JP2002279501A - Method for controlling automatic vending machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a method for controlling an automatic vending machine capable of easily and securely cancel the command to stop sales, by the closing and opening of the filling door accompanied by the operation to replenish or replace commodities. SOLUTION: Inside of a main body case with a filling door, a rack is provided for dispensing accommodated commodities one by one based on a sales command and a catcher mechanism for detecting and receiving the dispensed commodities and conveying them to a commodity take-out port. If the commodity is not detected by a commodity detecting sensor 5 after a conveyor motor 4 is operated for a certain period of time, the commodities in the rack are considered to be soled out and the sold-out data are stored in the RAM in a conveying mechanism control part 3. The sold-out data can be cancelled by the closing and opening of the filling door during replenishing the commodities.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a method for controlling a vending machine, and more particularly, to replenishing a product by opening a filling door even if a sales stop command has been issued due to a sold-out product or an expiration date of the product. And swapping,
The present invention relates to a vending machine control method capable of canceling a sales stop command by closing a filling door again.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, vending machines capable of seeing through a product in a warehouse and its selling operation have been provided since the desire to purchase the product can be further stimulated. As such a vending machine, there is known a vending machine including a rack for paying out stored products one by one based on a sales order, and a catcher mechanism for receiving the discharged product and transporting the product to a product outlet. Have been.

[0003] Although not shown in the drawings, the catcher mechanism receives a product to be paid out one by one from a rack and takes it out to a product take-out port based on a sales command, and moves the bucket up, down, left and right. And an XY transport device positioned in front of an arbitrary rack.

[0004] The bucket is discharged from the rack by a gate opening / closing mechanism for opening / closing a gate at the front edge of the rack, a coupling gear for operating a rack commodity discharging mechanism (for example, a so-called pusher type or conveyor type mechanism). Roller belt formed so as to receive the received product and discharge the product to the outside of the bucket (product outlet), a product detection sensor for detecting the received product, and a conveyor motor for operating the connection gear and the roller belt. And a bucket flapper that opens and closes when a product is sent from the bucket to the outside, and a bucket flapper open / close detection sensor that detects the opening and closing of the bucket hopper.

Next, the basic operation of the catcher mechanism and the rack will be described. First, the bucket is transported by the XY transport device to a position in front of a rack in which a product to be sold is stored based on a sales command. At this time,
The coupling gear of the bucket meshes with the gear of the commodity delivery mechanism of the rack.

Next, the bucket opens the gate of the rack by the gate opening / closing mechanism, drives the connecting gear by operating the conveyor motor, and drives the commodity delivery mechanism of the rack. Then, the bucket receives the goods paid out in front, and when this is detected by the goods detection sensor, the conveyor motor is stopped to stop the goods discharging operation of the rack, and the gate of the rack is closed by the gate opening / closing mechanism.

[0007] When a product is sold out, even if the conveyor motor is operated for a certain period of time and the product delivery mechanism of the rack is driven, if the product cannot be detected by the product detection sensor of the bucket, it is determined that the product is sold out and the selling operation of the rack is stopped. Is done. This sales stop command was released by operating the remote control or the keyboard after the product was refilled in the rack.

[0008] The expiration date of the goods stored in the rack is determined by a timer function incorporated in the control unit, based on whether the expiration date entered in advance at the time of filling the goods is expired. The rack is checked at any time, and if it is determined that the expiration date has passed, the selling operation of the rack is stopped. This order to cancel the sales was also released by operating the remote control or the keyboard after the products in the rack were replaced.

[0009]

However, inputting a release command by operating a remote controller or a keyboard takes a lot of trouble when the products to be handled are diversified. However, there is a problem that the sales opportunity may be lost without canceling the sales.

The present invention has been made in view of the above, and provides a control method of a vending machine which can easily and surely cancel a sales stop command by opening and closing a filling door upon replenishment and replacement of goods. The purpose is to do.

[0011]

According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vending machine control method comprising: a rack for paying out stored goods one by one based on a sales order; And a catcher mechanism for detecting and receiving the dispensed product and transporting it to the product outlet in a main body case having a filling door, and after performing the dispensing operation on the rack for a predetermined time, detecting the product by the catcher mechanism. Is not performed, in the vending machine control method in which the merchandise of the rack is regarded as sold out and a command to halt the selling operation of the merchandise pertaining to the rack, the selling operation is stopped by opening and closing the filling door. The command is canceled.

