JPS6057632B2 - vending machine - Google Patents

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention is directed to an automatic device for selling shaved ice, iced coffee, iced cocoa, cola with ice, etc., which has a function of preparing or manufacturing sales contents. To provide a vending machine which can always sell products when the amount of products in a product storage chamber is sufficient for dispensing.

[Conventional technology and its problems]

Conventionally, in a vending machine equipped with an ice-making device, etc., where the sales contents were created by a machine, the ice-making machine was designed to continuously feed the required amount of ice into an ice-making container, and the ice-making container A limit switch that turns on and off within a certain width is installed, and when the ice is full, the limit switch is turned on to stop the ice maker and enable sales, and when a certain amount of ice is dispensed, the switch is turned on. If it turns off, sales are stopped and the ice maker is activated to make ice again to fill the ice maker.

For this reason, there was an inconvenience that the product could not be sold even though there was still a large amount left. Therefore,
As shown in Publication No. 3-74500, a production signal is issued each time the amount of product (ice) required for one sale is produced, and a sales signal is issued each time a product is sold. , a vending machine that controls vending operation and stop based on both signals has been invented. However, when selling a wide variety of products, for example, when selling iced coffee, iced cocoa, cola, etc. with one vending machine, the amount of ice put in each vending machine is different.

Therefore, if the sales operation and stop are controlled only by the sales/dispensing signal, as in the conventional example above, that is, the product quantity and dispensing amount are not controlled by grasping them in an analog manner, the dispensing quantity is not always constant. Therefore, the total payout amount based on the payout signal cannot be accurately grasped.

For this reason, in sales operations with different payout amounts,
There is a problem that a discrepancy occurs between the amount actually dispensed and the amount detected by the counter, making it impossible to accurately control sales. [Object of the Invention] With the above points in mind, an object of the present invention is to provide a vending machine that can grasp and control the amount of products and dispensed amount in an analog manner.

[Means to achieve the purpose]

In order to achieve the above object, in the present invention, in a vending machine that has the function of mixing or manufacturing sales contents, the operating time of the machine for manufacturing products and the production amount per unit time. An adding/subtracting circuit is provided that adds the product of the product dispensing time and the dispensing amount per unit time, and the sales operation is performed by comparing the counted value of this adding/subtracting circuit with the product dispensing sales amount setting value. and a comparison circuit for controlling the stop.

[Function] A vending machine configured in this manner uses an addition/subtraction circuit to add and subtract the products of the production quantity and dispensing quantity per unit time and the operating time and dispensing time of the manufacturing machine in an analog manner. The remaining amount is grasped in an analog manner, and a comparison circuit compares this remaining amount value with a preset product dispensing amount value. For example, if the former is larger than the latter, the sales operation is performed, and if the opposite is the case, the sales are stopped. do.

〔Example〕

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.

This embodiment is equipped with an ice maker, stores the ice produced by this ice maker in a container, and sells the iced coffee, iced cocoa, cola, etc. by adding the amount of ice from the container to the container. It's a vending machine.

The ice making machine has a conventional and well-known configuration, and continuously produces ice and feeds it into a container.

However, even with the same ice maker, the ice making speed varies depending on the outside temperature, water temperature, etc., for example, 1 g/Sec in winter and 0.0 g/Sec in summer.
It becomes 6fI/Sec. Further, the ice making machine is stopped by a full signal from the full switch of the ice making container. An addition/subtraction circuit 1 shown in the drawing calculates the amount of ice produced by this ice maker. That is, as shown in the figure, the pulse signal a emitted from the ice production amount setting device 2 per unit time, for example, per second.
A coincidence signal between and (generated during operation) from the operation signal b of the ice maker is input to the addition/subtraction circuit 1 via the AND circuit 3,
The amount of ice made is added in an analog manner based on the number of pulses of the pulse signal a when the operation signal b is being issued. For example, in winter, if pulse signal a is input at 1 second intervals, 1f is added each time the signal is input. Therefore, by changing the generation interval of the pulse signal a, it is possible to make it correspond to the ice making speed.
For example, if the interval is set to 1.67 (110.6) seconds in the summer, the ice production amount will be increased by 1y at each interval. In other words, if one second is a unit of time, 1V is added per second in winter, and 0.6f is added per second in summer. As shown in the figure, the setting device 2 consists of a voltage-to-frequency converter (hereinafter referred to as a V/f converter) 4 and a circuit 5 for varying the input voltage V, etc., and the variable circuit 5 includes a switch 5a.
. . . and resistors 5b .

