JPH0113155B2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention]

[Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a coin processing device used in public telephones and the like. [Prior art] Generally, in public telephones, etc., an insertion detection sensor, a coin sorting device, and a coin sorting device are sequentially arranged on the coin trajectory from the coin insertion slot, and the insertion detection sensor detects the coins inserted from the coin insertion slot. After that, the material, diameter, and thickness of the inserted coin are inspected by a coin sorting device to determine the authenticity and type of the inserted coin, and if the coin is suitable, the coin sorting device is driven and the coin is transferred to a predetermined storage section. Accumulating coin handling equipment is used. By the way, in this type of coin processing device, if coins are continuously inserted, the coin sorting device may make an erroneous judgment or the coin sorting device may make an erroneous sorting. Therefore, in order to solve such misjudgments and misallocations, as shown in Japanese Patent Publication No. 57-52634, a timer is started by detecting the insertion of a preceding coin, and within the set time of this timer, When the insertion of a subsequent coin is detected, the sorting operation of the coin sorting device is stopped, the timer is restarted, the preceding coin and the succeeding coin are returned, and the restarted timer is also used to determine whether the subsequent coin is to be returned. A device has been proposed that monitors continuous input one after another. [Problems to be Solved by the Invention] However, in this conventional device, power is constantly supplied to the input detection sensor in order to monitor the next consecutive input even while the timer is restarting, and the coin sorting device is also constantly supplied with power. Supplying power. For this reason, in public telephones using a central power supply system, which has extremely low power consumption, in order to prevent the erroneous accumulation of coins that are continuously inserted, a coin insertion detection sensor that consumes relatively large amount of power is used.
In particular, continuing to supply power to the optical power-on detection sensor has the drawback of imposing a heavy load on the local power supply. [Means for Solving the Problems] The present invention has been made to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks, and it restarts the timer by detecting the insertion of a subsequent coin, and uses an optical sensor while the timer is restarting. The device is equipped with a control device that stops the coin insertion detection and controls the coin sorting device to the coin return side.The purpose is to reduce the amount of power consumed and to reliably prevent erroneous accumulation due to continuous coin insertion. The purpose of this invention is to provide a processing device. In other words, the coin inserted while the timer for continuous insertion detection is restarting, that is, the third coin inserted immediately after the continuous insertion of the first and second coins is detected, is considered to be a continuously input coin in relation to the second coin. This was done with a focus on the fact that it should be recognized as an item and that it would eventually be returned.The explanation with reference to the functional block diagram in Figure 1a is as follows. . The first inserted coin is first detected by the insertion detection sensor 4, which is an optical sensor, and the timer 9 is started. When the timer 9 starts, power is supplied from the power supply means 101 to the coin sorting device 5, and the inserted coins are sorted by the coin sorting device 5. When it is determined that the inserted coin is a genuine coin based on the sorting result, the coin sorting device 5 outputs a genuine coin determination signal, and this genuine coin determination signal drives the accumulation lever 8, which is a coin sorting device, to the coin accumulation side. Ru. Next, when a second coin is inserted while the timer 9 is operating following the first inserted coin, this second coin is detected by the subsequent coin insertion detection means 102. By this detection, the power supply means 10
The power supply from 1 to the coin sorting device 5 is stopped,
At the same time, the subsequent coin insertion detection means 102 restarts the timer 9. Also, this timer 9
During the re-operation, the insertion detection stop means 103 stops the insertion detection sensor 4 from detecting the inserted coin. On the other hand, when the power supply to the coin sorting device 5 is stopped, the storage lever 8 returns to the restored state and becomes inoperative, and is mechanically held at the coin return side, which is the restored position. Therefore, the subsequent third input coin is returned to the return side. Specifically, as shown in the basic configuration diagram in FIG. A storage lever 8 is arranged, which is driven by the magnet 6 to the storage side (the side shown by the broken line) and by the recovery magnet 7 to the return side (the side shown by the solid line). Start with a coin