Therefore, the sold-out data can be easily and reliably released by opening and closing the filling door at the time of product replenishment, and the selling operation can be resumed. In other words, there is no need to input a complicated release command using the remote controller or keyboard, and even if the products to be handled are diversified, the sales stop command will not be released and the sales opportunity will be lost due to forgetting to input data or omission of data. Can be avoided.

According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided a vending machine control method, comprising: a rack for paying out stored products one by one based on a sales order; A catcher mechanism for transporting to a take-out port is provided in a main body case having a filling door, and when the goods stored in the rack have passed the expiration date, a command to stop the selling operation of the goods related to the rack is issued. In the method for controlling a vending machine, a command to stop the vending operation is released by opening and closing the filling door.

Therefore, the expiration date of the expiration date can be easily and reliably released by opening and closing the filling door at the time of refilling the product.
The selling operation can be resumed. In other words, there is no need to input a complicated release command using the remote controller or keyboard, and even if the products to be handled are diversified, the sales stop command will not be released and the sales opportunity will be lost due to forgetting to input data or omission of data. Can be avoided.

[0015]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An embodiment of a vending machine control method according to the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the drawings. The present invention is not limited by the embodiment.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a control device of a vending machine according to an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a sold-out detection operation of a product, and FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a sold-out cancellation operation. is there.

The main control unit 1 has a CPU for controlling the entire vending machine, a control program is stored in a ROM (not shown), and control data is stored in a RAM (not shown). A timer for measuring time is provided in the main control unit 1. The rack for storing the products is provided in a main body case having a filling door (both are not shown). The rack may be of a pusher type, a conveyor type, a spiral type, or the like.

The opening / closing of the filling door is detected by a filling door opening / closing detection switch 2 connected to the main control section 1. The transport mechanism controller 3 controls a catcher mechanism described later, and includes a ROM (not shown)
It has an AM and is connected to the main control unit 1 by a communication line 6.

The ROM of the transport mechanism control section 3 stores programs necessary for sales operations. For example, an operation control program for the conveyor motor 4 and a product detection sensor 5
Is stored. The RAM of the transport mechanism control section 3 stores data on elapsed time since the product was filled and data on sold out for each column. The data stored in the RAM is reset by opening and closing a filling door (not shown) as described later.

A catcher mechanism (not shown) receives a product to be paid out one by one from a rack and carries it out to a product outlet (not shown), based on a sales command from the main controller 1. An X-Y transfer device (not shown) for moving the bucket up, down, left, and right and positioning it in front of an arbitrary rack.

The bucket is discharged from the rack by a gate opening / closing mechanism for opening and closing the gate of the rack, a coupling gear for operating a rack commodity discharging mechanism (for example, a so-called pusher type or conveyor type mechanism). A roller belt formed so as to receive the product and to be able to discharge the product to the outside of the bucket (product outlet), a product detection sensor 5 for detecting the received product, and a conveyor motor for operating the connection gear and the roller belt. 4, a bucket flapper that opens and closes when a product is sent out from the bucket, and a bucket flapper open / close detection sensor that detects opening and closing of the bucket hopper.

Next, the basic operation of the catcher mechanism and the rack will be described. First, the bucket is the main control unit 1
Is transported by the XY transport device to the front position of the rack in which the product to be sold is stored, based on the sales command by At this time, the coupling gear of the bucket meshes with the gear of the commodity delivery mechanism of the rack.

Next, the bucket opens the gate of the rack by the gate opening / closing mechanism, and drives the connecting gear by operating the conveyor motor 4 to drive the commodity delivery mechanism of the rack. Then, when the bucket receives the product paid out in front and detects this with the product detection sensor 5,
The conveyor motor 4 is stopped to stop the commodity delivery operation of the rack, and the gate of the rack is closed by the gate opening / closing mechanism.

Incidentally, the bucket which has received the product is X
-It is transported to the product outlet by the Y transport device. Then, the conveyor motor 4 is driven again to operate the roller belt, and the product is sent from the opened bucket flapper to the product outlet.

Next, the detection of a sold-out product will be described with reference to FIG. First, the conveyor motor 4 is started (Step S10), and if the product cannot be detected by the product detection sensor 5 of the bucket even after operating for a predetermined time (t) (Step S11, Step S12), the corresponding column is sold out (Step S13). Then, the selling operation of the rack is stopped and the rack enters a standby state (step S14). This sold-out data is stored in the RAM of the transport mechanism control unit 3.

