JPS6315388A - Coin counting machine - Google Patents

Abstract

(57) [Summary] This bulletin contains application data before electronic filing, so abstract data is not recorded.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] (Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a coin counting machine that sorts out a large number of coins and counts their denominations, and is also used as a counting machine for medals and the like that are similar to coins. It is possible.

(Prior Art) Conventionally, in stores, financial industries, etc., coin counting machines are generally used as devices for counting the number of coins in sales proceeds by denomination.

As this conventional coin counting machine, there is one shown in FIG. 5, for example. In the figure, 1 is a rotating disk that is a coin storage section, C
3OO is a 500 yen coin, C100 is a 100 yen coin, 2 is a conveyance path through which the coins are sent out in order from the top of the rotary disk l, 3 is a coin discharge port provided in the middle of this conveyance path 2,
4 is a fixed guide on one side of the conveyance path 2; 5 is a movable guide for selecting the course width provided opposite the fixed guide 4; 6 is a movable guide that can be rotated to set the movable guide 5 at a desired position. a polygonal cam provided; 7 a turn spring for the movable guide 5; 8 a metal sensor provided on the conveyance path 2 on the downstream side of the discharge port 3 for counting passing coins;
Reference numerals 9 and 10 indicate pulleys provided on the inlet and outlet sides of the conveyance path 2, and 11 indicates a feed belt that extends over these boots U9 and 10.

In other words, in this coin counting machine, a plurality of coins of different denominations are placed on the rotary disk L, and the cam 6 is manually rotated sequentially, so that the coins are separated by denomination on the conveyance path 2. Passing coins are detected via a metal sensor 8 and counted.

The denomination to be counted is selected by switching the set position of the cam 6 from the largest diameter coin (500 yen coin in Japanese currency) to the positions corresponding to the smaller diameter coins.

That is, initially, the cam 6 is set at a position for sorting 500 yen coins. As a result, the movable guide 5 elastically supported by the return spring 7 moves, and the width of the conveyance path 2 is set to match the diameter of the 500 yen coin csoo. At the same time, the width of the discharge port 3 provided in the middle of the conveyance path 2 is set to a width that allows only the 500 yen coin C3GO to pass through.

As the rotary disk 1 rotates, the coins that have entered the conveyance path 2 due to centrifugal force are transported to the Boo I79 on the conveyance path 2.
, 10 moves on the conveyance path 2 as the feed belt 11 is stretched between the feed belts 11 .

At this time, the 500 yen coin C3GO can pass through the conveyance path 2, but the 100 yen coin CIGO and other coins fall down from the discharge port 3 and are stored in a reservoir (not shown).

500 yen coin C6° passed through conveyance path 2. After being detected by the metal sensor 8, it is stored in another glue taper.

In this way, when the coins on the rotary disk 1 run out, the display on the display (not shown) becomes the number of 500 yen coins.

Next, the cam 6 is manually switched to a position for sorting coins with the second largest diameter, that is, 10 yen coins.

On top of the rotary disk 1 is a coin dropped from the outlet 3, that is, a 500 yen coin C6°. Place the removed coin.

This time, the width of the transport path 2 is adapted to the diameter of a 10 yen coin, and only 10 yen coins pass through the transport path 2 and are counted. Other coins are dropped from the outlet 3.

After that, by manually switching the cam 6, 100 yen coins, 5
Counting is performed for each denomination in the order of yen coins, 50 yen coins, and 1 yen coins.

(Problems to be solved by the invention) However, in the above-mentioned conventional coin counting machine,
Since the sorting of denominations was carried out by manually rotating the polygonal cam 6, there were problems in that the range of application was limited, it was time consuming, and the time required for counting was long.

In other words, if a polygonal cam 6 is used, it can only handle denominations within the number of sides of the polygon.

Since the cam 6 shown in FIG. 5 has a hexagonal shape, it can accommodate only six types of coins. Therefore, in order to be able to handle coins from all over the world, cams for each country are required, and
-The cams must be replaced, which is time-consuming and troublesome. Furthermore, when trying to improve the precision of the cam, high precision cannot be obtained by punching or the like, which creates a problem in that manufacturing is labor-intensive and expensive.

If the accuracy of the cam is low or if the coins to be counted are deformed, multiple coins may interlock on the conveyance path 2, resulting in so-called jamming. .

When this jam occurs, in conventional devices, the device housing must be removed and the jammed coins must be manually removed. Moreover, when trying to remove the stuck coin, the cam 6
Even if the user tries to rotate the conveyance path 2, the movable guide 5 becomes an obstacle and the width of the conveyance path 2 cannot be increased. Also, when you try to rotate the cam 6, the corner of the cam 6 bites into the movable guide 5, making it difficult to rotate.If you try to rotate the cam 6 forcibly, the corner of the cam 6 There was a problem that there was a risk of getting soaked.

(Means for Solving the Problems) In order to solve the above-mentioned problems, in the present invention, an ejection port is formed in the middle of the coin storage portion to drop out coins having a diameter smaller than the hole width. In the coin counting machine, the coins are sequentially sent to the conveyance path through which the coins are conveyed, and the coins are sorted into coins that have passed through the conveyance path without falling through the discharge port and coins that have fallen out of the discharge port, and the coins that have passed through the conveyance path are counted. A feed screw shaft is fixedly provided on a movable guide for selecting the course width of the conveyance path, a nut screwed onto the feed screw shaft is rotatably provided on a fixed member, and a home position sensor for the feed screw shaft is provided, The coin counter is configured such that the movable guide for selecting the course width can be set at a desired position by rotating the nut by a motor that can be driven by electronic control by a computer.

(Function) As described above, in the present invention, the feed screw shaft is fixedly provided on the movable guide for selecting the course width of the conveyance path, and the nut screwed onto the feed screw shaft is rotatably provided on the fixed member. In addition, a home position sensor for the feed screw shaft is provided, and the movable guide for course width selection can be set at a desired position by rotating the nut using a motor that can be moved by electronic control by a computer. By programming the system, it is possible to handle all types of coins with simple operations such as push buttons. In addition, the movable guide uses a motor that can drive the nut screwed with the feed screw shaft to be accurately rotated and moved by electronic control, so it can be controlled with much higher precision than conventional cams. Sorting can also be done accurately.

Furthermore, as mentioned above, even if a coin jams on the conveyance path, the jamming can be automatically detected, and based on the detection signal, the movable guide automatically moves immediately to expand the width of the conveyance path. Therefore, according to the present invention, there is no need to perform the complicated work required in the past to clear jamming.

(Example) An example of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 4. In the figure, the same reference numerals as those mentioned above indicate equivalent parts.

In this embodiment, the feed screw shaft 12 is fixedly provided on the movable guide 5 so as to be perpendicular to the movable guide 5,
A nut 13 screwed onto the feed screw shaft 12 is provided to be rotatable with respect to a bearing 14 provided on a fixed member (not shown) of the device, and a gear 15 integral with the nut 13 is provided. Further, a home position sensor 16 is provided at a predetermined position near the extension line of the tip of the feed screw shaft 12, and
A sensor plate 17 is provided at the tip of the feed screw shaft 12,
This sensor plate 17 is the home position sensor 16
Whether or not the movable guide 5 is at the original position (home position) is detected based on whether or not the light inside is blocked.

Further, 18 is a step motor that can be driven by electronic control by a combination machine, and this motor may be another servo motor. A gear 19 is fixed to the shaft of the step motor 18 and meshes with the gear 15. The rotation angle of this step motor 18 is controlled by a controller (width adjustment mechanism control circuit) 20.

Further, in this embodiment, a metal sensor 8a is provided to detect whether or not a coin is present on the rotary disk l.

As shown in FIG. 2, the controller 20 is an arithmetic processing unit (hereinafter referred to as rcPUJ) such as a micro combinator.
2. The automatic selection switch 2 is configured with a switch signal S from the manual selection switch 22.
3, the detection signal S from the home position sensor 16 input via the sensor buffer 24, and the detection signal S2 from the metal sensors 8 and 8a.
and S6, and the switch signal S7 from the jamming release switch 29 is manually input.

Further, the CPU 21 outputs a drive control signal 03 for the step motor 18, and this drive control signal D3 is converted into a pulse current signal S3 given to the step motor 18 in the step motor drive circuit 28 and output.

Furthermore, the CPU 21 outputs the coin count value data D being sorted and the total amount data D2, and these data DI+D2 are displayed on the count value display 27 and the amount display 26.
The contents are displayed.

3 and 4 are flowcharts showing the processes executed by the CPt 121. The process shown in FIG. 3 is a process of sorting and counting denominations, and the process shown in FIG.
This shows a process for removing coins stuck on the conveyance path 2 (jamming release process).

First, the denomination selection and counting process shown in FIG. 3 will be explained.

In step 31, it is determined whether or not the denomination to be sorted has been selected by operating the manual selection switch 22. The manual selection switch 22 is a switch for inputting a command to that effect when the operator desires to sort a specific denomination (for example, when wanting to sort only 100 yen coins).

When the manual selection switch 22 is operated, steps 41 to 44 and 53 are executed to select the designated denomination, and display the coin count and total amount.

In step 41.42, manual selection switch 22
The width of the conveyance path 2 is set according to the denomination specified by
In order to set the width to be approximately equal to the diameter of the coin of the designated denomination, the width of the production path 2 corresponding to the diameter of each denomination stored in advance in the memory is used to set the width of the coin of the designated denomination. The data corresponding to the denomination is read out, and the pulse number data for obtaining the corresponding rotation angle of the step motor 18 is determined and outputted as the drive control signal 03. When a predetermined number of pulses are manually applied to the step motor 18 by this signal D3, the step motor 18 rotates by a predetermined angle.
Since this rotation is transmitted to the nut 13 via the gears 19 and 15, the movable guide 5 moves in the direction of arrow A in FIG. The width of path 2 is set to a predetermined width.

When the width of the transport path 2 has been set, the number of coins detected by the metal sensor 8 is counted in step 43.

In step 44'', when no coin is detected by the metal sensor 8 even after a certain period of time has elapsed, it is determined that there are no coins on the rotary disk 1, and the counting process is ended.

Then, in step 53, the total amount of coins counted from the counted value obtained in step 43 and the specified denomination is calculated, and this total amount and the counted value are displayed on the amount display 26 and the counted value display 27. do.

Next, a case where the automatic selection switch 23 is turned on will be described.

When the automatic selection switch 23 is turned on, step 3
The determination in step 2 is YES, and the process in step 33 is performed.

In this step 33, among the data on the width of the conveyance path 2 corresponding to the diameter of the coin for each denomination stored in the memory,
The data corresponding to the largest diameter coin (500 yen coin in the case of Japan) is read out, the pulse number data for obtaining the corresponding rotation angle of the step motor 18 is determined, and this is used as the drive control signal.

Output as .

As a result, the width of the conveyance path 2 is set to be approximately equal to the diameter of a 500 yen coin, and the width of the discharge port 3 is set to a width that allows coins other than the 500 yen coin to fall out.

After setting the width of the transport path 2, turntable 1 and Boo! J
9.10 rotation is started, and a plurality of coins mixed with a plurality of denominations on the rotary disk 1 are sequentially fed into the conveyance path 2.

Then, only the 500 yen coin C5,, passes through the conveyance path 2 without falling off from the discharge port 3, and is detected by the metal sensor 8. The 500 yen coins C3OO detected by the metal sensor 8 are counted in step 34.

The process of step 35 is the same process as step 44, and is a process of detecting that there are no more coins on the rotary disk 1 and stopping the counting operation.

If the determination in step 35 is YES, then step 3
6 is processed, and the next largest diameter coin (10 yen coin)
The sorting process is performed in substantially the same manner as the processes in steps 33 to 35 described above.

In other words, the transport path 20 corresponding to the 10 yen coin is stored in the memory.
The width data is obtained, the rotation of the step motor 18 is controlled so as to set the width of the transport path 2 to this width, and then the rotary plate 1 and Boo! J9.10 is rotated to count the 10 yen coins CtG that have passed through the conveyance path 2.

Here, coins that have fallen out of the discharge port 3 and are accommodated in a reservoir (not shown) by the sorting operation of the 500 yen coin C3OO are placed on the rotary disk 1.

In other words, there are no 500 yen coins.

In this way, when the counting of 10 yen coins is completed, the coins with the next largest diameter (100 yen coins) are sorted in the same way.
yen, then 1 yen) sorting process is performed.

Then, when the counting of the smallest diameter coins (1 yen coins) is completed (steps 51 and 52), the count value for each denomination and the total amount (the total amount of all coins and the total amount for each denomination) are calculated by the process of step 53. total amount).

In this way, in this embodiment, coins with the next largest diameter are sorted sequentially starting from the largest diameter coin, and at this time, the movable guide 5
is automatically displaced, and the widths of the transport path 2 and the discharge port 3 are automatically set to a width corresponding to the coins to be sorted.

Note that the processing performed in steps 35, 44, 52, etc. above can also be performed by detecting that the coin is no longer present on the rotary disk 1 based on the detection signal S6 of the other metal sensor 8a. It is.

Next, the jamming release process shown in FIG. 4 will be explained.

Step 61 is a process of determining whether or not the jamming release switch 29 has been operated. The jamming release switch 29 is for forcibly executing a jamming release operation, which will be described later, by a switch operation.

For example, if coins are jammed on the transport path 2 and coins cannot be sorted due to jamming, the metal sensor 8a may not be able to detect this because it does not work properly, or it may be necessary to Use it when you want to.

Furthermore, through the processes of steps 62 and 63, a process of automatically detecting the occurrence of a coin jam is performed.

That is, in step 62, it is determined whether or not there are still coins on the rotary disk 1, depending on whether the output of the metal sensor 8a is ON, and in step 63, it is determined depending on whether the output of the metal sensor 8 is OFF. , it is determined whether or not there are no coins on the conveyance path 2.

As a result, even though there are coins on the turntable 1,
If the coin is not transported to transport path 2, transport path 2
This means that there is a coin jam on the upstream side.

When the above-mentioned jamming release switch 29 is turned ON, and when a coin jam is detected through all steps 62 and 63, steps 64 to 67
The jamming release process is executed.

Step 64 is a drive control signal D for the step motor 18.
3 and moves the movable guide 5 upward in FIG. 1 to expand the width of the conveyance path 2.

In step 65, it is determined based on the output signal S1 of the home position sensor 16 whether the movable guide 5 has been expanded to the home position.

Therefore, through the processing in steps 64 and 65, the movable guide 5 is expanded to the home position. Here, the rotation of the turntable 1 continues, but the rotation of the boots IJ9 and 10 is stopped.

As a result, the coins stuck on the transport path 2 are freed by the expansion of the movable guide 5 and removed by the rotation of the rotary disk 1. Further, since the pulleys 9 and 10 are stopped, coins do not enter onto the conveyance path 2 during this time.

As described above, after the movable guide 5 is moved to the home position, the processes of steps 66 and 67 are executed after a certain period of time, and the movable guide 5 is returned to the position immediately before the expansion operation of the movable guide 5 is performed. perform an action. When this operation is completed, the stopped Boo IJ9.10 starts rotating and automatically restarts the denomination sorting operation.

In the above embodiment, an example of sorting Japanese currency was shown, but it goes without saying that the present invention can also be applied to a device that sorts and counts foreign coins or medals by denomination or type.

Furthermore, if a coin or the like is clogged at the entrance of the conveyance path, it is more effective to reverse the apparatus and clear the jam.

(Effects of the Invention) As described above, in the present invention, the feed screw shaft 12 is fixedly provided on the movable guide 5 for selecting the course width of the conveyance path 2,
A nut 13 screwed onto the feed screw shaft 12 is rotatably provided on a fixed member, a home position sensor 16 is provided for the feed screw shaft 12, and the nut 13 is rotated by a motor 18 that can be driven by electronic control by a computer. As a result, the movable guide 5 for selecting the course width can be set at a desired position, and by programming in a computer, it is possible to handle all kinds of coins by simple operations such as push buttons. . Moreover, the movable guide 5 is
Since the nut 13 screwed into the feed screw shaft 12 is accurately rotated and moved by a motor 18 that can be driven by electronic control, it can be controlled with much higher precision than conventional cams, so it can also be used to sort coins. I can do it accurately.

In addition, as mentioned above, coins become jammed on the conveyance path 2 (
According to the present invention, even if jamming (jamming) occurs, the jamming can be automatically detected, and the movable guide 5 can automatically move immediately based on the detection signal to expand the width of the conveyance path 2. The coin counting machine of the present invention has many excellent effects, such as eliminating the need for the complicated work required in the past to clear jamming.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

Figure 1 is a plan view showing the configuration of an embodiment of the present invention, Figure 2 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the controller in Figure 1, and Figures 3 and 4 are executed by the CPU in Figure 2. FIG. 5 is a block diagram of a conventional device. 1... Rotating disk 2... Conveyance path 3... Discharge port 4... Fixed guide 5... Movable guide 8, 8a... Meckl sensor 9.10...
Pulley 11... Feed belt 12...
Feed screw shaft 13... Nut 14... Bearing
15...Gear 16...Home position sensor 17...Sensor plate 18...Step motor 19...Gear 20...Controller patent applicant
Tokyo System Create Co., Ltd. Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 4

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. The coins housed in the coin accommodating section are sequentially fed into a conveyance path in which a discharge port is formed in the middle for allowing coins with a diameter smaller than the hole width to drop out, and the coins pass through the conveyance path without falling out from the discharge port. In a coin counting machine that separates coins from coins that have fallen out of the ejection port and counts coins that have passed through the conveyance path, a feed screw shaft is fixedly provided on a movable guide for selecting the course width of the conveyance path; A nut screwed onto the feed screw shaft is rotatably provided on the fixed member, and a home position sensor for the feed screw shaft is provided, and the nut is rotated by a motor that can be driven by electronic control by a computer, thereby selecting the course width. A coin counting machine characterized in that a movable guide can be set at a desired position.