A timer 9 for monitoring the CN insertion interval and a control device 10 for controlling the sorting operation of the coin sorting device 5 and the operation of the storage magnet 6 and the recovery magnet 7 according to the sorting results of the input coins and the input state are provided. It is something that [Function] While the timer 9 is operating, the coin sorting device 5 is supplied with power for its sorting operation, and if a subsequent coin is inserted while the timer 9 is operating, the timer 9 is restarted upon detection of the insertion. be done. From the restart of the timer 9 to the end of the timer time, the operation power supply to the coin sorting device 5 and the input detection sensor 4 is stopped, and the coin sorting device 5 is driven by the genuine coin determination signal. The control of the storage magnet 6 is cut off, the storage lever 8 remains on the return side, and the inserted coins are returned to the return unit 11 via the return track 12 while the timer 9 is restarted. [Embodiment] FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram showing an embodiment of a coin processing mechanism in a public telephone to which the present invention is applied. In the figure, a two-dot chain line indicated by the symbol 20 represents the external appearance of the side surface of the telephone main body. A coin slot 21 is provided at the upper right side of the figure, and a storage section 22 for storing coins in response to a billing signal from the station is provided at the lower left side of the figure. In the coin track 23 between the coin input port 21 and the storage section 22, in order from the coin input port 21, a deposit detection sensor 24, an overflow rail 25, a material sorting coil 26, a dimension detection coil 27, a backflow detection sensor 28, an accumulation Coin guide 29, accumulation lever 30, accumulation detection sensor 31,
An accumulation confirmation sensor 32, a storage lever 33, and a storage detection sensor 34 are arranged. Also, coin trajectory 2
A return track 35 is provided below 3, and is configured such that the inserted coins that are not allowed to be accumulated from the overflow rail 25 or the accumulated coin guide 29 are returned to the return section 36. On the other hand, on the back side of the return track 35, a storage magnet 37 and a recovery magnet 38 are arranged as shown by broken lines. It opens and closes the entrance of the storage track 23a, which is comprised of a track between. The insertion detection sensor 24 detects the insertion of a coin from the coin insertion slot 21, and is composed of a light emitting diode and a light receiving element for optically detecting the insertion of a coin. When the storage lever 30 is driven toward the storage side, the overflow rail 25 is pushed toward the front in the figure by a lever (not shown) about the support shaft 25b, so that the overflow rail 25 is connected to the input detection sensor 24. This device disconnects the coin track 23 from the dimension detection coil 27, causes the inserted coin to fall onto the return track 35, and returns it to the return section 36, and operates in conjunction with the accumulation lever 30. The material selection coil 26 detects the material of the inserted coin. Specifically, it consists of a transmitting coil and a receiving coil that are arranged opposite to each other with the coin track 23 in between, and outputs an output voltage from the receiving coil according to the magnetic permeability of the inserted coin. The output voltage corresponding to the eddy current loss of the inserted coin is extracted from one transmitting coil, and based on these output voltages, iron coins and genuine nickel coins are discriminated. The dimension detection coil 27 detects the thickness and diameter of the inserted coin by changes in a high frequency magnetic field formed in the space of the coin orbit 23, and is specifically composed of a thickness detection coil and a diameter detection coil. The backflow detection sensor 28 detects when coins that have been determined to be genuine coins by the material selection coil 26 and the size detection coil 27 and are once stored are intentionally withdrawn by tilting the phone body or otherwise, and are connected to a light emitting diode. and a light receiving element. When the accumulation lever 30 is driven toward the return side, the accumulation coin guide 29 has its lower end 29b biased toward the front in the figure with the support shaft 29a as a fulcrum by a weight attached to its upper end. , thereby opening the side wall of the coin track between the backflow detection sensor 28 and the accumulation lever 30, allowing the inserted coin to fall into the return track 35 and return it to the return unit 36.
Accumulation lever 30 similar to overflow rail 25
It works in conjunction with. In this case, in this embodiment, only a maximum of three coins can be stored in the storage track 23a between the storage lever 30 and the storage lever 33, so when the fourth genuine coin is inserted, the storage track 23a is interlocked with the storage lever 30. By keeping the accumulating coin guide 29 driven to the accumulating side and accumulating the fourth genuine coin at this position, the decrease in the number of coins that can be accumulated due to the short coin trajectory 23 is compensated for. When the input coin is determined to be a genuine coin, the storage lever 30 is driven by the storage magnet 37 in the depth direction in the figure, so that the storage lever 30 moves along the storage track 23a.
When driven to the accumulation side by the accumulation magnet 37, the recovery magnet 38 opens.
The storage side driving state is mechanically maintained until released by . The accumulation detection sensor 31 detects that the coins to be accumulated are on the accumulation track 2 after the accumulation lever 30 is driven to the accumulation side.
3a, and is composed of a light emitting diode and a light receiving element.
