulted to be useful to improve reliability of said vending machines and also improve the production costs of the elements that will be described hereinafter. Moreover the present invention aims at proposing a very advantageous and performing solution as to reliability of the ejection system and reduction of the production costs of said system and more particularly of the ratiomotor.

Therefore it is an object of the present invention to provide for a more reliable dispensing system. Consequently it is an object of the invention to reduce the missed deliveries of an automatic dispenser, thus enhancing the customer's satisfaction. A further object of the invention is to provide for a system solving the problem of the high maintenance costs due to the failures generated by the false signals of the microswitch.

These and other objects of the present invention, which will become more apparent by the figures of the accompanying drawings, are carried out by an ejection system using position recognition systems different from a microswitch. For example, in the industrial field of automation, as position detectors, angular position sensors, the so-called encoders are used, and one of the most used technologies used to make said sensor is the application of the Hall effect.

The objects at which the present invention is aimed, are achieved by making an ejection system comprising a ratiomotor, but advantageously not comprising a microswitch, and instead provided with a different position recognition system, allowing to obtain a more reliable signal and to produce an ejection system easier and cheaper to be manufactured. Moreover, in a very advantageous way, the ejection system described in the present invention, is able to be adapted to several types of vending machines.

These and other advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the following description of the appended drawings. More particularly the present invention describes an ejection system comprising a ratiomotor having a gear cascade, said ratiomotor comprising, in a preferred embodiment of the invention, a Hall effect sensor. Said ratiomotor comprises, on at least one of said cascade gears, among which there is one slow gear, at least one permanent magnet (but preferably two magnets) arranged on one of said gears inside said ratiomotor.

Fig. 1 shows a ratiomotor, comprising a Hall effect sensor according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention, with a detail of a gear section plane; and:

Fig. 2 shows a plain section of a gear of the ratiomotor of Fig. 1 , made according a preferred embodiment of the present invention.

Fig. 1 shows a ratiomotor 1 (sometimes called also gearbox) made according to the present invention; said ratiomotor 1 comprises at least a motor 7, a connector 8, a motor driver 11 , an RC circuit 10; more particularly in this preferred embodiment said ratiomotor 1 comprises at least a Hall effect sensor 3, positioned on the box of said ratiomotor 1. Moreover, said ratiomotor 1 comprises a set of cascade gears (not shown), among which there is the slow gear 2, having its rotation axis common with the output gear of the ratiomotor (not shown). Additionally, said slow gear 2 comprises at least one permanent magnet 4 (but preferably two magnets 4 and 4')

Said Hall effect sensor 3 transduces the magnetic field generated by magnets 4, 4' when these magnets 4, 4' are properly positioned in respect of said Hall effect sensor 3. The Hall effect sensor 3 may be positioned both inside and outside the ratiomotor 1. The implementation of a ratiomotor 1 of this kind, advantageously allows to eliminate the friction due to mechanical contact between rotating parts (i.e. the cam) and static parts because of the presence of the microswitch, which is directly in contact with the cam; thus by eliminating cam and microswitch, the false signals due to friction are also eliminated.

It is to be particularly pointed out that, in comparison with the prior art systems, comprising either a switch or systems like the above described one, the arrangement of the magnets 4, 4' on the toothed wheel, in this case the gear 2, is particularly advantageous, because these is a considerable saving of space and therefore of material. Moreover, in comparison with the prior art ratiomotors, said ratiomotor 1 with magnets 4, 4' arranged on gear 2, advantageously allows to reduce the components required to assemble the mechanical parts of the ratiomotor, as the cam can be eliminated.

It was verified, by means of proper technical tests, that use of this solution increases considerably the operative life of the ejection system, because the component which was the main source of errors and failures, namely the microswitch, was eliminated. Moreover, in the preferred embodiment illustrated in Fig. 1 , magnets 4, 4' are embedded inside the slow gear 2, so that said magnets 4, 4' are fully arranged inside the ratiomotor 1. The fact that the magnets 4, 4' are placed inside the ratiomotor 1 , further preserves the correct operation of the ejection system, because on said magnets 4, 4' neither metal particles nor other impurities coming from outside can be deposited, as it would easily happen if said magnets 4, 4' were positioned outside the ratiomotorl . Indeed it would be very likely that possible metal particles present in the surrounding environment, be attracted to said magnets 4, 4' due to the magnetic effect, and would have a disturbing negative effect on the correct operation of the ejection system.

