JP2002150362A - Maintenance timing notifying device of bill discrimination machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a maintenance timing noticing device of a bill discrimination machine for notifying abnormality in carrying bills caused by stains on a belt etc., of the bill discrimination machine. SOLUTION: A pulse counter part 21 counts the number of pulses outputted from a host interrupter 7 according to the distance of movement of a carrier mechanism while a bill optical sensor 8 is detecting bills being carried, and measures the length of a bill. A comparing part 23 compares the measured length with the maximum value in an allowable range of the length of a bill stored in a maximum value memory part 22, and when the measured length of the bill exceeds the maximum value, a counter 24 is counted up. A slippage generation judging part 25 monitors the number of times of exceeding the maximum value counted by the counter 24, and when the number of times is a prescribed number or more, generation of slippage of bills caused by the stain in the carrier mechanism is notified by an indication lamp 11. In this way, the carrier mechanism can be cleaned before the carriage of bills is totally abnormal, preventing reduction of the rate of acceptance of bills, so that no opportunity of the sales will be missed.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a maintenance time notification device for a bill validator, and more particularly to a device for conveying a bill in a bill validator mounted on a vending machine to notify a cleaning time. The present invention relates to a maintenance time notification device for a bill validator.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A bill validator mounted on a vending machine is composed of:
It has a transport mechanism for transporting the inserted bill to the identification unit and the bill storage unit. This transport mechanism consists of transport belts and rollers, and the identification unit performs authenticity judgment and the like while transporting banknotes with the transport belts and rollers, and transports banknotes determined as genuine bills to the banknote storage unit and stores them there. Is performed.

[0003] Since the identification is performed when the bill passes through the identification unit, the transport mechanism must transport the bill reliably. However, while the transport mechanism is being used, external dust, deposits on banknotes, dirt, and the like adhere to the transport belt and rollers and accumulate. If foreign matter adheres to the transport belt or roller, slippage occurs during transport of the banknote by the transport mechanism, and the banknote cannot be transported reliably. Accordingly, identification by the identification unit cannot be performed normally.

[0004] If the discrimination of the bill by the discriminating section fails, the bill is returned. If slippage occurs during the transport of the bill and the discrimination becomes impossible, the bill is frequently returned. The acceptance rate of banknotes is getting worse. Only when such a situation occurs, is it possible to notice adhering substances and dirt on the conveyor belt and the rollers, and perform cleaning and the like.

In such a case, if the cleaning time can be known before the acceptance of banknotes is completely deteriorated, it is possible to prevent a vending machine from missing a sales opportunity.

[0006]

However, by providing a sensor for detecting foreign matter adhesion or dirt such as a conveyor belt or a roller, the cleaning time can be known, but the cost of the bill validator increases. There was a problem.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention has been made in view of the above points, and informs the vending machine owner or operator of the fact that a conveyance abnormality has started to occur due to contamination of a belt of a bill validating machine. It is an object of the present invention to provide a maintenance time notification device for a bill validator, which has cleaning performed before the vending machine deteriorates, and prevents the vending machine from missing a sales opportunity due to a completely poor reception.

[0008]

According to the present invention, in order to solve the above problem, in a maintenance time notifying device of a bill validator for notifying a maintenance time of a transport mechanism for transporting a bill, a fixed position of the transport mechanism is transported. Pulse counting means for counting the number of pulses corresponding to the transport movement distance of the transport mechanism only during the passage of the middle bill, and the upper limit of the allowable width of the count value of the pulse corresponding to the length of the bill is stored. Upper limit storage means;
Comparing means for comparing the count value of the pulse counting means with the upper limit value stored in the upper limit value storing means, and that the count value of the pulse counting means exceeds the upper limit value by comparison by the comparing means. A bill validator comprising: a counter for storing the determined number of times; and a slippage occurrence determining means for notifying a maintenance time when the number of times stored in the counter is equal to or more than a predetermined value. Is provided.

According to such a maintenance time notification device for a bill validator, the pulse counting means measures the length of the bill transported by the transport mechanism, and the comparing means determines the upper limit value of the allowable width of the bill. When the length of the measured bill exceeds the upper limit value, the counter means is counted up, and the slip occurrence determining means monitors the number of times the bill exceeds the upper limit value stored in the counter means. When the number of times has reached a predetermined number or more, it is determined that slippage of the bill due to contamination of the transport mechanism has occurred, and the maintenance time of the bill validator is notified. As a result, the transport mechanism can be cleaned before the transport mechanism becomes dirty and the transport of the banknotes becomes completely abnormal, so that the acceptance rate of the banknotes is reduced and a sales opportunity is missed. Disappears.

[0010]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a basic configuration of a maintenance time notification device for a bill validator according to the present invention, and FIG.
FIG. 3 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a transport mechanism of the bill validator.