The recovery magnet 38 is driven by the detection of coin accumulation by the accumulation detection sensor 31, and the accumulation lever 30 is restored to the return side. The accumulation confirmation sensor 32 detects whether or not there are accumulated coins in the accumulation track 23a, and when the storage lever 33 is driven by the arrival of the charge signal and detects that the accumulated coins are gone. , a tone reminding you to insert coins is emitted from the receiver. The storage detection sensor 34 detects whether a coin to be stored is stored in the storage section 22 after the storage lever 33 is driven. Both the storage detection sensor 34 and the accumulation confirmation sensor 32 are composed of a light emitting diode and a light receiving element. 3A to 3C are sectional views taken along the line AA in FIG. 2 for explaining the interlocking mechanism of the overflow rail 25, the storage lever 30, and the storage coin guide 29. First, in a standby state before a coin is inserted, the overflow rail 25, accumulation lever 30, and accumulation coin guide 29 are in a state as shown in FIG. 3a. That is, the storage lever 30 having the locking portion 31d is biased clockwise in the drawing by a spring 31c with the shaft 31b as a fulcrum, and this biasing force and a counterforce force cause the tip of the storage lever 30 to hold a coin. The lever 31 is configured to be movable forward and backward on the track 23, and on the opposite side is a lever 31 that comes into contact with the protrusion 25c of the overflow rail 25.
A is provided. On the other hand, two step portions 41a and 41b that are locked to the locking portion 31d of the storage lever 30
The L-shaped locking lever 41 has a long hole 41c at the other end into which a pin 37b protruding downward from the arm 37a of the storage magnet 37 is inserted. is energized by Therefore, in the coin insertion standby state, the storage magnet 37 and the recovery magnet 38 are in a de-energized state, so the storage lever 30 and the locking lever 41 are biased by the biasing forces of their respective springs, so that the storage is not activated. The locking portion 31d of the lever 30 is locked by the stepped portion 41b of the locking lever 41 to maintain this state. As a result, the tip of the storage lever 30 protrudes into the coin track 23, and the overflow rail 25
is pressed against the coin track 23 by a spring (not shown). overflow rail 25
is pressed against the coin orbit, the inserted coin
The CN can now reach the orbit of the material selection coil 26. Next, if the coin inserted is a genuine coin,
When the storage magnet 37 is energized, the arm 37a rotates counterclockwise, and the locking lever 41 rotates clockwise against the spring 42 due to cooperation between the pin 37b and the elongated hole 41c. As a result, the locking portion 31d of the storage lever 30 is released from the locked state with the stepped portion 41b of the locking lever 41, and the storage lever 30 rotates clockwise and locks as shown in FIG. 3b. The portion 31d is locked by the stepped portion 41a and maintains this state even after the storage magnet 37 is de-energized. As a result, the storage lever 30 is withdrawn from the coin track 23, and the overflow rail 25 is moved away from the coin track 23 by pushing the protrusion 25c by the lever 31a. As a result, the inserted coin is guided to the accumulation track, and subsequent coins inserted during this accumulation operation are returned to the return section 36 by the overflow rail 25. Next, when the recovery magnet 38 becomes energized after the coin reaches the storage track 23a, the storage lever 30 is pushed in the direction of the coin track 23 by the arm 38a of the storage magnet 38, as shown in FIG. 3c. , the locking portion 31d that was locked to the stepped portion 41a changes to the locked state with the stepped portion 41b, and the storage lever 30
is mechanically held in a protruding state on the coin track 23. At the same time, the overflow rail 25 returns to the direction of the coin track 23. Thereafter, when the power supply to the restoration magnet 38 is stopped, the state returns to the state shown in FIG. 3a. 4a and 4b are sectional views taken along line BB in FIG. 2 for explaining the operation of the accumulated coin guide 29,
When the storage lever 30 is driven to the return side, the side wall of the coin track 23 is opened by the weight 29c as shown in FIG. 4a. However, the weight is 29c
A lever 44 is provided to push up the lever 4.
4 is configured to rotate counterclockwise in the figure by a protrusion 43 provided upright on the locking lever 41. Therefore, when the storage magnet 37 is energized, the lever 44 is rotated counterclockwise in the figure by the protrusion 43, and accordingly, the lever 44 exerts a force against the weight 29c, and the storage coins are removed. The guide 29 is connected to the coin track 23 as shown in FIG. 4b.
