Golf ball vendor
OwnerOscar Bockinventor
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A coin-controlled, manually operable machine for vending several dozen golf balls at a time. The vending machine has a ball hopper and a ramp below the hopper defining a ball dispensing opening between them. A gate rotatably mounted at the opening, extends partially there across in its closed position to cause the balls to bridge the opening. When the double-stroke actuating lever is pulled forward and returned, the gate is swung or kicked into the mass of balls twice to break up the bridging of balls to release a sufficient excess of balls down the ramp to assure filling of a rotatable ball receiver-dumper cylinder extending across the bottom of the ramp. The actuating lever is maintained inoperative by a coin-releasable locking mechanism. The receiver-dumper cylinder has a keeper slot receiving a limiting lug.
Claims7
A golf ball vendor comprising:
- a. a ball hopper having an bottom pan;
- b. a declining ramp extending below said hopper bottom pan in spaced relation thereto, said pan and ramp defining a ball dispensing opening there between;
- c. a gate pivotably mounted below said hopper pan and above said discharge ramp at said opening rotatable between (1) a downwardly extending closed position wherein the lower edge of said gate is spaced more than the diameter of one ball and less than the diameter of two balls from said ramp to cause said balls in said hopper to bridge across said opening and (2) a release position into which said gate is swung toward the mass of balls in said hopper to break up the bridging of balls therein for releasing balls down said ramp;
- d. ball receiver-dumper extending across the lower end of said declining ramp, said ball receiver being rotatable between a receiving position and a dumping position for receiving a predetermined number of balls from said ramp and dumping them;
- and
- e. manually movable double stroke actuating means operatively linked to said ball receiver-dumper and said gate for (1) rotating said ball receiver-dumper from its receiving position to its dumping position for dumping balls therefrom and for rotating said gate from said closed position to said release position back to said closed position, by a single operating stroke of said actuating means, and (2) rotating said ball receiver-dumper from its dumping position back to its receiving position and said gate from its closed position to said release position and back to its closed position by a single return stroke of said actuating means.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.