US 4,376,478 AGranted

Control device for a vending machine including system for confirming vendibility of selected articles

AssigneeKabushiki Kaisha Nippon Coinco

InventorsOsamu Sugimoto, Masaki Akagawa

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Abstract

A vending control system for sequentially carrying out a first and second operation in order to insure that the selected article is in fact vendible and that the correct amount of change is provided. During the first operation, the amount of deposited coins is compared with the vend price of all articles in order to determine which articles are vendible, and article selection switches corresponding to the vendible articles are enabled. And during the second operation, the amount of deposited coins is compared with the vend price of an article selected by operation of the corresponding article selection switch, in order to confirm that the selected article is in fact vendible and to insure that the proper amount of change is provided.

Claims9

Dependent claims

A control device for a vending machine comprising counter means for adding amounts of deposited coins together and subtracting a price of an article to be vended and an amount of paid out coins from a total amount of the deposited coins, comparator means for comparing present contents of said counter means with a set vend price of an article, vend price setting means for presetting vend prices of respective articles, article selection switches corresponding to the respective articles and vend circuits corresponding to the respective articles for dispensing the articles in response to a vend drive signal characterized in that said control device further comprises vend control means which comprises:

vend price signal delivery means which delivers signals representing the set vend prices of all articles having been set by said vend price setting means to said comparator means during a first operation and delivers only a signal representing the vend price of the single article selected by said article selection switch during a second operation;
vend possible signal delivery means which delivers out, during said first operation, one or more vend possible signals corresponding to one or more vendible articles which have been detected by said comparator means;
vend drive signal delivery means which supplies, during said second operation, a vend drive signal corresponding to the single article which has been found vendible by said comparator means to said vend circuits;
and
operation control means which judges whether said first operation is to be made or said second operation is to be made, causing said first operation and said second operation to be performed sequentially, and controls said respective signal delivery means in accordance with the judgement;
the operation of said article selection switch or switches being made effective by said vend possible signals and the article being dispensed by said vend drive signal.

3 more elements

A control device for a vending machine comprising counter means for adding amounts of deposited coins together and subtracting a price of an article to be vended and an amount of paid out coins from a total amount of the deposited coins, comparator means for comparing present contents of said counter means with a set vend price of an article, vend price setting means for presetting vend prices of respective articles, article selection switches corresponding to the respective articles, vend possible indicators provided corresponding to the respective article selection switches, and vend circuits corresponding to the respective articles for dispensing the articles in response to a vend drive signal characterized in that said control device further comprises vend control means which comprises:

operation control means which judges whether a first operation is to be made or a second operation is to be made depending upon whether any one of said article selection switches has been operated or not, causing said first operation to be performed before said one of the article selection switches has been operated and causing said second operation to be performed after said one of the article selection switches has been operated;
vend price signal delivery means which delivers signals representing the set vend prices of all articles having been set by said vend price setting means to said comparator means during said first operation and delivers only a signal representing the vend price of the single article selected by said article selection switch during said second operation;
vend possible signal delivery means which delivers out, during said first operation, one or more vend possible signals corresponding to one or more vendible articles which have been detected by said comparator means for driving one or more of said vend possible indicators in response to said vend possible signal or signals;
and
vend drive signal delivery means which supplies, during said second operation, a vend drive signal corresponding to the single article which has been found vendible by said comparator means to said vend circuits.

2 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.