Mars, Incorporated

Peter J Reyner

Robert Dean

Derek Hutchinson

Frederic P Heiman

Peter R Johnson

Patrick A Henehan

A coin testing apparatus subjects a coin inserted into a coin entry (1) and rolling down an inclined track (2) to testing at a testing station (3) comprising sensors (4,5,6) which may for example be inductive sensors. If a coin is found to be acceptable an accept signal is generated and this causes gate mechanism (8) to open to permit the coin to access accept path (9), the gate mechanism (8) being normally closed so that unacceptable coins can only access a reject path (10). A post-gate detector (11) in the accept path (9) senses the passage of an accepted coin and serves to close the gate mechanism (8) and also to determine allocation of a customer credit. A pre-gate detector (12) upstream of the gate mechanism (8) has its output logically processed with the accept signal produced when an acceptable coin is tested and/or with the output of the post-gate detector (11).

Coin testing apparatus

Apparatus for checking the validity of coins

The operation of a coin testing apparatus is checked by switching the apparatus to a test mode. In the test mode, the properties of items inserted into the apparatus are compared with stored 'test' ranges, instead of 'acceptability' ranges which are normally used to determine whether the item is a genuine coin. A specially designed non-genuine coin is then inserted into the apparatus. If the measured properties of the non-genuine coin fall within the 'test' ranges, a signal is produced to indicate that the apparatus is operating correctly. If any of the properties falls outside a 'test' range, but within a further, contiguous range, a signal indicates that the apparatus is working adequately, but not optimally.

A coin testing apparatus for identifying non-circular coins of a particular denomination. The apparatus includes an array of coin presence sensors. Two reference sensors are located along a line perpendicular to the coin track equidistant above and below a line parallel to the track and approximately half the coin's mean diameter above the track. Two secondary sensors are located along the line parallel to the track so that when a coin of the said denomination first occludes one or other of the reference sensors it occludes one but not both of the secondary sensors. Other sensors are provided to indicate that the coin is non-circular.

Growing community of inventors

Northwood, United Kingdom

Peter J Reyner