JP4853468B2 - vending machine - Google Patents

Description

  The present invention relates to a vending machine that can be sold at a discount by purchasing a plurality of products all at once with a single deposit.

Conventionally, vending machines that allow a plurality of products to be purchased in vending machines are known, and vending machines that allow discount sales when purchasing a plurality of products are known ( For example, Patent Document 1).
As a discount sales method, for example, discount sales are performed by selling two products as a set, and two products, product A (sales price: 200 yen) and product B (sales price: 100 yen), are sold. When trying to purchase a product, the product A was discounted by 50 yen and sold as 150 yen, and the product B was sold as a fixed price of 100 yen and was processed for settlement.
In this case, when the product is selected in the order of product A and product B, the product A is first transported, and the product B is transported next.
By the way, in the above vending machine, after depositing 250 yen, if the trouble of carrying out occurs before carrying out the product B after carrying out the product A, the change can be returned by the following method. Was.
In other words, 150 yen, which is the sales amount after applying the discount on the product A, is collected, and 100 yen, which is the sales amount of the product B, is returned as change, or 200 yen, which is the fixed price vending machine price of the product A. However, a method of returning only 50 yen as change is known.
JP-A-6-131539

The change return method at the time of unloading by the vending machine has the following problems.
First, there is a problem that the sales effect as a set sale cannot be expected in the method of collecting 150 yen, which is the sales amount after applying the discount on the product A, and returning 100 yen, which is the sales amount of the product B as change. In the method of collecting 200 yen, which is the fixed price vending machine price of product A, and returning only 50 yen as change, a user who expects discount sales by set purchase will be the single price purchase of product A There is.
Therefore, the present invention has been made in view of the above points, and it is an object of the present invention to provide a vending machine capable of eliminating the problems associated with discounts in defective product export when purchasing a plurality of products.

In a vending machine that can sell at least one product at a discount when purchasing multiple products with a single deposit, when purchasing multiple products, regardless of product selection , The setting means to set the order to carry out the discounted product last, and after the completion of the delivery of the discounted product, the discount price of the discounted product is subtracted from the deposit amount. And a means for returning the amount obtained by subtracting the list price of the shipped goods.
In the vending machine, after the first product is carried out, the selection of the discount target product can be canceled by operating the operation unit on the front surface of the vending machine, and the carried out product is a regular product.

  According to the present invention, at the time of discount sales by set sales, it is always possible to carry out the discount target product last, thereby obtaining the effect of eliminating the problem related to refund when the carry-out failure occurs.

Hereinafter, an embodiment of a vending machine according to the present invention will be described with reference to FIGS.
First, an example of a vending machine as an object of an embodiment of the present invention will be briefly described with reference to FIGS.
The vending machine illustrated here sells products such as canned beverages, beverages in plastic bottles, and beverages in paper packs in a cooled or heated state, and includes a main body cabinet 1.
The main body cabinet 1 is a rectangular parallelepiped housing whose front opening 1 a is opened and closed by an outer door 2. In selling the commodity C, the coin insertion slot 3 for inserting coins, the banknote insertion slot 4 for inserting banknotes, the amount of money inserted by the user, the amount of change, etc. Display 5 for displaying various necessary information to the outside, return lever 6 for returning inserted coins and inserted banknotes, coin return port 7 for returning coins, product outlet for taking out product C 8. Configuration required for selling the product C, such as an operation unit 9 for selecting a product, a product storage column, a product bucket, a transparent plate 10 for the user to visually check the product C, etc. It is. The outer door 2 is provided with a door body 11 for opening and closing the product outlet 8. Moreover, the said transparent plate 10 is formed with the heat insulating material. As shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, for example, a commodity storage chamber 14 is defined in the main body cabinet 1 by the transparent plate 10 and the heat insulating plate 13. The product storage chamber 14 includes a cooling means 15 for cooling the air inside the product storage chamber 14 such as an evaporator of a refrigeration cycle, and a product storage chamber 14 such as an electric heater which is not explicitly shown in the figure. Heating means for heating the air inside is provided, and it can be maintained at a preset temperature state by driving the cooling means 15 or driving the heating means.