First, the transport mechanism of the bill validator will be described first. As shown in FIG. 2, the transport mechanism of the bill validator has a bill transport path 1, and a transport belt 2 and a plurality of rollers 3 are provided so as to be exposed in the bill transport path 1.
The transport belt 2 is connected to a bill transport motor 5 via a gear box 4. The gear box 4 is also connected with a slit disk 6. Thus, the bill transport motor 5 drives the transport belt 2 and simultaneously rotates the slit disk 6.

The slit disk 6 has a plurality of slits arranged at an equal angle over the entire circumference, and a photo interrupter 7 is provided with the slit disk 6 interposed therebetween. The photo-interrupter 7 detects light projection / shielding based on the presence / absence of a slit in the slit disk 6 and outputs a rectangular wave pulse. The bill transport path 1 is provided with a bill optical sensor 8 in which a light emitting element and a light receiving element are arranged to face each other. In this configuration example, the bill light sensor 8 is shown as a sensor that detects the transmitted light of the bill, but may be a reflection-type light sensor.

Bill light sensor 8 and photo interrupter 7
Is connected to a microcontroller 9 to which a storage device 10 and a display lamp 11 are connected.

In the transport mechanism of the above-structured bill validator, when the bill 12 is inserted into the bill transport path 1, the bill transport motor 5 is started, and is transported while being clamped by the transport belt 2 and the rollers 3. You. At this time, the slit disk 6 is also rotationally driven in synchronization with the driving of the transport belt 2 by the bill transport motor 5.

When the leading end of the bill 12 passes through the bill light sensor 8, the microcontroller 9
The counting of the pulses input from is started. Then, when the trailing end of the bill 12 passes through the bill light sensor 8, the microcontroller 9 ends counting of the pulses input from the photointerrupter 7. Here, the counted value of the pulse represents the length of the banknote 12, and usually has a constant value when there is no dirt on the conveyor belt 2 or the like. However, there is a range in this numerical value due to variations in the length of bills.

If the transport belt 2 becomes dirty or foreign matter adheres to the transport belt 2 and slips between the transport belt 2 and the banknote 12 during transport, the bill 12
Will stay. In this case, although the banknotes 12 are staying, the transport belt 2 is moving forward, and the slit disk 6 is also rotating in conjunction therewith. Therefore, when the bill 12 passes through the bill optical sensor 8, the count value becomes larger than the pulse count value in the normal case. In the present invention, when the situation where the count value has increased several times occurs, it is assumed that the transport mechanism has become dirty, and the display lamp 11 is used to notify that the cleaning time has come. To do.

Next, the configuration of the maintenance time notification device implemented by the microcontroller 9 will be described. The maintenance time notification device 20 of the bill validator, as shown in FIG. 1, a pulse counting unit 21 that counts pulses output from the photointerrupter 7 when the bill optical sensor 8 is detecting the bill 12, An upper limit value storage unit 22 that stores an upper limit value of an allowable width of a pulse count value corresponding to the length of the bill 12;
A comparison unit 23 that compares the count value of the pulse counting unit 21 with the upper limit value stored in the upper limit value storage unit 22. As a result of the comparison by the comparison unit 23, the count value of the pulse counting unit 21 exceeds the upper limit value. A counter 24 that increments the value by one each time the slip occurs, and a slip occurrence determining unit 2 that determines the occurrence of a slip condition on the bill transport path 1 based on the value of the counter 24 and notifies the maintenance time by the display lamp 11.
And 5. The counter 24 is connected to the storage open / close switch 26, and when the storage is opened and closed during maintenance and inspection of the bill validator, a reset signal is given to the counter 24 to clear the count value. The storage opening / closing switch 26 is also connected to the slip occurrence determination unit 25, and receives a reset signal given to the counter 24 to cancel the notification by the display lamp 11. Further, the pulse counting unit 21, the comparison unit 23, and the slip occurrence determination unit 25 of the maintenance time notification device 20 are realized by the microcontroller 9, and the upper limit value storage unit 22 and the counter 24 use a part of the storage device 10. Is achieved.

The operation of the maintenance time notification device 20 having the above configuration will be described with reference to the flowchart of FIG. FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a flow of processing of the maintenance time notifying device.

The processing of the maintenance time notifying device is performed by
Is inserted into the bill insertion slot of the bill validator, and a bill entry sensor (not shown) detects the entry of the bill 12 and starts the bill transport motor 5 to start.

First, it is determined whether or not the bill light sensor 8 has detected the entry of a bill (step S1). Since the bill light sensor 8 that detects the passage of a bill is a transmission-type light sensor, the transmitted light level of light increases when the bill is not passing, and the transmitted light level of light decreases when the bill passes. . Here, it is determined that the bill has entered the bill light sensor 8 at the time when the transmitted light level of the light is displaced from a state of rising to a state of falling. When the bill light sensor 8 detects the entry of the bill, the pulse counting unit 2 of the maintenance time notification device 20
1 counts the number of pulses input from the photointerrupter 7 (step S2). Next, it is determined whether or not the bill optical sensor 8 has detected passage of the bill (step S).
3). When the bill passes through the bill light sensor 8, the transmitted light level rises. By detecting this level, the passage of the bill is detected, and the counting of the pulses by the pulse counting unit 21 ends (step S4). This means that the length of the bill has been measured. When there is no dirt on the conveyor belt 2 or the like, this count value is usually a fixed numerical value, but since the bill length varies, there is a numerical change within the range of the variation.