The side wall of the device is closed, and this state is maintained by the locking lever 41. As a result, the inserted coins are guided toward the accumulation lever 30 and finally reach the accumulation track 23a. In addition, in FIGS. 3 and 4, parts that are not relevant to the explanation of the operation are omitted. FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an embodiment of an electric circuit section for processing calls and coins, and roughly divided into telephone circuit section 50;
a control unit 60 that receives charging signals sent from the station side through 0 and controls coin storage, etc.;
Based on the command from 0, the input coins are sorted and stored in the storage section 22 (Fig. 2), and are also stored in the return section 36 (second
The coin processing section 70 returns the coins to _{The telephone circuit unit 50 is connected to the central office side through central line terminals L 1 and} L _{2 .}
In between, there is an incoming call display circuit 500 that notifies that there is an incoming call via the switch contact _HS1 , a charging signal receiving circuit 501 that detects a charging signal, a diode bridge circuit 502, a power supply circuit 503, a dial pulse sending circuit 504, and When the telephone call circuit 505 is connected and the switch contact HS ₁ is switched to the side opposite to the side shown in the figure in conjunction with the off-hook, a DC loop including the telephone call circuit 505 is formed for the office line terminals L ₁ and L ₂ . . The diode bridge circuit 502 has a central line terminal
Regardless of the polarity of the DC voltage from the station applied between L ₁ and L ₂ , a DC voltage of constant polarity is supplied to the power supply circuit 503 and the dial pulse sending circuit 504 , and the power supply circuit 503 is A capacitor is charged with the local current from the diode bridge circuit 502 to form a power supply voltage for operation of an arithmetic processing unit (CPU), etc., which will be described later. In this case, the power supply circuit 503 is connected to the office line terminal via the high-low resistor R.
Connected to L ₁ , the built-in capacitor is charged even after on-hook and used as random access memory (RAM).
A backup power supply voltage BUP is generated to retain the memory contents. The dial pulse sending circuit 504 receives the dial pulse signal Di and sends it to the office line.The dial pulse signal Di here is generated by the CPU 600 in response to a signal from the keyboard (not shown).
The signal is input to this dial pulse sending circuit 504 via an input/output interface circuit 603. In this case, while the dial pulse signal Di is being sent, the dial shunt signal DS is given via the input/output interface circuit 603, thereby short-circuiting the telephone call circuit 505 to the caller using the dial pulse signal Di. It is constructed so as not to give rise to pulse noise. Further, this dial pulse sending circuit 504 is configured to be able to forcibly disconnect a call by giving a forced disconnection signal via the input/output interface circuit 603 in the event that there is a shortage of accumulated coins. The control unit 60 includes a CPU 600, a random access memory (RAM) 601, and a read-only memory (ROM) 60 that stores programs and constants necessary for coin processing or telephone call processing.
2. Input/output interface circuits 603 and 604 are provided for transmitting and receiving signals with various sensors and the like. Furthermore, a display 605 that displays the accumulated amount of coins and the time of failure, an attitude sensor 606 that detects when the phone body is tilted at a predetermined angle or more,
Equipped with a hook switch contact HS ₂ that opens and closes in conjunction with on-hook and off-hook. The posture sensor 606 is provided to prevent fraud by tilting the telephone body, and when the telephone body is tilted by a predetermined angle or more, a forced disconnection signal is issued and the call is forcibly disconnected. In the control unit 60, when the charging voltage of the built-in capacitor in the power supply circuit 503 reaches a predetermined value due to off-hook, programs for call processing and coin processing are activated. If a coin is inserted and a dial is operated after the program is started, a dial pulse signal Di and a dial shunt signal Ds are generated, and if a billing signal detection signal is received from the billing signal receiving circuit 501 during a call, which will be described later. A drive signal for storage magnet 706 is generated. Further, when there is a shortage of accumulated coins or when the telephone body is abnormally tilted, a forced call disconnection signal is generated. Next, the coin processing unit 70 detects the coin insertion detection sensor 2.
4, etc., a material selection circuit 702 including a material selection coil 26, a thickness selection circuit 703 including a thickness detection coil, a diameter selection circuit 704 including a diameter detection coil, and these selection circuits 702- AD converter (ADC) 70 that selectively converts the analog output signal of 704 into a digital signal.
5. A storage magnet 706, which has a storage magnet 37 and a recovery magnet 38, which together with the storage lever 30 constitute a coin sorting mechanism, and further drives the storage lever 22 (FIG. 2) in response to a billing signal.
have. Next, the operation related to the above configuration will be explained. Note that the operation of the telephone circuit section 50 is not directly related to the gist of the present invention, so a description thereof will be omitted. First, in the coin processing of this example,
For example, as a result of reading all input signals to the CPU 600 at a 4ms cycle and determining their contents or status, if there is a process to be executed, a task ready flag indicating a request to execute that process is set, and then the task ready flag is set. If there is one task ready flag set by determining the state of In this case, one process with the highest priority is selected from among the individual processes such as coin detection processing and display processing that have been disassembled individually, and executed within the remaining time within 4ms, and the remaining processes with lower priority are executed. are executed sequentially on the condition that there is no higher priority processing request in the next new 4ms processing cycle. Therefore, only one of the individually decomposed individual processes such as the coin detection process is executed within the 4 ms processing cycle.
