JPH07215540A - Card punch hole identifying device - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To provide a card punch hole identifying device for discriminating a used card from a valid card. CONSTITUTION:This card punch hole identifying device 1 is provided with a storage box 3, a card feed roller 12, a motor drive mechanism 4 adjusting the rotating speed of the roller 12, a slit 14 through which a card passes from the storage box 3, a draw roller 24, a sensor 5 arranged to face a card passage, two pairs of hole detecting sensors 31 arranged on the course of four zero hole positions determined by the storage positions of a card 2 on the surface and back face and in the right and left directions and set as two reference holes along the card advance direction, a card detection sensor 30 detecting the insertion of the card 2 at the front position between the detecting sensors 31, and a control device 8 detecting the presence of the zero holes bored on the card 2 after the card detection and switching the direction of a card sorting means 6 located on the card passage based on the output signal.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a card checker for extracting a card having a card balance from a large number of prepaid cards, and in particular, a card used for a game machine such as a pachinko machine, or a card for changing to a coin. The present invention relates to a punch hole identification device for a card that separates a used card from a valid card in a prepaid card used in a ball rental machine or a metal rental machine.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, balls or coins used in amusement machines such as pachinko machines, slot machines, and game machines have been purchased by paying cash at the counter of each store. Since there will be troubles in cash management etc., we ask the player to purchase a prepaid card and use this card directly from a ball lending machine or a metal lending machine to a game machine such as a pachinko machine,
Or you can get coins.

The prepaid card used when using the above-mentioned amusement machine is slightly smaller than a telephone card, an orange card, etc., and has a size of about 7.8 × 4.9 cm, and the purchase price is 1,000 to 10,000 yen. There are four types within the range.

Using this card, the player purchases a replacement ball worth a desired amount from the ball lending machine. At this time, a telephone card is used as a card returned from the card discharging port of the ball lending machine in exchange for the replacement ball. Similarly, a punch hole is punched at a predetermined position.

As shown in FIG. 4, the punched holes are formed above the numbers printed on the lower right side of the back surface of the card. The numbers indicate the frequency of use, and a predetermined interval in a horizontal row. It is printed according to the amount of money on the card.

The zero mark indicating the zero reference (completion position) of the punched holes is printed in a range of allowable dimensions which is almost determined at the stage of making a card, but the punched holes are punched by individual machines. The position is slightly displaced, and the displacement width t is about
It is 2.0 mm.

Such a prepaid card for a game machine is used at a playground, and when it is used, it is discarded in the store. So, these cards are collected and incinerated or discarded by the person at the playhouse side, but when examining these discarded cards, some can still be used, and when the ratio is high, it is used Reach a few percent of completed cards. This cause is due to the carelessness of the card user,
Or, it occurs because the user hits the jackpot and discards it without checking the remaining number of cards.

[0008]

However, since the total amount of the remaining number of such abandoned cards is actually converted into a monetary amount, a considerable amount of money is currently used by store employees. A lot of time is spent in collecting this money, manually inspecting it, and picking up a valid card to recover the money.

In view of such circumstances, an object of the present invention is to provide a card punch hole identifying device for discriminating a discarded card into a used card and a valid card.

[0010]

In order to achieve the above object, the punch hole identifying apparatus of the present invention contacts a storage box for storing a predetermined number of used cards and the frontmost card surface to be sent out. However, a card feeding roller whose peripheral surface is exposed from the opening of the storage box, a motor drive mechanism for adjusting the rotation speed of the roller, and a card for passing one card from one end side of the storage box. A slit, a pair of withdrawing rollers that sandwich the tip of the card that has passed through the slit and withdraw the card at a faster speed than the rollers, and a sensor that is arranged face-to-face with respect to the card path between the slit and the withdrawing roller. In a punch hole identifying device for a card, four zero hole positions defined by the positions for storing the card in the front and back and in the left and right directions are set as two reference holes along the card traveling direction. Set, and two sets of hole detection sensors arranged on the path of this hole and a card detection sensor for detecting the entry of the card at the front position between the detection sensors are provided. A control device for detecting the presence or absence of a punched zero hole and switching the direction of the card sorting means located on the card path based on the output signal.

