The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Apr. 21, 1998
Filed:
Mar. 21, 1996
James K Mikulak, Austin, TX (US);
Paul H Clark, Austin, TX (US);
Carey W Starzinger, Salem, OR (US);
Barry H Wong, Vancouver, WA (US);
The Casino Software Corporation of America, Salem, OR (US);
Abstract
A chip (12) counter (10) employs an ultrasonic distance measuring system (40) to determine the number of chips in a stack (54, 56) in a chip tray (16) channel (14). A computer (32) initially stores an average chip thickness (T) and receives distance data from the ultrasonic distance measuring system indicative of a first distance (D.sub.1) to the bottom of an empty channel. To count chips, the computer repeatedly receives data from the ultrasonic distance measuring system indicative of a second distance (D.sub.2) to the top of the stack of chips in the channel. The computer subtracts the second distance from the first distance to determine a height of the stack of chips and then divides the height by the average chip thickness to provide a continuous count of the number of chips in the channel. In a multichannel chip tray, each channel has a distance measuring transducer, and a multiplexer (28) scans all the transducers to provide the computer with second distance data for all channels in the chip tray.