JPH0530206Y2 - - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed description of the invention] Technical field to which the invention pertains This invention is a device that moves coins one by one by rotating a rotary plate and ejects coins one by one by dropping them from a droplet. When a large number of coins stored in the hopper are scooped up by a rotating plate having a coin-fitting recess on the circumference, the coins are separated, aligned, and moved one by one until they meet the drop opening provided at the top of the bottom plate of the hopper. , relates to a coin ejecting device that allows coins to be dropped from its drop opening.

Problems to be Solved The ejection speed of conventional coin ejecting devices used for automatic change payments, etc. is about 3.3 coins/second to 4 coins/second. 2. Description of the Related Art In automatic ticket vending machines, automatic currency exchange machines, and other vending machines frequently used by the public, it is desired to increase the coin discharging speed to twice or more than that of conventional machines in order to shorten customer processing time.

In the conventional machine, the coins are scooped up from the bottom of the hopper by a rotating plate and allowed to fall naturally from the drop opening at the top of the bottom plate due to their own weight. In order for the coin to fall when the coin-fitting recess of the rotating plate matches the drop opening, potential energy acts on the coin that is receiving kinetic energy in the circumferential direction from the rotating plate, causing it to fall into the drop opening. Because of necessity, the rotational speed and the diameter of the dropout port are in a functional relationship with each other, and if the rotational speed is increased without changing the diameter of the dropout port, the coins will not fall into the dropout port completely, resulting in a series of jams. Speeding up is not possible. If the diameter of the drop opening is enlarged, jams will not occur, but it will be costly to improve the deformation of the existing equipment. Even in the case of new equipment, it is uneconomical because conventional production equipment cannot be used.

Therefore, this invention was developed to increase the rotational speed of the rotating plate by simply adding simple and inexpensive members without making any changes to the components of the conventional device, that is, without the need to enlarge the diameter of the drop opening. The purpose of this invention is to increase the speed of coin ejection without jamming.

Means for Achieving the Purpose This inventor focused on the fact that the cause of the bottleneck in speeding up was the natural falling of coins, and in order to achieve the above purpose, a spring for forcibly ejecting coins was installed above the drop opening, and the coins on the rotating plate were Coins that fit into the fitting recess and come to the drop opening are knocked off using the elasticity of the spring.

In other words, the coin in the coin fitting recess of the rotary plate does not fall immediately when the fitting recess matches the drop hole, but rather the coin that has arrived at the drop hole is received by the rotor plate in the circumferential direction. The coin is held in the rotating plate until the potential energy acting on it exceeds the kinetic energy, and when the potential energy overcomes the kinetic energy, it falls naturally due to its own weight. Therefore, a certain amount of time is required for the coin to fall due to the positional alignment between the fitting recess and the drop opening. In this device, if there is no coin fitting recess on the rotary plate that matches the drop opening above the drop opening, the coin is pushed up by the rotating plate and urged toward the drop opening, and the coin fitting recess matches the drop opening. By providing a forced ejection spring so that the coin bounces in the direction of the drop opening due to its elasticity, when the coin fitted in the fitting recess reaches the drop opening, the spring will release the coin without waiting for the falling action due to the potential energy. Immediately knock it down in the direction of the falling hole,
This eliminates the retention time of coins within the rotary plate, thereby making it possible to increase the rotational speed of the rotary plate without generating a coin jam.

Embodiment of this invention Next, an embodiment of this invention will be described based on the drawings.

In FIG. 1, reference numeral 1 denotes a hopper which is opened upward and accommodates coins.The bottom of the hopper is closed by an inclined bottom plate 2, and a circular rotating plate 3 placed close to the top surface of the bottom plate 2 is located at the center of the hopper. It is rotated by a predetermined amount under the control of a motor 5 connected via a shaft 4 fixed to the lower surface, and coin fitting recesses 6 provided at equal intervals around the periphery of the rotating plate are casually accommodated at the bottom of the hopper. The coins are scraped up, one coin is fitted into each fitting recess, the coins are aligned, and the coins are moved toward the top of the bottom plate 2.

At the top of the bottom plate 2, there is provided a drop port 7 that matches the fitting recess at the top and communicates with the bottom. A regulation plate 8 is attached above the drop port, with a gap between it and the top surface of the rotary plate 3 that is larger than the thickness of one coin and smaller than the thickness of two coins. ing.