[0011]

According to the above construction, when the card is discharged one by one from the slit by the feeding roller, the card detection sensor senses the entry of the card and outputs a card detection signal to the control device. With the hole detection sensor,
Regardless of the front and back and the left and right direction of this card, it is detected whether or not the hole position indicating that the use is completed is drilled at the hole position of zero, and the control device determines whether or not there is a signal by hole detection. Output. Then, this control device issues a command to switch the direction of the card sorting means depending on whether the hole is detected or not, so that the used card and the valid card are separated.

[0012]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.
FIG. 1 is a schematic side view showing a configuration of a punch hole identifying device 1 for playing cards according to the present invention, and FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view thereof.

The punch hole identifying apparatus 1 includes a storage box 3 for storing a predetermined number of used cards 2 in one housing,
It is composed of a card sending mechanism 4, a sensor means 5, a card sorting device 6, and a control device 8.

As shown in FIG. 2, the storage box 3 is an angular vertical frame 10 (C-channel type) for loading the cards 2 in the vertical direction, and a part of the rear side surface aligns one side surface of the cards. There is a half-moon shaped notch 11 on the bottom surface 3a, and an opening 13 through which the roller surface of a feeding roller 12 for feeding the card 2 is exposed, and one is provided on the front side of the bottom surface. There is a slit 14 for sending out the frontmost card 2a.

In FIG. 1, the card sending-out mechanism section 4 is
With a belt feeding mechanism driven by one motor 20, the rotation of a pulley 21 directly connected to the motor 20 is sent through one timing belt 22 to a pulley 23 connected to a roller 12 and a drawer for withdrawing a card 2. A pulley 26 connected to the roller 24 is driven.

The delivery roller 12 is designed to simply contact the roller surface with the weight with which the card 2 is loaded and to be delivered, but optimally even the last one with a weight or a lid member placed thereon. It can be sent by a roller.

For this reason, in this embodiment, in order to surely send out the card even if the card is dirty or the friction coefficient is different and the weight of the loaded card is small, as shown in FIG. Eight projections 28 are provided at intervals of. A V groove is provided in the center of the upper surface of the protrusion 28 in the axial direction of the roller, and if the roller outer diameter is 25 mm, the width H = 6 m.
The dimensions are m, height J = 2.5 mm, and V groove width I = 1 mm.

The sending roller 12 and the drawing roller 24
Is set so that a constant speed ratio can be obtained by changing the pulley diameter. The pull-out roller 24 is
It is configured to rotate in pairs with the pressing roller 25 arranged face-to-face, and rotates at a higher speed than the delivery roller 12,
It has the role of drawing out the sent out card 2 more quickly. The pressing roller 25 is for reliably applying the drawing force of the drawing roller 24 to the card, and the rotation shaft of this roller is supported by a ball bearing, and is free to rotate.

As an example, the card sending mechanism unit 4 of this embodiment has a motor rotation speed of 1200 RPM and a gear ratio of 25:
The card feed speed is 160 mm / sec.

The sensor means 5 has a card detecting sensor 30 and a plurality of hole detecting sensors 31, as shown in FIG. The card detection sensor 30 is located in front of the hole detection sensor 31 in the traveling direction of the card 2 and senses passage of the card 2. Further, the hole detection sensor 31 is provided to detect the zero reference hole 32 of the card 2 shown in FIG.

These sensors 30 and 31 are optical sensors, each consisting of a light emitter and a light receiver, which are arranged above and below the path of the card. FIG. 3 shows the positional relationship of the sensor with respect to the traveling direction of the card,
FIG. 6 shows the positional relationship of the sensors in the longitudinal direction of the card.

Due to the difference between the front and back of the card 2 stored in the storage box 3 and the left and right storage positions, there are four zero hole positions shown in FIG. Since there are two places when viewed along, the arrangement of the hole detection sensor 31 is set in consideration of this.

As shown in FIG. 4, the zero reference hole 32 formed in each card has a hole position deviation t. In the present invention, the deviation t (about 2 mm) is taken into consideration for sensing. It has a range of width.

Therefore, as shown in FIG. 6, the hole detection sensor 31 has a structure in which three sensors are arranged in a triangle with respect to one zero reference hole 32, and two passage lines of the reference hole are provided. The center sensor 33 is provided on the upper side of each of the reference holes, and the left and right side sensors 34 overlap the sensing portions on both sides thereof. The card detection sensor 30 and the hole detection sensor 31 described above are
As shown in FIG. 7, when the card passes, the sensor output A or the sensor output B or C is output to the control device. Then, each time one card passes, the hole detection sensor output is output from each of the left and right sensors at time t.
When the 1 pulse is generated, but when the zero reference hole is detected, one sensor output becomes the sensor output C of the output signal including the hole detection pulse p. Therefore, when the outputs of the two hole detection sensors are B and B, it indicates that the valid card has passed.

As shown in FIGS. 1 and 3, the card sorting device 6 sorts used cards and valid cards into each other. A valid card, that is, a hole-undetected card is stored in the sorting box 40 and used. The card, that is, the hole detection card, is adapted to be discharged from the inclined passage 41 to the outside of the housing.

In addition to the sorting box 40, the sorting device 6 includes a gate member 42 as a card sorting means located on the card passage on the card discharge side of the pull-out roller 24, and a card hole undetected or hole detected. The electromagnetic solenoid 43 is provided for switching the gate member 42 between the lowered position and the raised position in response to the hole detection sensor outputs B and C (see FIG. 7) output by the above.

The gate member 42 is made of a wire material in which two rectangular portions are formed by bending a piano wire in order to reduce the weight. Further, 44 is a spring that is biased against the electromagnetic solenoid 43.

As shown in FIG. 9, the control device 8 has a card / hole detection circuit 50, a motor control circuit 51 for sending out a card, a gate control circuit 52 of a card distribution means, and a main control circuit 52 for these, as main components. It has a microprocessor 53 for processing input / output signals from each circuit.

Further, in this embodiment, it is assumed that the total of the inspection card total indicator 54, the hole undetected card total indicator 55, the start switch 56 and the count of the indicator are cleared as being connected to the microprocessor 53. A reset switch 57, an alarm buzzer 58, etc. are provided.

The microprocessor 53 is a control CPU
Card 2 having a CPU, ROM, RAM and backup RAM as a circuit and detected by an optical sensor
Of the card detection sensor output A output from the card / hole detection circuit 50 and the signal of any one of the hole detection sensor outputs B and C depending on the presence or absence of the passage of the hole and the detection of the hole. The data information is stored in the RAM, arithmetically processed by the CPU according to the logical procedure of the ROM, and stored again in the memory of the RAM or the backup RAM, the motor drive control and the position control of the gate member 42 by switching the card distribution means. Is executed, and the cumulative number of cards is displayed on the displays 54 and 55.

Next, with reference to the flow chart shown in FIG. 10, a process of separating used cards from valid cards in the game card punch hole identifying device 1 of the present invention will be described.

First, in steps 60 to 63, the power switch is turned on and the reset switch 27 is pressed to reset the counters of the indicators 54 and 55 to zero the display. Next, the start switch 56 of the motor 20 is turned on to rotate the motor 20 in order to sort the cards 2.

The rotation of the motor 20 causes the pulleys 21, 23, 26 to rotate via the timing belt 22, and the sending roller 12 and the drawing roller 24 rotate at a predetermined speed ratio.