The product storage chamber 14 is provided with a product storage device 20 configured by arranging a plurality of product storage racks 25 in the vertical direction. Each product storage rack 25 is configured by arranging a plurality of product storage columns 30 side by side in the left-right width direction. A plurality of products C are placed in the product storage passages defined in the individual product storage columns 30 in the depth width direction. Can be accommodated in an aligned state.
As shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, each commodity storage column 30 includes a conveyor unit 31. The conveyor unit 31 is fixed to, for example, a pair of rollers 32a and 32b, a belt-like belt 33 stretched between the pair of rollers 32a and 32b, and a rotating shaft portion of the roller 32a disposed on the near side, and a product bucket The driving gear 66 includes a driving force transmission gear 34 that meshes with the driving gear 66 and rotates the driving gear 66 when the driving gear 66 rotates.
The product storage column 30 included in the product storage rack 25 includes a partition plate 37 and the conveyor unit 31.
In this conveyor unit 31, when the drive gear transmission gear 34 is engaged with the drive gear of the product bucket and the drive gear of the product bucket is driven to rotate, the roller 32a on the near side rotates, whereby the belt As the product 33 is conveyed, the product C placed on the belt 33 is paid out from the product delivery outlet 35 on the front side.

As shown in FIGS. 6 and 7, a commodity transport unit 60 is provided inside the main body cabinet 1. The product transport unit 60 is a portion on the near side of the product storage device 20 and is disposed on the back side of the transparent plate 10.
The product transport unit 60 is driven to move the first rail body 64 along the vertical direction with respect to the pair of second rail bodies 62a and 62b in a portion on the near side of the product storage device 20. Thus, it is possible to occupy the first rail body 64 at an arbitrary height position, in other words, occupy the first rail body 64 at a position corresponding to the arbitrary commodity storage rack 25. In addition, by moving the product bucket 65 in the left-right width direction with respect to the first rail body 64, the product bucket 65 is occupied at any left and right positions, in other words, the product bucket 65 is placed at any product storage column 30. It is possible to occupy the position opposite to the product payout opening 35.
Next, the product storage device 20 according to the present invention applied to the vending machine will be described. As shown in FIG. 7, the product storage device 20 includes guide means 69 that guides the movement of the product storage rack 25 at the product sales position set in advance in the product storage chamber 14 to the front side.
The guide means 69 includes a pair of guide plates 71a and 71b attached to a pair of side plates 70a and 70b facing each other in the left-right width direction, and a pair of guide rails and a pair of rollers (not shown) attached to the product storage rack 25. It is.

In the vending machine configured as described above, the product C stored in the product storage chamber 14 is maintained at a desired temperature state by driving the cooling means 15 or the heating means in the sales standby state. .
In this standby state, when a predetermined amount of coins is inserted from the coin insertion slot 3 and the product C is selected by the operation of the operation unit 9, the product transport unit 60 is driven to store the selected product C. The product bucket 65 is disposed opposite to the storage column 30, and the driving force transmission gear 34 of the product storage column 30 and the drive gear 66 of the product bucket 65 are engaged with each other. In this state, when the drive gear 66 of the product bucket 65 is rotationally driven, only one product C is delivered to the product bucket 65. The product bucket 65 to which the product C has been delivered moves to a position facing the product take-out port 8 by further driving of the product transport unit 60. If the door 11 is opened in this state, the product C arranged in the product bucket 65 can be taken out.
In the case of set sales, if two products are selected by the operation unit 9, the above sales operation is repeated twice.
FIG. 1 is a control block diagram showing an embodiment of the present invention, in which 100 is a main control unit, and the main control unit 100 has a memory unit 101 for storing a control program and a memory for storing various setting data. The drive control part 104 for driving drive systems, such as the part 102, the remote control 103, the conveyor unit 31 of the goods storage apparatus, and the goods conveyance unit 60, and the money processing part 105 are connected.

