Patent GB-1291940-A (GB)
Title: Automatic vending machine control system
IPC: G07F17/42
Filed: 1970-12-02
Abstract: 1291940 Issuing tickets OMRON TATEISI ELECTRONICS CO 2 Dec 1970 [2 Dec 1969] 57245/70 Heading G4T A controllable automatic vending machine system comprises a plurality of vending means each capable of a plurality of different vending operations and control means which can be set to determine which vending operations shall be effective. The control means are set by a plurality of setting means, there being means for selecting different setting means to set the control means in a preset time sequence such that the vending operations effective in each machine can be changed from time to time depending on the setting means selected. The setting means may be manually programmable and overrided if desired. The vending machine system includes customer panels having display sections which can be controlled to a plurality of display states indicating which of the different vending operations is available to the customer at a given time, as dependent on the selected setting means. In one embodiment, as shown in Fig. 4A, a display panel may for example, indicate stations ST 1 , ST 2  . . . and lines l 1 , l 2  . . . for which travel tickets are available from a ticketissuing machine by means of lamps at the panel rear (La) (Fig. 4C, not shown) controlled by an input signal to the customer panels V 1  . . . V n . As shown in Fig. 2, the input control signal to a customer panel is applied to a decoder De to select display states I n1  . . . I nm . The output of the decoder De is also fed to a destination designating counter Des connected to a comparison operation circuit Com to compare this input with that from an input coin counter Cct which counts the coins inserted at a mechanism CM. The output from the comparison circuit Com drives a ticket printer Pr and a change circuit Ch. Tickets are issued from a delivery port Top and change is delivered at another port Chop. The customer panels V 1  . . . Vn are connected through OR gates O 1  . . . O n  to a number e of setting circuits S 1  . . . Se, each setting circuit including a plurality of coder circuits C 11  . . . C 1n , C 21 ... C 2n  . . . Ce 1  . . . Ce n  comprising connecting pins and a number m of diodes D 1  . . . D m . The numbers l and m correspond to time-zones of a day to be set and the number of display panel states, repsectively. The setting circuits S 1  . . . Se are controlled by a counter Ct driven by a frequency division circuit D which is governed by a block S. A manual switch SW selects any single one output terminal t 1  . . . te of the counter Ct to interrupt the automatic time sequence control. The diodes D 1  . . . D m  of the coder circuits C 11 . . . C 1n  &c. of each setting circuit are manually preset to determine the types of ticket to be made available in each time zone corresponding to the output terminals (t 1  . . . te from the counter. With switch SW open, the counter Ct sends an output signal to the setting circuit for a particular time zone and the display panel on each customer panel V 1  . . . V n  shows the vending performance for that time zone. Some of the panels may be controlled to stop in given time zones. A further setting circuit may be incorporated to deal with a set pattern of vending operations in special conditions, e.g. a traffic accident. In this case the switch SW is manually operated to enable the counter Ct to control the additional setting circuit. The display pattern states of the customer panel depend on the application of the vending machine, e.g. issuing meal tickets in restaurants, and also on the number of display states required, e.g. if tickets for only two or three stations are to be issued then the display may be a number of illuminated station names (Figs. 3A, 3B, not shown).