If slippage occurs between the banknote and the banknote while the banknote is being conveyed due to dirt on the conveyor belt 2, the banknote will remain on the conveyor belt 2. In this case, although the banknotes remain, the conveyor belt 2 is moving forward, and the rotation of the slit disk 6 is continued in conjunction therewith. Therefore, the count value of the pulse measured while the bill passes through the bill optical sensor 8 is larger than the count value in a normal case.

Next, the comparing section 23 determines whether or not the count value of the pulse counting section 21 has exceeded the upper limit value stored in the upper limit value storage section 22 (step S).
5). If the value exceeds the upper limit, the bill length is determined to be abnormal, and +1 is added to the value of the counter 24 (step S).
6) If the value does not exceed the upper limit, the bill length is determined to be normal, and the process goes to step S6.

Next, the slip occurrence judging section 25 of the maintenance time notifying device 20 judges whether the count value is 3 or more with reference to the contents of the counter 24 (step S7). That is, the slip occurrence determination unit 25 monitors whether the bill has slipped three or more times. Here, counter 2
If the count value of 4 is less than 3, this process is terminated as it is. If it is 3 or more, the display lamp 11 is blinked to notify that the cleaning time of the transport belt 2 has come (step S8), and this process ends. I do.

In this way, after the occurrence of slippage of the bill is detected and the display lamp 11 is confirmed to be blinking,
Cleaning of the transport belt 2 and the like is performed. At this time, at the time of cleaning, by opening and closing the storage, the storage open / close switch 26 is operated, the count value of the counter 24 is cleared to 0, and the blinking display of the display lamp 11 is canceled.

In the above-described embodiment, the cleaning time is determined to be three or more times of the occurrence of slips of the banknote, but this number can be changed as necessary.

[0026]

As described above, according to the present invention, when the length of a bill is judged to be abnormally long by a process of measuring the length of a bill to be conveyed, the process is performed when the number of times is determined to be abnormally long. The cleaning mechanism is configured to notify the cleaning time on the assumption that slippage of the banknote occurs due to contamination of the transport mechanism and that the transport of the banknote is abnormal. As a result, the transport mechanism can be cleaned before the transport mechanism becomes dirty and the transport of the banknotes becomes completely abnormal, so that the acceptance rate of the banknotes is reduced and a sales opportunity is missed. Disappears.

In addition, since a special sensor for detecting contamination of the transport mechanism is not required, and the maintenance time is notified by the microcontroller, the cost of the bill validator can be kept low. .

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing a basic configuration of a maintenance time notification device for a bill validator according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a configuration of a transport mechanism of the bill validator.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a flow of processing of a maintenance time notifying device.

[Explanation of symbols]

 REFERENCE SIGNS LIST 1 bill transport path 2 transport belt 3 roller 4 gear box 5 bill transport motor 6 slit disk 7 photo interrupter 8 bill optical sensor 9 microcontroller 10 storage device 11 display lamp 12 bill 20 maintenance time notification device 21 pulse counting unit 22 upper limit storage Unit 23 Comparison unit 24 Counter 25 Slip occurrence determination unit 26 Storage switch

Claims (5)

[Claims] 1. A maintenance time notification device of a bill validator for notifying maintenance time of a transport mechanism for transporting bills, wherein the transport mechanism moves the transport mechanism only while the bill being transported passes through a fixed position of the transport mechanism. A pulse counting unit that counts the number of pulses corresponding to the distance; an upper limit storage unit that stores an upper limit of an allowable width of the count value of the pulse corresponding to the length of the bill; a count value obtained by the pulse counting unit; Comparing means for comparing the upper limit value stored in the upper limit value storing means with the upper limit value; and counter means for storing the number of times that the count value of the pulse counting means is determined to exceed the upper limit value by comparison by the comparing means. And a slip occurrence determining means for notifying a maintenance time when the number of times stored in the counter means is equal to or more than a predetermined value. apparatus. 2. The pulse counting means receives an output signal of a bill optical sensor arranged in the transport mechanism, detects the tip of the bill transported by the transport mechanism, and starts counting the pulses. The maintenance time notification device for a bill validator according to claim 1, wherein the trailing end of the bill is detected and the counting of the pulses is terminated. 3. The bill recognition device according to claim 1, wherein said pulse counting means counts the number of pulses output from a pulse generating means which operates in conjunction with the operation of said transport mechanism. Machine maintenance time notification device. 4. The maintenance time notification device for a bill validator according to claim 1, wherein said slip occurrence determination means notifies the maintenance time by blinking a display lamp. 5. The counter means receives a signal from a switch operating in conjunction with a cleaning operation of the transport mechanism, and clears a stored value of the number of times the count value exceeds the upper limit value. The maintenance time notification device for a bill validator according to claim 1, wherein: