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:
Sep. 07, 1999
Filed:
Nov. 20, 1997
Young-Ryol Kim, Kwangju, KR;
Kwangju Electronics Co., Ltd., Kwangju, KR;
Abstract
A raw material sensing apparatus for a vending machine having a coin mechanism, an article selection panel, raw material receptacles, a hot water supply part, a mixing part for mixing raw materials with hot water, a dispensing part for providing a user with a mixture of the hot water and raw materials, including: a raw material output sensing part, monitoring whether or not raw materials are supplied to the mixing part from the raw material receptacles; and a control unit checking if raw materials for a user-desired article are supplied from the raw material receptacles according to an output signal of the raw material output sensing part, and when it determines that the raw materials are not supplied from the raw material receptacles, stopping vending, simultaneously with generating a signal for refunding coins, put into the vending machine, to the coin mechanism, and when it determines that the raw materials are supplied from the raw material receptacles, producing a signal for supplying hot water from the hot water supply part to the mixing part and then mixing the raw materials in the hot water, thus dispensing a mixture of the raw materials and hot water.