Further, the main control unit 100 is connected to the display 5, the operation unit 9, and the cooling unit 15, and the operation unit 9 includes a numeric keypad button 9A, a purchase button 9B, and a correction button 9C.
The remote controller 103 is an input unit for a product storage device administrator or the like to perform price setting for each column, input of a discount amount, set sales column setting for discount setting, and the like in this embodiment. It is equipped inside the door 2. Although not shown in the figure, the remote controller 103 includes a display unit that displays various input keys and setting contents.
Data set by the remote controller 103 is stored in the memory unit 102.
Here, the setting example will be described. FIG. 3 is a diagram showing an example of price setting, and there are items of column number, list price, discount amount, corresponding to column numbers 1, 2, 3... N. The fixed price and the discount amount are input by the remote controller 103 and stored in the memory unit 102. In the present embodiment, the product related to column number 2 is a discount target at the time of set sales.
FIG. 4 is a diagram showing an example of discount setting. For example, column numbers dedicated to discounts by set sales are assigned as column numbers 90, 91, 92... 9n, and column numbers corresponding to the column numbers are assigned to FIG. In this case, the column number 90 dedicated to discount is input with the numeric keypad button 9A and the purchase button 9B is pressed, whereby the column numbers 1, 2 set to the column number 90 dedicated to discount are set. Products are carried out.

  In the above discount setting, the products sold in a set are fixed in advance, but there is also a method of allowing the purchaser to select, and the column number 90 for discount is input by the numeric keypad 9A, and the column numbers 1 and 2 are entered by the numeric keypad. By inputting at 9A, the products of column numbers 1 and 2 are carried out. The carry-out order is also stored in the memory unit 102. As shown in FIG. 4, when the set sales column is fixed, the product with the column number for which the discount amount is set is carried out later. In addition, when the purchaser inputs the column number of the set sale using the numeric keypad, the purchaser stores the data in the temporary area of the memory unit 102 in the order of the input column numbers. When the column number set for discount is input first, the order of the column numbers is changed, and the product is carried out based on the changed order. In this configuration, the carry-out procedure will be described based on the flowchart of FIG. First, if there is a deposit at the coin slot 3, and in this case there is a deposit of 250 yen (step S1, Yes), it is determined whether there is a discount sales column number input by set sales (step S2). Is input by the numeric keypad button 9A (step S2, Yes), it is determined whether or not the purchase button 9B is input (step S3). When the purchase button 9B is operated (step S3, Yes), this embodiment Since the purchaser directly inputs the column number, the system waits for input of the column number. Therefore, it is determined whether or not the column number is input (step S4). First, when the column number “2” is input by the ten key button 9A (step S4, Yes), it is determined whether or not the purchase button 9B is input (step S4). S5) When the purchase button 9B is operated (step S5, Yes), the next product for set sale is selected. Here, it is determined whether or not the next column number is input (step S6). When the next column number “1” is input by the numeric keypad button 9A (step S6, Yes), it is determined whether or not the purchase button 9B is input. (Step S7) When the purchase button 9B is operated (Step S7, Yes), as described above, the stored contents of the memory 102 are read out by the main control unit 100, and the column number set for discount is input first. In this embodiment, since the discount target column number is input first, the export order is changed, and the column number 1, which is different from the input order, is changed. 2 is switched to the carry-out order (step S8). Here, first, the commodity carrying-out operation of the column number 1 is performed, that is, when the commodity transport unit 60 is driven, the commodity bucket 65 is disposed opposite to the commodity storage column 30 that accommodates the commodity C of the selected column number 1. Then, the driving force transmission gear 34 of the commodity storage column 30 and the driving gear 66 of the commodity bucket 65 are engaged with each other. In this state, when the drive gear 66 of the product bucket 65 is rotationally driven, only one product C is delivered to the product bucket 65. The product bucket 65 to which the product C has been delivered moves to a position facing the product take-out port 8 by further driving of the product transport unit 60. In this state, when the door body 11 is opened and the product C arranged in the product bucket 65 is taken out, the delivery of the product of the column number 1 is completed (step S9, Yes), and the price of the column number 1 is determined from the deposit amount. Is subtracted (step S10). On the other hand, here, when a carry-out abnormality occurs (No in step S9), the entire deposit amount is returned from the coin return slot 7 (step S11), and the process is terminated. Next, a product carry-out operation for column number 2, which is the next product, is entered, and the product bucket 65 is disposed opposite to the product storage column 30 containing the product C of column number 2 selected in the same manner as the product of column number 1 above. Then, the driving force transmission gear 34 of the commodity storage column 30 and the driving gear 66 of the commodity bucket 65 are engaged with each other. In this state, when the drive gear 66 of the product bucket 65 is rotationally driven, only one product C is delivered to the product bucket 65. The product bucket 65 to which the product C has been delivered moves to a position facing the product take-out port 8 by further driving of the product transport unit 60. In this state, when the door 11 is opened and the product C arranged in the product bucket 65 is taken out to the outside, when the delivery of the product with the column number 2 is completed (step S12, Yes), the price of the column number 2 is calculated from the deposit amount. Is subtracted (step S13), and if there is a change, it is returned from the coin return slot 7 and the process is terminated. On the other hand, when a carry-out abnormality occurs (step S12, No), the amount obtained by subtracting the sales price of the commodity with column number 1 from the deposit amount is returned from the coin return slot 7 (step S14), and the process is terminated. To do.