In this way, the variable circuit 5 adjusts the input voltage (2) so that the interval of the pulse signal a output from the V/f converter 4 corresponds to the ice making speed. Further, the addition/subtraction circuit 1 receives a coincidence signal of the pulse signal c emitted from the ice dispensing amount setting device 6 per unit time, for example, per second, and the operation signal d (issued during operation) of the ice dispensing mechanism via the AND circuit 7. input, and the payout amount is subtracted in an analog manner by the number of pulses of the pulse signal c when the actuation signal d is being issued.

For example, if the pulse signal c is input at 1 second intervals and 10y is paid out in that 1 second, 10f is subtracted. This number of pulses is added by a separately set adder to feed an appropriate amount of ice into iced coffee, iced cocoa, etc. For example, iced coffee is 30y with 3 pulses. Therefore, since the payout amount of the payout machine is constant, the interval of the pulse signal c is set to 0. If the number of pulses is 3, the number of pulses will be 15f. That is, by adjusting the interval of the pulse signal c using the setting device 6, the payout amount per unit time changes, and this is subtracted. The payout amount per unit time varies depending on the winter, spring/autumn, summer, etc. Said setting device 6
Like the setting device 2, it consists of a V/f converter 8, a variable circuit 9, etc., and turns on/off the switches 9a... in the variable circuit 7 to change the connection relationship of the resistors 9b... Then, the input voltage V'' is adjusted to make the interval of the pulse signal c output from the /f converter 8 correspond to the above-mentioned payout amount per unit time.

For example, when paying out 10f per second, the pulse signal C
is input to the addition/subtraction circuit 1 and subtracted by 10y. A comparison circuit 10 is connected to the subsequent stage of the addition/subtraction circuit 1.
In this comparison circuit 10, the remaining amount of ice in the container corresponding to the count number in the addition/subtraction circuit 1 is compared with a preset amount of sold out sales (usually set to the value of the sales item with the largest amount of outed). , if the former is more than the latter, a sales enable signal e is generated, and in the opposite case, a sales stop and ice maker drive signal f is generated.

In the above description, it is stated that one count is made by one person using the pulse signals A and c, but normally, one count is made by several pulses or several tens of pulses to improve accuracy. However, it goes without saying that one pulse may be used as one count. The embodiment is constructed as described above. Now, when the setting device 2 sets the ice production amount per unit time and the setting device 6 sets the ice dispensing amount per unit time, the addition/subtraction circuit 1 , the amount of ice produced is added based on the operation of the ice maker, and the amount of ice dispensed is subtracted based on the amount of ice dispensed by the dispensing mechanism.

Based on the count value of the adder/subtractor circuit 1, a comparator circuit 10 issues a sales enable signal e or a sales stop and ice maker drive signal f to control ice sales and stop operations.

[Effects of the Invention] This invention is configured as described above to grasp the product production volume and product delivery volume in an analog manner and control the sales operation and stoppage, so that it is possible to accurately respond to the product volume. The sales efficiency can be significantly improved compared to the past.

Furthermore, since the product of the product payout time and its unit time is subtracted, even if the amount of sold products is different, the payout amount can be accurately grasped and sales control can be performed.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawing is a schematic circuit diagram of a main part of an embodiment of the present invention. 1... Addition/subtraction circuit, 2... Ice production amount setting device per unit time, 6... Ice dispensing amount setting device per unit time, 10...・Comparison circuit.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. For vending machines that have the function of blending or manufacturing sales contents, add the product of the operating time of the machine that manufactures the product and the production amount per unit time, and add the product dispensing time and the product output per unit time. The present invention is characterized in that an addition/subtraction circuit is provided for subtracting the product of the product with the payout amount, and a comparison circuit is provided for comparing the counted value of the addition/subtraction circuit with the product payout sales amount setting value to control the sales operation and stop. vending machine.