Method of and system for detecting produce weighing interferences in a POS-based checkout/scale system

A bi-optical checkout/scale system comprising:

• a housing having a vertical housing section with a vertical scanning window and a horizontal housing section with a horizontal scanning window adjacent said vertical scanning window;
• a laser scanning subsystem, disposed in said housing, for generating and projecting a plurality of laser scanning planes through said vertical and horizontal scanning windows, which intersect within a 3D scanning volume defined between said vertical and horizontal scanning windows and provide a laser scanning pattern within said 3D scanning volume, for scanning one or more objects within said 3D scanning volume and producing scan data for decode processing,
• a scan data processor for processing said scan data produced by said laser scanning subsystem in effort to read a bar code symbol on each object passed through said 3D scanning volume, and generate symbol character data representative of each said read bar code symbol;
• a weigh scale subsystem mounted within said horizontal housing section, for weighing produce items placed on a weigh platter supported above the horizontal scanning window, and producing weigh data representative of the weight of said produce items weighed on said weigh platter;
• wherein said weigh platter is supported about said horizontal scanning window;
• an automatic produce weighing interference detection subsystem, disposed in said housing, for automatically detecting produce weighing interference conditions during produce weighing operations, and generating control signals indicative of said detected weighing interference conditions during produce weighing operations;
• and
• a system controller for automatically controlling the operation of said bi-optical checkout/scale system;
• wherein said automatic produce weighing interference detection subsystem comprises pairs of object detection modules for projecting pairs of overlapping planar IR-based object detection planes normal to the weigh platter about the outer edges of the weigh platter to detect produce weighing interference conditions.