Apparatus and methods for a semi-automatic pill counting tray

A weight based method for counting a known and targeted number of pills for a pharmaceutical prescription practiced in concert with the said pill counting tray apparatus having a flat platform and an adjacent trough which are both initially empty, in which the operator performs the following steps:

• (1) pours an unknown quantity of pills from a storage container onto the said platform which the operator estimates to significantly exceed the targeted prescription count,
• (2) moves said lid that extends over said trough to a fixed and stable position established by said latch whereby the resulting structure of the said lid relative to the said counting tray readily facilitates manual transfers of pills between the said platform and said trough which are typically accomplished with a spatula, and whereby the said fixed position of the lid is detected by said electronic position sensor that triggers the electronics to prompt the operator to advance a specific and known initial quantity of pills from the said platform into said trough by showing an alphanumeric message on said output display that is associated with the said pill counting tray,
• (3) manually advances the said specific and known quantity of pills from the platform onto a weight measuring surface comprised of said trough surface directly above a weighing load sensor, whereby the electronics calculates an initial piece weight by dividing the measured weight of the pills in the trough by the said specific and known quantity and then shows the said specific and known quantity in numeric form on the said output display,
• (4) manually advances a first discrete group of one or more pills onto said trough surface such that the total count of pills in the trough is updated on the said output display after summing the first discrete group count with the previously displayed initial quantity of pills, whereby the first discrete group count is determined by calculating the net change in the total weight of pills in the trough occurring as a result of the introduction of the first discrete group, and dividing the said net weight change by the said initial piece weight, with the electronics then employing an algorithmic feature for conditionally updating the said initial piece weight to be equal to the current weight of all of the pills in the trough divided by the updated total count of pills shown on the said output display, and identifying the result as the current piece weight,
• (5) sees that the count shown on the said output display does not yet match the targeted prescription count, or otherwise skips directly to step (6) if it does, and manually advances an additional discrete group of one or more pills onto said trough surface such that the total count of pills in the trough is updated on the said output display after the group transfer and determined by summing the group count with the previously displayed total count of pills in the trough, whereby the group count is determined by dividing the respective net weight change of the pills in the trough by the current piece weight, and the electronics then updating the current piece weight conditionally according to the said algorithmic feature, and whereby the operator repeats this step (5) until the count shown on the said output display matches the targeted prescription count,
• (6) closes the said lid over the trough, and
• (7) lifts and maneuvers said pill counting tray to first pour the pills remaining on the platform back into the said storage container, and then dispenses the pills from the trough into a prescription container.