Next, as shown in FIG. 4, when a set sale product is fixed in advance, the flow from step S4 to step S7 is omitted in the flowchart shown in FIG. It is determined whether or not a discount column number has been input (step S2). When the discount column number 90 is input by the numeric keypad button 9A (step S2, Yes), it is determined whether or not the purchase button 9B has been input (step S3). When the button 9B is operated (step S3, Yes), the commodity carry-out operation of column number 1 in step S9 is performed.
Note that if the correction button 9C is pressed before the operation of unloading the product of column number 2, it is possible to cancel, so that only the fixed price product is unloaded, which is inconvenient for both the purchaser and the sales side. Not profitable. Further, the correction button 9C can be canceled by selecting it at each step stage.
In addition, in the case of independent sales, it is possible to sell by inputting a normal column number without inputting the discount sales column number input by the set sales in step S2.
Further, in the present embodiment, the example of the combination of two products has been described with respect to the set sales, but three or more products may be used, and in that case, the last product to be carried out is a discount target. is there.

  In the present embodiment, the vending machine that takes the merchandise to the merchandise storage column position in the merchandise transport unit has been described as an example. However, the present invention is not limited to this vending machine, and all types of vending machines are used. In the product selection button method provided for each product sample instead of the numeric keypad button 9A, discount sale by set sale is performed by selecting the product first, and instead of the correction button 9C It is also conceivable to use the return lever 6.

It is a control block diagram which shows one embodiment in this invention. It is a flowchart which shows the operation | movement procedure of one Embodiment in this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of price setting of one embodiment in this invention. It is a figure which shows the example of a discount setting of one Embodiment in this invention. It is a front view which shows the vending machine to which the goods storage apparatus which concerns on this invention is applied. FIG. 6 is a side cross-sectional view taken along the line AA in FIG. 5, and is an explanatory view showing a product storage device provided in the vending machine shown in FIG. 5. It is a cross-sectional view by arrow BB in FIG.

Explanation of symbols

DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Main body cabinet 8 Product outlet 9 Operation part 9A Numeric keypad 9B Purchase button 9C Correction button 10 Transparent board 11 Door 14 Product storage chamber 15 Cooling means 20 Product storage device 25 Product storage rack 30 Product storage column 31 Conveyor unit 35 Product payment Exit 60 Commodity transport unit 65 Commodity bucket 100 Main control unit 101 Memory unit 102 Memory unit 103 Remote controller 104 Drive control unit

Claims (2)

In a vending machine that can sell at least one product at a discount when purchasing multiple products with a single deposit, when purchasing multiple products, regardless of product selection , The setting means to set the order to carry out the discounted product last, and after the completion of the delivery of the discounted product, the discount price of the discounted product is subtracted from the deposit amount. A vending machine comprising means for returning the amount obtained by subtracting the fixed price of the undelivered product . The vending machine according to claim 1, wherein after the first product is carried out, the selection of the discount target product can be canceled by operating the operation unit on the front side of the vending machine, and the carried-out product is a regular product. Vending machine characterized by

Images