Abstract:
The present invention provides a bill receiving/processing machine, which has a simple configuration having no temporary reserving section, and has no need of manually sorting the approved bill even in the case where a fault is generated, and can rationally carry out cancel processing with respect to a transaction such that a bill has been already sent to a stacker after money kind discriminating/counting handling is completed. The bill receiving/processing machine is characterized by including: a fault detection means for detecting a generation of fault in money receipt transaction after second time excluding the first time transaction; an alarm means for giving an alarm such that a fault is detected by the fault detection means; and a fault recovery processing section which again places the bill on the hopper when the alarm means gives the alarm of a generation of fault, receives the total bill adding a bill of the present money receipt transaction and a approved bill before the money receipt transaction in the stacker in accordance with the money kind, and distinguishes a received money data of the present money receipt transaction from a received money data of the previous money receipt transaction.

Description:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
         [0001]    1. Field of the Invention  
           [0002]    The present invention relates to a bill receiving/processing machine, which discriminates a kind of bill(paper money or bank note) at every money receipt transaction, counts the number of received bills, and further receives them in a stacker for each kind of bill. In particular, the present invention relates to a bill receiving/processing machine, which has a simple structure having no temporary reserving section for temporarily reserving the bill before receiving, and securely performs a bill receiving/processing to a plurality of transactions even in the case where a fault such as bill jam happens, and rationally performs a cancel processing with respect to a transaction completing a bill kind discriminating/counting process.  
           [0003]    2. Description of the Prior Art  
           [0004]    In the bill receiving/processing machine, in general, a temporary reserving section has been mainly employed. The temporary reserving section temporarily reserves the received bill (paper money or bank note) in a temporarily reserving section before receiving, and thereafter, receives it in a stacker after confirming the final transaction. There is a bill receiving/processing machine (note sorting and counting apparatus) disclosed in the US Pat. No. 4,747,492 by the present applicant, which has the above mentioned temporary reserving section. The apparatus disclosed in the above US Patent includes stackers(S 1  to S 6 ) for receiving the bill for each kind. These stackers(S 1  to S 6 ) are respectively provided with temporary reserving sections(SH 1  to SH 6 ) at their upper portions.  
           [0005]    Continuous processing by the above apparatus to a plurality of bill receipt transactions is made in the following manner.  
           [0006]    First, when a received bill of the first transaction is put into a hopper, the bill fed from the hopper is discriminated for each money kind by a money kind discriminating section. Thereafter, the bill is fed to the temporary reserving sections(SH 1  to SH 6 ) positioned on the upper portion of the money kind stackers(S 1  to S 6 ) in accordance with a kind of the bill. Subsequently, a received money statement and the processing result by the present apparatus are collated, and when the collation is correct, a received money confirmation button is pushed, and thereby the bill is released from the temporary reserving sections(SH 1  to SH 6 ), and then, is successively received in the stackers(S 1  to S 6 ). A received money transaction after the second time is processed in the same manner as above. For example, even if a fault such as jam happens on the way of the second time received money transaction, only bill of the second time transaction exists in the temporary reserving sections(SH 1  to SH 6 ); therefore the bill of the first time transaction is not mixed therein.  
           [0007]    After all, when a fault happens in the apparatus, an operator may carry out fault a recovery handling for collecting the bills reserved in the temporary reserving sections(SH 1  to SH 6 ), the bill(s) remaining in the hopper and the bill(s) existing in the feeding passage having the jam, and again putting them in the hopper.  
           [0008]    On the other hand, in order to reduce a price of the apparatus, there appear many bill receiving/processing machines having a simple configuration including no temporary reserving section. In the bill receiving/processing machine having no temporary reserving section, a plurality of money receipt transactions are continuously processed, and then, in the case where a fault such as jam is generated on the way of processing after the second time transaction, the fault recovery process is troublesome. For example, the first time money receipt transaction is normally processed, and thereafter a fault such as jam is generated on the way of the second time transaction processing. In this case, in view of the bill received in each stacker, the bill of the approved first time transaction is mixed with the bill of the disapproval and processing second time transaction. In order to recover this state, the following work is required. That is, the mixed bills are all taken out of each stacker, and the bill remaining in the hopper and the bill on the feed passage causing the jam are collected and further, the operator manually counts the number of bill by so as to sort the bill of the approved first transaction.  
           [0009]    For this reason, in the bill receiving/processing machine having no temporary reserving section, when a fault is generated, the recovery work of machine becomes very troublesome; as a result, there is a possibility of causing erroneous handling.  
           [0010]    As described above, in the bill receiving/processing machine, when a plurality of money receipt transactions are continuously processed, a fault is generated. In order to speedy and accurately carry out the recovery processing, it is effective to provide a temporary reserving section. However, in the case where the temporary reserving section is provided, a problem arises such that the machine structure becomes complicate, and the machine cost increases.  
           [0011]    Further, in order to reduce the price of the machine, in the bill receiving/processing machine having no temporary reserving section, in the case where a fault such as jam or the like is generated, the recovery processing becomes very troublesome; as a result, a problem arises such that there is a possibility of causing erroneous processing.  
         SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
         [0012]    The present invention has been made in view of the above problems in the prior art. Accordingly, an object of the present invention is to provide a bill receiving/processing machine, which can achieve a price reduction by a simple configuration having no temporary reserving section, and has no need of manually sorting approved bill even in the case where a fault such as jam is generated.  
           [0013]    Further, another object of the present invention is to provide a bill receiving/processing machine, which can rationally carry out cancel process with respect to a transaction such that a bill has been already sent to a stacker after money kind discriminating/counting process is completed.  
           [0014]    The present invention relates to a bill receiving/processing machine, which separately feeds a bill placed on a hopper one by one in succession every money receipt transaction, supplies the bill to money kind discriminating/counting means discriminating a kind of the bill and counting the number of sheets, receives the bill sorted by the money kind discriminating/counting means in a stacker in accordance with the money kind, and has no a temporary reserving section for temporarily separating the bill from the stacker when the bill is received in the stacker for each money kind. The above object of the present invention can be achieved by providing: fault detection means for detecting a generation of fault in money receipt transaction after second time excluding the first time transaction; alarm means for giving an alarm such that a fault is detected by the fault detection means; and a fault recovery handling section which again places the paper money on the hopper when the alarm means gives the alarm of a generation of fault, receives the total bill adding a bill of the present money receipt transaction and an approved bill before the money receipt transaction in the stacker in accordance with the money kind, and distinguishes a received money data of the present money receipt transaction from a received money data of the previous money receipt transaction.  
           [0015]    Further, the above object of the present invention can be achieved by providing a control section which collects a bill relative to the transaction received in the stacker by the money kind discriminating/counting means and an approved bill already received in the stacker before the money receipt transaction, and again places the collected bill on the hopper so that money kind discriminating/counting is again carried out in the case where when a plurality of money receipt transactions is continuously carried out, the transaction after the second time excluding the first time transaction is cancelled after money kind discriminating/counting is completed, receives the bill in the stacker by the number of sheets when the money receipt transaction before the transaction is approved, and discharges the bill after that to the reject stacker. 
       
