JPH03238584A - Automatic vending machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To make it possible to sufficiently heat/cool a commodity and vending the heated/cooled commodity even if residual number of unfed commodities is small by aborting commodity vending when the residual number of commodities arrives at '0' before a timer counts up a prescribed time, and when the timer counts up the prescribed time, allowing the commodity vending. CONSTITUTION:When the vending of commodities is frequent in the summer or winter season, it may frequently occur that the residual number of commodities becomes zero because of a sellout or the residual number is small. In this case, the residual number is stored in a residual number memory 14 by the vending of a commodity after feeding commodities before the timer 12 counts up the prescribed time. When the residual number becomes zero, a vending aborting means is driven to abort commodity vending. When the timer 12 counts up the prescribed time after sufficiently cooling or heating the fed commodities, a vending allowing means is driven and commodity vending is allowed. Thereby, even when the residual number of commodities is small, the commodities can be vended after sufficiently cooling or heating them.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to an improvement of a vending machine, and more specifically, an automatic vending machine that can sufficiently heat or cool products and sell them even if there are few products remaining before replenishment. Regarding vending machines.

[Prior art]

FIG. 3 schematically shows the product dispensing method of an in-shell vending machine.

As shown in this figure, in this vending machine 51, heated or cooled products 52 are supplied one by one according to the order in which they are supplied.
They are paid out one by one.

That is, when replenishing products, the front door (not shown) of the vending machine 51 is opened and the products are replenished as shown by arrow X. Therefore, when selling products, the newly replenished products are sold after the products remaining in the vending machine 51 before being replenished are sold.

Normally, if there are a large number of products remaining before the above-mentioned replenishment, it will take a considerable amount of time to complete the sale of the products remaining in the vending machine 51, so the replenished products should be sufficiently cooled or heated before being sold. Ru.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, when the number of products remaining is low, such as when the number of products sold is high in the summer or winter, the sales of the products remaining in the vending machine 51 are completed immediately before a new supply is made. In some cases, newly supplied products were sold without being sufficiently cooled or heated, resulting in dissatisfied customers who purchased the products.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION Therefore, an object of the present invention is to provide a vending machine that can sufficiently heat or cool products and sell them even if the number of products remaining before replenishment is small.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention provides a vending machine that heats or cools products and sells them, which includes a timer for setting a predetermined time limit after replenishing the product, and a storage means for storing the number of products remaining before replenishment. and a product remaining number updating means for decrementing and updating the remaining number of products stored in the storage means each time a product is sold; The present invention is characterized by comprising: a sales stop means for stopping the sale of the product when the number of remaining products reaches 0, and a sales permission means for disabling the sale of the product when the timer has expired for a predetermined period of time. It is configured as a vending machine.

[Effect]

In this vending machine, for example, when the front door of the vending machine is opened by a service person or the like to replenish products,
The number of products remaining before product replenishment is stored in the storage means, and a predetermined time after the product replenishment is limited by a timer. Each time a product is sold, the number of remaining products stored in the storage means is decreased and updated by the remaining product number updating means.

In the above product sale, if there is a product remaining in the vending machine before the product replenishment, the same product is sold. However, when the number of products sold is large, such as in summer or winter, the number of products remaining often becomes zero or becomes small because the products are sold out at the time of replenishment. In this case, if the number of remaining products becomes 0 before the timer expires for a predetermined time due to the sale of the products after the product replenishment, the sales stop means is activated and the sale of the products is stopped.

Therefore, unlike in the conventional system, replenished products are not sold without being sufficiently cooled or heated.

When the replenished product is sufficiently cooled or heated and the timer expires for a predetermined period of time, the sales permission means is activated to enable the product to be sold.

〔Example〕

Hereinafter, embodiments embodying the present invention will be described with reference to the accompanying drawings to provide an understanding of the present invention.

In addition, the following example is an example embodying the present invention,
It is not intended to limit the technical scope of the present invention.

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of a control circuit of a vending machine according to an embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an example of product sales processing of the vending machine.

As shown in FIG. 1, the control circuit 1 of this vending machine is mainly composed of a control section 2 consisting of a microcomputer CPU, etc. Door switch 3 that detects the open/closed state of
．． A clear key 5 for resetting the supply number counter 4 provided in the wIG 11 section 2 and counting the number of products supplied for each product type. A product selection button 6 for selecting and specifying a product, and a drive circuit 8 for driving a solenoid 7 for dispensing the selected product. 9. A sold-out switch such as a microswitch that detects the sold-out status of each type of product stored in this vending machine for each type. A driver circuit 11 and the like that operate LEDIOs that respectively display the sold-out status are connected.

