Coin hopper
AssigneeAsahi Seiko Kabushiki Kaisha
InventorMinoru Enomoto
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A coin hopper includes a rotating disc having recesses that receive and hold coins one by one; a moving body that is disposed at a position corresponding to the recess and moves reciprocally between a holding position and a push-out position; a cam groove including a first route having a substantially circular shape and a second route connected to the first route at first and second branch points and protruding toward the outer periphery of the rotating disc with respect to the first route; and a cam follower disposed in the cam groove provided on a back side of the moving body. The moving body is held at the holding position when the cam follower moves along the first route and moves reciprocally between the holding position and the push-out position when the cam follower moves along the second route.
Claims5
A coin hopper that separates coins in bulk one by one and delivers the coins individually comprising:
- a rotating disc that is selectively rotatable in a first rotating direction and a second rotating direction, which is in a direction opposite to the first rotating direction;
- a recess that is formed on a surface of the rotating disc, and extends from a central portion of the rotating disc toward an outer periphery of the rotating disc, opens at an outer peripheral end of the rotating disc, to receive and hold one of the coins;
- a moving body that is disposed at a position corresponding to the recess, the moving body moving reciprocally between a coin holding position, which corresponds to a central portion of the rotating disc, the moving body forming a side portion of the recess and receives the coin in cooperation with the recess and the moving body can be moved to a coin push-out position, which corresponds to a position moved toward the outer periphery of the rotating disc, for pushing out the coin held in the recess toward the outer periphery of the rotating disc;
- a cam wheel disposed on a back side of the rotating disc and provided with a cam groove having a predetermined shape on the rotating disc side;
- and
- a cam follower disposed in the cam groove provided on a back side of the moving body, wherein
- the cam groove includes a first route having a substantially circular shape and a second route connected to the first route at first and second branch points and protruding toward the outer periphery of the rotating disc with respect to the first route;
- the moving body is held at the coin holding position when the cam follower moves along the first route and moves reciprocally between the coin holding position and the coin push-out position when the cam follower moves along the second route;
- and
- a route switching device is provided at the first branch point, and causes a moving route of the cam follower to be switched from the first route to the second route when the rotating disc rotates in the first rotating direction and the moving route of the cam follower to be maintained in the first route when the rotating disc rotates in the second rotating direction.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.