Moreover, since the magnets 4, 4' are arranged inside appropriate seats made in the structure of gear 2, there are additional advantages from the commercial and manufacture point of view. Indeed, several enterprises, including the present Applicant too, have production lines making ratiomotors of various forms and sizes, like versions with microswitch. The described embodiment allows, in a economically advantageous way, to save components in the manufacturing stage, such as for example the shaped cam that in the prior art is arranged on the output shaft of the ratiomotor. In this case it is clear that said cam is no more useful and therefore can be removed. In this way, placing the magnets 4, 4' inside the ratiomotor 1 and eliminating the cam, there is a considerable saving of cost and space, in addition to achieving a better operation due to the absence of polluting particles inside the ratiomotor 1.

Fig. 2 shows a plain section of the slow gear 2. This detail is useful for noticing that in a particularly advantageous way, the magnets 4 and 4' may be arranged in any position at a radial distance included between Ra and Rb, in respect of the rotation axis X, on gear 2 (circular crown Rb-Ra).

This position is determined according to the mutual position of the other gears, because the inner dimensions, that are very reduced, for economic and space reasons as well as for technical-functional reasons, oblige to take different positions of said magnets 4, 4' according to the specific embodiment.

Moreover, in a very advantageous way, versatility of position allows to adapt this type of ratiomotor 1 comprising said magnets 4, 4' on a plurality of production lines and more particularly it is possible to use already existing production lines.

More particularly, the position on the circular crown defined by (Rb-Ra), allows to optimize the production molds, because the position of magnets 4', 4' can remain unaltered, even varying the gear dimensions. Therefore one of the mold dies can be advantageously used to manufacture a plurality of gear types. Only the other mold die, that is modified according to the diameter of the molded gear, should be changed. Moreover, in a particular advantageous way, the position of the Hall effect sensor 3 relative to the ratiomotor 1 , has not to be modified according to the type of gear 2.

In addition, it was verified that, positioning the magnets 4, 4' as farther as possible from the center or rotation axis X, said magnets 4, 4' will obviously rotate at a greater speed, according to the increase of distance from center X, and this fact will increase the variation of the magnetic field read by the Hall effect sensor 3, so that said Hall effect sensor 3 reads a stronger signal according to the increase of speed of magnets 4, 4'.

Therefore it is clear that the present invention will increase the reliability of the traditional ejection systems, and moreover in a very advantageous way, uses the known Hall effect sensors, however improving considerably the production practice of ratiomotors with magnets, and improving reliability of said Hall effect ratiomotors, proposing a solution which is particularly economic, performing and very advantageous for the manufacturer, in addition of being very reliable as to operation and applicability to several ejection systems, that can be manufactured on a plurality of production lines. It is also to be noted that every Hall effect ratiomotor, in which at least one magnet 4, but preferably two magnets 4, 4' are positioned on a gear of the cascade inside the ratiomotor, are to be considered subject of the present invention.

Indeed it was further noted that, positioning the magnets 4, 4' not in the slow gear 2 but in any gear included in the cascade with the slow gear 2, then advantageously, if one of said faster rotating gears, e.g. with a ratio 10:1 relative to the slow gear 2, then such a gear makes ten revolutions relative to the slow gear 2, and this greater speed would allow to control the position of the ejection spiral with a greater resolution.

Moreover, in additional preferred embodiments, said sensor e.g. a Hall effect sensor, may be replaced for example by Reed sensors, inductive, optical or even capacitive sensors, or any other sensor adapted to the object of the present invention.

This and other preferred embodiments, in which the magnets are positioned on one of the gears arranged as a cascade in said ratiomotor, or on elements considered similar from the point of view of the above mentioned technical advantages, are to be considered object of the present invention, falling within the scope of the appended claims.

Claims

1. An ejection system for vending machines comprising at least a ratiomotor (1 ), a spiral and a position sensor arranged in said ratiomotor (1 ), said ratiomotor (1 ) comprising at least a motor (7), a connector (8), a motor driver (11 ), an RC circuit (10) and cascade gears including a slow gear (2), characterized by comprising at least a magnet (4, 4') arranged on at least one of said gears.

2. The ejection system of claim 1 , wherein at least one of said gears may be the slow gear (2).

3. The ejection system of claim 2, wherein on at least one of said gears, preferably two magnets (4, 4') are arranged.

4. The ejection system of claim 2, wherein at least one magnet (4, 4') may be positioned in any point of the circular crown defined by (Rb-Ra) of the slow gear (2).

5. The ejection system of claim 1 , wherein said position sensor may be a Hall effect sensor (3).

6. The ejection system of claim 1 , wherein said position sensor may be a Reed sensor, an optical capacitive or inductive sensor or any other sensor adapted for this function.