When the delivery roller 12 rotates, the lowest card 2a which is in contact with the delivery roller 12 is the slit 1
It is sent out from 4. When the optical path of the card detection sensor 30 is blocked by the front end of the frontmost card in the traveling direction, the card detection sensor output A indicating that the card 2a is detected is sent to the control device 8 in step 64.

If the card detection sensor 30 does not determine the card detection (step 64), that is, if the card detection sensor output A remains undetected for 40 seconds, some kind of card is sent out. It is judged that a failure has occurred, the rotation of the motor 20 is stopped by the command signal from the control device 8, and the alarm buzzer 5
It is supposed to ring eight.

The card detection sensor output A indicates that the leading edge of the card has passed the sensor position due to its rising signal, and a command signal is output from the control device 8 to the inspection card total display 54, and the counter is displayed. Is an operation signal of step 65 for adding +1 to the display. On the other hand, it indicates that the trailing edge of the card has passed the optical path of the card sensor 30 by the falling signal of the sensor output A, and it is judged whether the card is in the undetected state again (step 66), that is, 1 It also serves as a signal to confirm that one card has been ejected from the storage box.

If the determination that the card is not detected by the card detection sensor output A (step 66) is not made even after 40 seconds have passed, there is a failure that the card cannot pass through the sensor position even though it has been sent out from the storage box. When it is determined that it has occurred, the rotation of the motor 20 is stopped and the alarm buzzer 58 is sounded in response to a command from the control device.

In the present invention, since the detection area of the hole detection sensor has three sensors arranged in a triangular shape, it spreads laterally with respect to the traveling direction of the card, so the position of the zero reference hole of the card is displaced. However, since the width of the detection area is about twice the displacement width t of the card, it is possible to reliably detect the hole.

After the determination steps 64 and 66, one card is ejected from the drawing roller, but before that, that is, during the rising time of the card detection sensor output A (time t1 in FIG. 7). The hole detection sensor 31 detects the zero reference hole 32 of the card.

In this hole detection determination (step 67),
When the zero reference hole is not detected, the hole detection sensor output B is output, and the counter signal of the hole undetected card total display 55 is incremented by +1 by the command signal of the control device.
The gate is controlled to hold the gate member 42 in the lowered position. Therefore, when the card immediately before is the used card, since the gate member 42 is held at the raised position, the electromagnetic solenoid 43 is operated to switch the gate member 42 from the raised position to the lowered position.

On the other hand, when the zero reference hole is detected,
The hole detection sensor output C is output, and the gate is controlled so as to hold the gate member 42 in the raised position according to a command signal from the control device. Therefore, when the card immediately before is a valid card, since the gate member is held at the lowered position, the electromagnetic solenoid 43 is operated to raise the gate member 42 from the lowered position by a predetermined angle. (Step 68).

As described above, when the earliest card is the hole detection (used) card, the gate member 42 operates the electromagnetic solenoid 43 to hold the gate member 42 in the raised position, and the card is tilted. It is discharged through the passage. If the next card is also a hole detection card, the gate control circuit 52
The gate member 42 is kept in that state, and when a hole-undetected (valid) card is detected next, the hole-detecting sensor output B as an output signal indicating this causes electric self-holding. Since the gate member 42 is released and the gate member 42 returns to the lowered position, the card falls into the sorting box 40, and the gate member 42 holds this state.

Therefore, only when the hole detection sensor outputs B and C are alternately generated, the self-holding of the gate is released and the position of the gate member is switched, so that the gate member is normally raised. Since the gate is only switched before and after the valid card is detected at the position, the maintenance and life of the card sorting means can be improved.

In the present invention, the hole-undetected card which is a valid card is stored in the sorting box 40 in the housing, but the hole-detected card which is a used card is discarded, so that it is discharged to the outside of the housing through the inclined passage 41. To be done. However, the sorting box 4 can be used to store used cards in the housing.
You may arrange another collection box alongside 0.