In this way, even if other coins stick to the coin C fitted in the fitting recess 6 and are scraped up one after the other, the other coins are separated by the regulating plate 8, so that The coins are surely aligned and transferred one by one.

The above configuration is the same as that of a conventional coin ejecting device.

In this invention, in order to achieve the above-mentioned purpose, the coin fitted in the fitting recess 6 above the drop port 7 is elastically knocked down in the direction of the drop port, and from the rotary plate 3. A spring 9 is attached to force the discharge.

This spring 9 is formed into an inverted F-shape, a U-shape, or a V-shape in plan view, and in the case of an inverted F-shape, it is cantilevered at one end, and in the case of a U-shape or V-shape, a regulating plate 8 is formed at both ends. It is attached by a pin 10 protruding from the top. The spring 9 has a pressing part formed by tilting, bending or curving the other end in the case of an inverted F-shape, or the center in other cases, so that the part corresponding to the drop opening 7 is the lowest. 9a
As shown in Fig. 4, when the part of the rotating plate 3 without the fitting recess comes above the drop opening, the pressing part of the spring is pushed up from the edge of the fitting recess, so that the rotation of the rotating plate is prevented. is not blocked, and the next fitting recess 6 in which the coin is not fitted approaches the drop opening 7, and as shown in FIG. 5, the front edge of the fitting recess reaches the position corresponding to the spring. When the spring advances to this point, the spring suddenly comes off from the rotary plate into the fitting recess 6, so that the pressing part 9a
is repelled in the direction of the drop opening due to the restoring force, and the pressing part 9a
enters into the fitting recess in the direction of the drop port or up to the drop port.

Therefore, when a coin is fitted into the fitting recess 6 that has reached the drop port 7, the coin is knocked down in the direction of the drop port 7 by the pressing portion 9a of the spring.

Incidentally, the position of the coin forced ejection spring 9, and more precisely, the position of the pressing portion 9a relative to the drop opening 7, has an unexpectedly important meaning in the practical application of this invention. That is, depending on the installation position of the pressing part 9a, there will be slight differences in the falling posture and falling speed of the coin, and in certain positions, the falling posture of the coin will easily cause jamming, and in order to prevent this, the spring constant must be strictly selected. It is necessary to do so, which is difficult in practice. This will be explained in detail below.

When knocking a coin in the fitting recess 6 that matches the drop port 7 into the drop port 7, generally, as shown in _FIG . As shown in FIG. 7D, the pressing portion 9a will be installed to cause the coin to fall horizontally. However, if a pressing part is provided at the center of the droplet, the area of the coin facing the droplet 7 is less than half of the total area of one side of the coin, as shown by the chain line for coin C in Figure 6. Since the coin is struck by the pressing portion 9a, the coin does not fall as shown in FIG. 7D, but falls from the top of the coin first and tilts as shown in FIG. 7A. Therefore, when the spring constant is small, as shown in FIG. If the constant is larger than that, the rate at which a jam occurs will increase as the coin rotates half a turn and the top of the coin is similarly caught and locked between the drop opening and the rotating plate, as shown in Figure C. It has been revealed through experiments by the inventors that this is high.

In addition, in FIG. 6, the rotating plate 3 is rotated counterclockwise, and the moving direction of the coin C is also the same.

The installation position of the pressing part 9a of the spring is set on the circumference c ₁ centered on the rotation center O of the rotary plate 3 and whose radius is from the rotation center to the center p ₀ of the drop port. The closer the coin is to the front, the lower the jamming rate will be, but it is quite difficult to select a spring whose striking force against the coin of the pressing part 9a has an appropriate value to ensure a low jamming rate.