Then, when this individual processing is finished, CPU6
00 is kept in an idle state by an internal reference timer until an interrupt (INT) indicating that the next processing cycle has arrived. Here, the priority of each individual process is further classified into the first group and the second group, and the processes belonging to the first group are executed in order of priority every 4 ms processing cycle, and the processes belonging to the second group are executed for 32 ms. The processing is configured to be executed only when there is no request for execution of the processing belonging to the first group in each processing cycle. The reason for adopting such a processing system is to reduce power consumption. In other words, inserting coins into public telephones occurs irregularly, so
The responsiveness to this must be set high, but on the other hand, there are also processing requests that occur in relatively long cycles, such as processing requests for billing signals. Therefore, in such a case, if the clock frequency or processing cycle is determined based on the responsiveness to irregular processing requests, the program may start even though there is no processing request for billing signals. As a result, the CPU is constantly running, resulting in wasted time and increased power consumption. For this reason, in this example, all processes were classified into a first group of processes that needed to be executed in a short cycle of 4ms, and a second group of processes that only needed to be executed in a relatively long cycle of 32ms. In addition, priorities are set within each group, necessary processing is executed according to this priority, and when the processing is completed, the CPU 600 is placed in an idle state (sleep state) until a new processing cycle arrives, improving responsiveness. At the same time, we aim to reduce power consumption. Note that a CPU with an idle state has the model name HD6301V (manufactured by Hitachi, Ltd.). In this embodiment, the processes executed by the CPU 600 are divided as shown in Table 1 below, and their priorities are determined.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, the present invention restarts the timer upon detection of subsequent coin insertion, stops the optical sensor from detecting coin insertion while the timer is restarting, and controls the coin sorting device to the coin return side. By providing the control device, the timer is restarted when a subsequent coin is detected to be inserted, and the supply of operating power to the coin sorting device and the insertion detection sensor is stopped until the timer expires, and
The inserted coins are returned to the return section via the return track. Therefore, it is possible to reliably prevent erroneous accumulation due to continuous insertion of coins with low power consumption.Therefore, when applied to public telephones using a central power supply system, extremely effective effects can be exhibited.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

Figure 1a is a functional block diagram of the present invention, Figure 1b
2 is a diagram showing the basic configuration of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a schematic configuration diagram showing an embodiment of the coin processing mechanism in a public telephone to which the present invention is applied, and FIGS. 3 and 4 are the distribution mechanism and the coin handling mechanism in FIG. FIG. 5 is a block diagram showing an example of an electric circuit for processing calls and coins; FIGS. 6 and 7 are flowcharts for processing calls and coins; FIGS. 8 to 11 are broach charts showing details of coin processing, and FIGS. 12 to 16 are time charts for explaining operations according to coin insertion modes. 1, 21...Coin slot, 2...Accumulation section, 3, 23
...Coin trajectory, 4,24...Insertion detection sensor, 5...Coin sorting device, 6,37...Storage magnet, 7,3
8... Recovery magnet, 8, 30... Accumulation lever, 9
...Timer, 10...Control device, 11, 36...Return unit, 12,,35...Return track, 25...Overflow rail, 26...Material selection coil, 27...Dimension detection coil, 28...Backflow detection sensor, 29...Coin accumulation Guide, 31... Accumulation detection sensor, 60... Control unit, 70... Coin processing unit, 600... Arithmetic processing unit,
701...Sensor circuit, 702...Material selection circuit, 7
03...Thickness selection circuit, 704...Diameter selection circuit, 7
05...AD converter.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A timer is started when the optical sensor detects coin insertion, and power is supplied to the coin sorting device during the operation period of this timer, and the coin sorting device is driven by the genuine coin determination signal to separate the coins. In the coin processing device, the power supply to the coin sorting device is stopped when the optical sensor detects the insertion of a subsequent coin while the timer is operating, a control device having a subsequent coin insertion detection means for restarting the timer and an insertion detection stop means for stopping the coin insertion detection of the optical sensor while the timer is restarting; A coin processing device characterized in that the inserted coins are mechanically returned by a coin sorting device that is in an inoperable state without detecting the insertion.