Next, the sell-out cancellation operation will be described with reference to FIG. If the product is sold out, a service person or the like opens the filling door and refills the product, so if it is determined whether the filling door has been opened or closed, it can be considered that the product has been refilled. it can. Therefore,
If the filling door is opened (Yes at Step S20), it is regarded that the product has been replenished, and the RA of the transport mechanism control unit 3 is determined.
The sold-out data of all the columns stored in M are released (step S21), the suspension of the selling operation is released, and a standby state is set (step S22).

As described above, according to the control method of the vending machine according to this embodiment, the sold-out data can be easily and surely released by opening and closing the filling door at the time of refilling the product.
The selling operation can be resumed. Therefore, it is not necessary to input a complicated release command using a remote control or a keyboard, and even if the products to be handled are diversified, the sales stop command is not released and the sales opportunity is lost due to forgetting to input data or omission of data. Can be avoided.

In the above embodiment, the operation of releasing sold-out data of a product has been described. However, the present invention can be applied to the operation of releasing expired data of a product. That is, the timer of the main control unit 1 measures time data from the time of product filling, and determines whether the expiration date has passed. If it is determined that the expiration date has passed, the corresponding column is sold out. If this sold-out cancellation operation is performed by opening and closing the filling door in the same manner as in the above embodiment, the same effect as above can be expected.

[0029]

As described above, according to the vending machine control method of the present invention (claim 1), a rack for paying out stored goods one by one based on a sales order,
A catcher mechanism for detecting and receiving the dispensed product and transporting it to the product outlet is provided in the main body case having a filling door, and after performing the dispensing operation on the rack for a predetermined time, the product detection by the catcher mechanism is performed. Otherwise, in the vending machine control method in which the merchandise of the rack is regarded as sold out and a command to halt the selling operation of the merchandise pertaining to the rack, a command to stop the selling operation by opening and closing the filling door Is released, the sold-out data can be easily and reliably released by opening and closing the filling door when refilling the product, and the selling operation can be resumed.
In other words, there is no need to input a complicated release command using the remote controller or keyboard, and even if the products to be handled are diversified, the sales stop command will not be released and the sales opportunity will be lost due to forgetting to input data or omission of data. Can be avoided.

According to the vending machine control method of the present invention (claim 2), a rack for paying out stored goods one by one based on a sales command, and detecting and receiving the paid out goods. And a catcher mechanism for transporting the product to the product outlet in a main body case having a filling door, and when the products stored in the rack have passed the expiration date, the selling operation of the product related to the rack is stopped. In the vending machine control method, the stop command of the selling operation is canceled by opening and closing the filling door, so that the expiration date can be easily and reliably canceled by opening and closing the filling door when refilling the product. , The selling operation can be resumed. In other words, there is no need to input a complicated release command using the remote controller or keyboard, and even if the products to be handled are diversified, the sales stop command will not be released and the sales opportunity will be lost due to forgetting to input data or omission of data. Can be avoided.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a control device of a vending machine according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing a sold-out detection operation of a product.

FIG. 3 is a flowchart showing a sold-out cancellation operation.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 Main control unit 2 Filling door open / close detection switch 3 Transport mechanism control unit 4 Conveyor motor 5 Product detection sensor 6 Communication line

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continuing on the front page (72) Inventor Takeshi Tamura 1-1-1, Tanabeshinda, Kawasaki-ku, Kawasaki-shi, Kanagawa Prefecture F-term in Fuji Electric Co., Ltd. 3E044 AA01 CB03 CC03 CC10 DB12 DB14 FB03

Claims (2)

[Claims] 1. A main body having a filling door, a rack for paying out stored goods one by one based on a sales order, a catcher mechanism for detecting and receiving the paid out goods and transporting the goods to a goods outlet. If the product is not detected by the catcher mechanism after the rack has been dispensed for a predetermined time,
In the control method of a vending machine for instructing stop of a selling operation of a product related to the rack assuming that the product of the rack is sold out, the stop command of the selling operation is canceled by opening and closing the filling door. A method for controlling a vending machine. 2. A main body having a filling door, a rack for paying out stored goods one by one based on a sales order, a catcher mechanism for detecting and receiving the paid out goods and transporting the goods to a goods outlet. A method for controlling a vending machine in a case where a product stored in the rack has passed the expiration date when the product stored in the rack has passed the expiration date. A vending machine control method characterized by canceling a vending operation stop command.