Although the storage box 3 for storing the card has a vertical structure, it is arranged in a horizontal position, and the card loaded on the side of the sending roller 12 is lightly pressed by the spring means so that the card stands upright. It is also possible to add a configuration in which the cards are discharged one by one and the cards are horizontally fed by one card deflecting means.

Although the game cards have been described in the embodiments of the present invention, if a large number of used prepaid cards can be collected, the device of the present invention can be used for cards for other purposes. it can.

[0047]

As is apparent from the above description,
According to the present invention, it is possible to detect the zero reference hole of the card sent out from the storage box irrespective of the front and back and the left and right direction of the card by the two sets of hole detection sensors provided on the path of the card, Since the deviation width of the reference hole can be included in the detection range of the sensor, it is possible to reliably identify the zero reference hole of the game card and separate the valid card and the used card.

According to the third aspect of the invention, the speed ratio between the feeding roller and the drawing roller can be determined by the belt driving mechanism using one motor, which leads to simplification of the apparatus and reduction of manufacturing cost. it can.

Further, according to the structure of claim 4, since the control device is constituted by the microprocessor, the speed control of the motor and the gate control of the card allocating means can be accurately performed, and the output of the card detection sensor and the hole detection. The card discrimination can be processed at high speed based on the timing of the sensor output.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a schematic side view showing a partially cutaway cross section of an embodiment according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic plan view of the embodiment shown in FIG.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram for explaining a card sorting method as seen along the traveling direction of the card in the present invention.

FIG. 4 is an outline view showing a zero reference hole on the back surface of a card which is discriminated by the device of the present invention.

5 is a schematic diagram showing hole positions obtained in the front and back of the card and the left and right directions in the card of FIG.

FIG. 6 is a schematic diagram showing the arrangement and number of card detection sensors and hole detection sensors.

FIG. 7 is a diagram showing a pulse signal waveform of a sensor output generated by passing through a sensor.

FIG. 8 is a view showing an outer shape of a side surface of a feeding roller according to the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a block diagram of a control device according to the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a flow chart showing steps for separating the game cards of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 punch hole identification device 2 cards 3 storage box 4 card sending mechanism 5 sensor means 6 card sorting device 8 control device 12 sending roller 24 drawing roller 30 card detecting sensor 31 hole detecting sensor 42 gate member

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. A storage box for storing a predetermined number of used cards, and a card delivery roller which comes into contact with the frontmost card surface to be delivered and whose peripheral surface is exposed from the opening of the storage box. , A motor drive mechanism that adjusts the rotation speed of the roller, a slit for passing the one card at the end from one end side of the storage box, and a roller that sandwiches the leading end of the card that has passed through the slit. In a punch hole identifying device for a card, which comprises a pair of pull-out rollers for pulling out a card at a high speed, and a sensor which is arranged face-to-face with respect to a card passage between the slit and the pull-out roller, the card is placed on the front and back sides and the left and right directions thereof. Two zero hole positions defined by the storage position are set along the card traveling direction.
Set as one reference hole, and two sets of hole detection sensors placed on the path of this hole,
A card detection sensor that detects the entry of the card at the front position between these detection sensors is provided, and after the card is detected, the presence or absence of a zero hole punched in the card is detected, and the position on the card path is determined based on this output signal. A controller for switching the direction of the card sorting means to
A punch hole identifying device comprising: 2. Each of the hole detection sensors includes a center sensor on a passage line of each reference hole and left and right side sensors whose sensing areas overlap on both sides thereof, and the three sensors have a triangular shape with respect to the reference hole. The device of claim 1, wherein the device is located. 3. The motor drive mechanism determines the speed ratio between the feed roller and the draw roller by a belt feed mechanism driven by one motor.
Equipment. 4. The control device includes a card and hole detection circuit, a motor control circuit for feeding out the card, a gate control circuit for the card distribution plate, and a microprocessor for processing input / output signals from each of these circuits. The apparatus of claim 1, comprising: