Umc Industries, Inc.

Hasmukh R Shah

Thaddeus M Jones

Ashok K Gupta

Bruce R Hemingway

Charles D Nash

Michael S Ross

A price-setting control device for a vending machine can be used to set prices for a number of products and to store those prices in a memory. A decimal-type visual display selectively, but simultaneously, displays a 'line' number which is assigned to a given product plus the price set for that product. A line-selecting switch, rather than the customer-operated switches of the vending machine, is used to select the desired line number when the price, for the product corresponding to that line number, is to be set. Mode-controlling data for the operation of the vending machine can be stored in selected locations within the memory; and the line-selecting switch plus a price-setting switch can be used to change that data.

Control device

A control device for a vending machine for setting prices and storing prices in a memory with a price-setting mode, a price verification mode and a product-vending mode. In the product-vending mode, actuation of a selection switch provides a momentary pulse through the vending circuit to enable a price to be loaded into a register for subsequent comparison with accumulated credit. That pulse is so short that a product is not vended; but it is sufficiently large to keep leakage from simulating it. Switches select the locations in memory where prices are stored, and further switches are provided to set the prices in those locations. The control device automatically responds to actuation of any of these switches to shift from the product-vending to the price-setting mode. Coin tube inventory switches are provided which have a dual function, namely, effecting emptying of the coin tubes and also placing the control device in the price verification mode. The control device is also responsive to the insertion of a coin or to the pressing of the cancel sale button to automatically take the vending machine out of the price-setting or price verification mode and place it in the product-vending mode. In the product-vending mode, the availability of coins will determine which coins will be used in dispensing the change -- three dimes being used to provide thirty cents in change if the nickel tube is empty.

A detecting magnetic coil is mounted adjacent the authenticity-determining magnetic coil of an electronic slug rejector to distinguish between authentic coins and any copper slugs which might cause the authenticity-determining coil to produce an output which closely simulates the output which that authenticity-determining coil produces in response to authentic coins. The signal from that detecting coil is used to control the accept/reject gate of that electronic slug rejector; and it will effect movement of that gate to 'accept' position in the event it detects a non-cupreous object but it will not effect such movement of that gate in the event it detects a copper slug.

Coin-handling device

A data acquisition unit accepts serial bit streams from a control device for a vending machine, and it records the data represented by those serial bit streams. The data in one of those serial bit streams will include the number of vends of each product corresponding to the various selection switches of the vending machine, and the data in the other of those serial bit streams will include the price data. The data acquisition unit will store the price data in a non-resettable location and also in a resettable location. A readout can be actuated to effect the displaying of the selection line number and of the corresponding settable and non-resettable price data.

Data acquisition unit

A bill-handling device provides relative movement between a sensor and a U.S. bill or other object to permit that sensor to sense longitudinally-spaced areas on that U.S. bill or other object which correspond to areas, on authentic U.S. bills or counterfeits thereof, where significant data is found. Data which is obtained during the sensing of those areas is stored, and subsequently is analyzed to determine the authenticity and denomination of the U.S. bill--if it is one of a plurality of bills of specifically-different denominations.

Paper currency device

A piece of scrip is engraved or printed with groups of patterns which can be sensed by a validator for scrip and one of those groups of patterns will define a code which will permit that piece of scrip to be accepted only by a scrip validator or by scrip validators which have that same code stored therein. Two additional groups of patterns define codes which can cause that scrip validator or those scrip validators to automatically respond to the codes stored therein to actuate price-determining relays within a vending machine. Each pattern is formed by a number of spaced parallel lines, and the various patterns on a piece of scrip can be given different identities merely by changing the spacing between the trailing edges of those spaced parallel lines. The patterns in each group of patterns will be sensed in a prescribed sequence, and the sequentially-sensed patterns in any of those groups of patterns can be given various identities. As a result, the scrip validator of the present invention can accept a piece of scrip which has a given number of patterns of specifically-different identities and yet reject a piece of scrip which has those same patterns arranged in a different sequence. In this way, the present invention makes it possible to use permutations, rather than mere combinations, of potentially-usable pattern identities, and thus makes it possible to use just fifteen specifically-different pattern identities to make thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty different pieces of scrip. The scrip validator of the present invention stores the codes, which correspond to the codes defined by the patterns on the piece of scrip, in serially-shifted shift registers; and, as each pattern on the piece of scrip is sensed by the scrip validator, the data within the shift registers is serially shifted a plurality of times. The identity of any given pattern can be determined by three signals; and, by utilizing serially-shifted shift registers which have seven or more stages, the present invention enables each shift register to store the pattern-identifying data for at least two patterns. In addition, the serial shifting of the shift registers permits the pattern-identifying data for the various patterns to be presented in fixed sequences. Moreover, by merely changing some of the connections to the input terminals of the shift registers, it is possible to change the codes stored within those shift registers. The frequency which identifies each pattern is sensed by the combination of a digital filter and a counter; and such a combination provides a strict test of the identification of each pattern because it requires the frequency which corresponds to the spacing of the trailing edges of the lines of that pattern to match the frequency of the digital filter, and it also requires that pattern to have a minimum number of lines which have that same spacing.

Validator for scrip

A piece of scrip is engraved or printed with groups of patterns which can be sensed by a validator for scrip and one of those groups of patterns will define a code which will permit that piece of scrip to be accepted only by a scrip validator or by scrip validators which have that same code stored therein. Two additional groups of patterns define codes which can cause that scrip validator or those scrip validators to automatically respond to the codes stored therein to actuate price-determining relays within a vending machine. Each pattern is formed by a number of spaced parallel lines, and the various patterns on a piece of scrip can be given different identities merely by changing the spacing between the trailing edges of those spaced parallel lines. The patterns in each group of patterns will be sensed in a prescribed sequence, and the sequentially sensed patterns in any of those groups of patterns can be given various identities. As a result, the scrip validator of the present invention can accept a piece of scrip which has a given number of patterns of specifically different identities and yet reject a piece of scrip which has those same patterns arranged in a different sequence. In this way, the present invention makes it possible to use permutations, rather than mere combinations, of potentially usable pattern identities, and thus makes it possible to use just fifteen specifically different pattern identities to make thirty-two thousand seven hundred and sixty different pieces of scrip. The scrip validator of the present invention stores the codes, which correspond to the codes defined by the patterns on the piece of scrip, in serially shifted shift registers; and, as each pattern on the piece of scrip is sensed by the scrip validator, the data within the shift registers is serially shifted a plurality of times. The identity of any given pattern can be determined by three signals; and, by utilizing serially shifted shift registers which have seven or more stages, the present invention enables each shift register to store the pattern-identifying data for at least two patterns. In addition, the serial shifting of the shift registers permits the pattern-identifying data for the various patterns to be presented in fixed sequences. Moreover, by merely changing some of the connections to the input terminals of the shift registers, it is possible to change the codes stored within those shift registers. The frequency which identifies each pattern is sensed by the combination of a digital filter and a counter; and such a combination provides a strict test of the identification of each pattern because it requires the frequency which corresponds to the spacing of the trailing edges of the lines of that pattern to match the frequency of the digital filter, and it also requires that pattern to have a minimum number of lines which have that same spacing.

Growing community of inventors

Hot Springs, AR, United States of America

Hasmukh R Shah