On the other hand, as shown in FIG.
A position p ₂ near the periphery of the drop port on the straight line l connecting the center of rotation O and the center p ₁ of the upper projection plane of the drop port 7 and on opposite sides of the drop port center,
If a spring pressure part 9a is provided at p ₃ , the spring pressure will not be applied to the coin until more than half of the area of one side of the coin coincides with the drop opening, so the coin will remain horizontal and move at high speed. However, since the coin C is struck by the pressing part when an area larger than half of the area of one side (determined by the installation position of the pressing part) coincides with the drop opening, the hitting force is applied evenly in the front and back direction of the coin. The top of the coin does not tilt sharply or rotate in the front-back direction, but falls while remaining almost horizontal in the front-back direction. Therefore, the seventh
A jam as shown in Figures B or C does not occur. Further, as shown in FIG. 8, the spring pressing portion 9a
Due to the forced ejection action of As shown in FIG. 9, the portion that contacts the edge is located at an upper part of the slope (point t in the figure) than the circumference _c1 passing through the center of the coin.
Therefore, the coins rather come into contact with the rotary plate and are encouraged to fall. It is easy to design or select a spring having such a spring constant. The closer the falling attitude of the coin struck by the spring pressing portion to the horizontal is, the faster the average falling speed is. Therefore, the coin will not be pinched between the edge of the fitting recess of the rotary plate 3 that follows it.

As in the illustrated example, if the spring pressing part 9a is provided at a position near the rotation center of the rotary plate of the drop opening, the spring 9 will be fixed on the peripheral side of the hopper 1.
It is easy to obtain the desired spring constant, and the spring can be easily installed. However, even when the pressing part is provided on point _p3 , it is possible to put it to practical use by devising the fixing point of the spring. In experiments conducted by the inventors, the optimal distance from the point where the area around the drop opening intersects with straight line l to point _p2 was approximately 2 mm. In this case, the coin ejection speed was approximately two to three times that of conventional machines.

As can be inferred from the above, the pressing part 9a of the spring
The possible installation range is within the range indicated by the dotted line frame in FIG. That is, the pressing portion 9a of the spring 9 for forced coin ejection is pressed against the drop opening 7 located on the advancing side in the rotational direction of the rotary plate 3 with respect to the line l connecting the rotation center O of the rotary plate 3 and the drop opening center _P0 . It is provided so as to face the circumferential side and fit into the coin fitting recess 6.

When the pressing portion 9a of the coin forced ejection spring 9 is provided in this range, the jamming rate is extremely low.
It is possible to eject coins at high speed.

Effects of this invention As described above, the coin ejecting device according to this invention is designed to remove coins that fit into the fitting recesses of the rotating plate and reach the drop opening above the drop opening, and remove the coins from the rotating plate by elasticity. A forcible discharge spring is provided that knocks down the drop in the direction of the drop port, and its pressing part is located on the forward side of the drop port in the direction of rotation of the rotary plate with respect to the line connecting the rotation center of the rotary plate and the center of the drop port. Since the coins are arranged to face each other on the circumferential side and enter the coin fitting recess, the rate of occurrence of jamming is extremely low, the coins can be quickly ejected to the drop opening, and the coin ejecting speed can be increased.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawings show one embodiment of this invention; Fig. 1 is a plan view, Fig. 2 is a vertical cross-sectional view, Fig. 3 is an enlarged plan view of the main parts, and Figs. 4 and 5 are coins. FIG. 6 is a sectional view of the main part explaining the action of the spring for forced coin ejection when the fitting recess does not match the drop port and when it matches the drop port. Figure 7 is a sectional view taken along line A-A in Figure 6, showing various postures of the coin due to the spring action when the spring is installed at the center of the drop opening;
Figure 8 is a sectional view taken along the line B-B in Figure 6, showing the attitude of the coin when the spring is installed at the appropriate position in the drop opening, and Figure 9 is a sectional view taken along the line D-D in Figure 8. FIG. 1...Hotsupa, 2...Bottom plate, 3...Rotating plate, 6
. . . Coin fitting recess, 7 . . . Drop opening, 8 . . . Regulating plate, 9 .

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claim for Utility Model Registration] A rotating disk having a coin fitting recess on its circumference large enough to fit one coin stored in the hopper in a horizontal state is provided on the upper surface of the bottom plate of the hopper. At the same time, a drop opening having a diameter slightly larger than the diameter of the coin is provided on the bottom plate located on the rotation locus of the coin fitting recess, so that the coin fitting recess matches the drop opening. Sometimes, in the coin ejecting device that drops the coins in the coin fitting recess into the drop opening, a coin forced ejection spring is provided above the drop opening and above the rotary plate; The pressing part of the spring is arranged to face the circumferential side of the drop opening, which is located on the advancing side in the rotational direction of the rotary plate with respect to a line connecting the rotation center of the rotary plate and the center of the drop opening, and to engage the coin. A coin ejecting device characterized by being configured to fit into a recess.