The control unit 2 also includes a timer 12 for setting a predetermined time limit after the vending machine is replenished with products, and a remaining number memory 14 for storing the number of products remaining before the vending machine is replenished. .

The remaining number memory 14 is an example of a storage means.

In this vending machine, when a predetermined amount of money is inserted and the product selection button 6 is pressed, a solenoid 7 is activated and heated or cooled products are dispensed one by one in the order in which they were supplied.

Then, each time the product is sold, the count value of the supply number counter 4 is increased, and when the product is sold out,
When the sold-out switch 9 is activated, the LEDIO is lit in accordance with the type of product, and the vending machine is placed in a sales stop state.

Next, referring to FIG. 2, an example of the product sales processing procedure of this vending machine will be explained in step S1. S2... will be explained in order.

The front door of this vending machine is opened by a service person or the like (Sl), and each type of product is replenished according to the count value of the replenishment number counter 4 (S2).
Then, when the clear key 5 is turned on, the remaining number of each product before replenishment is calculated based on the count value of the replenishment number counter 4 for each type of product, and the remaining number memory 1
4 (34), and the count value of the replenishment number counter 4 is reset to 0 (S5).

Then, when the door is closed by a service person, etc. (S
6), the timer 12 starts timing (S7).

At this time, the sold-out switch 9 is not activated due to the above product replenishment (S8), and the timer 12 has not yet expired for the predetermined time (S9), so the next step SIO
Move to.

For example, for a type of product for which the number of remaining products before replenishment is not 0, the remaining number of products storage data in the remaining number memory 14 is not O (SIO), so a predetermined amount of money is inserted into this vending machine. When the product selection button 6 is pressed, the above-mentioned product is sold (Sll), the count value of the supply number counter 4 is increased, and the remaining product number storage data of the remaining number memory 14 is decreased by one (S12). .

That is, the sufficiently cooled or heated products remaining before the product replenishment are sold, and the number of remaining products is reduced and updated and stored.

A means for realizing the function of decrementing and updating the number of remaining products stored in the remaining number memory 14 each time a product is sold as described above is an example of the remaining number of products updating means.

Furthermore, when the sales volume of products is large, such as in summer or winter, there are many cases where, for example, the products are sold out before being replenished, or the number of products remaining is very small. In this case, the above product sales process is repeated and the above step S
9. In SIO, there are many cases where the remaining product number storage data in the remaining number memory 14 becomes O before the timer 12 expires for a predetermined time, but in this case, step S described above is performed.
10 to 313, product sales are stopped, and LEDIO is turned on corresponding to the product type (S14).

The time limit of the timer 12 is set to a necessary and sufficient time from the time the product is supplied to the vending machine until the product is sufficiently cooled or heated.

Therefore, sales of the product will be stopped until the product supplied to this vending machine is sufficiently cooled or heated and sold as described below. It will never be sold.

An example of a sales stopping means is a means for realizing a function of stopping product sales when the number of remaining products stored in the remaining number memory 14 reaches 0 before the timer 12 expires for a predetermined time. It is.

Then, when the timer 12 expires for a predetermined time (S9
), the above product sales suspension status is lifted (S15), L
The EDIO light is turned off and the vending machine is ready to sell products. Therefore, at this time, when a predetermined amount of money is inserted into this vending machine and the product selection button 6 is pressed,
The aforementioned merchandise is sold (Sll), and the count value of the replenishment number counter 4 is increased (S12).

Therefore, the products supplied to the vending machine are sufficiently cooled or heated before being sold.

An example of a sales permission means is a means for realizing a function that enables product sales when the above-mentioned timer 12 expires a predetermined time.

〔Effect of the invention〕

According to the present invention, a vending machine that heats or cools and sells products includes a timer for setting a predetermined time after replenishing the product, a storage means for storing the number of products remaining before replenishment, and a vending machine that stores the number of products remaining before replenishment, and Remaining product number updating means for reducing and updating the remaining number of products stored in the storage means; and before the timer expires a predetermined time, the remaining number of products stored in the storage means becomes 0. Sales 12...Timer 14...Measuring the number of items remaining

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A vending machine that heats or cools and sells products, comprising: a timer for setting a predetermined time limit after replenishing the product; a storage means for storing the number of products remaining before replenishment; and a vending machine for selling the product. a remaining number of products updating means that decrements and updates the number of remaining products stored in the storage means each time the above-mentioned storage means is executed; and a number of remaining products stored in the storage means before the timer expires a predetermined time A vending machine characterized in that it is equipped with a sales stop means that stops product sales when the timer reaches 0, and a sales permission means that enables product sales when the timer reaches a predetermined time limit. .