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS  
       [0016]    In the accompanying drawings:  
         [0017]    [0017]FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an embodiment of a bill receiving/processing machine according to the present invention;  
         [0018]    [0018]FIG. 2 is a view showing an embodiment of a display/operation section;  
         [0019]    [0019]FIG. 3 is a sectional side view showing a structure of an embodiment the bill receiving/processing machine according to the present invention;  
         [0020]    [0020]FIG. 4 is a block diagram showing an internal configuration example of the bill receiving/processing machine according to the present invention;  
         [0021]    [0021]FIG. 5 is a flowchart showing an operation example according to the present invention;  
         [0022]    [0022]FIG. 6 is a flowchart showing an operation example of a fault recovery processing according to the present invention;  
         [0023]    [0023]FIG. 7 is a view to explain fault recovery processing according to the present invention; and  
         [0024]    [0024]FIGS. 8A to  8 C are views showing an embodiment of a cash statement slip sent from each branch of a bank. 
     
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS  
       [0025]    A bill receiving/processing machine of the present invention will be detailedly described below with reference to the accompanying drawings.  
         [0026]    [0026]FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing an appearance of a bill receiving/processing machine  10  of the present invention. In the bill receiving/processing machine  10 , a housing main body is provided with a hopper  11  placing a bill for money receipt processing, at its upper portion, and a front panel is provided with a display/operation section  20  for displaying a necessary data and for inputting instructions for the process. Further, the main body is provided with partitioned stackers  121  to  127  for receiving discriminated bill for each money kind at its lower portion, and is provided with a reject stacker  13  for discharging and collecting a rejected bill at the end portion on its upper portion. The stacker LEDs  171  to  177  for displaying the number of received bills are provided so as to correspond to the stackers  121  to  127  at upper portions of these stackers. The stacker LEDs  171  to  177  make continuous lighting display or flashing display. The stackers  121  to  127  have a structure capable of manually taking out the received bill from the outside.  
         [0027]    [0027]FIG. 2 shows the details of the display/operation section  20 . The display/operation section  20  is composed of a liquid crystal display section  21  for displaying time and error code or the like, a LED display section  22  comprising a LED for displaying money kind discrimination and count data, a ten key  23  for inputting a numerical data and an operation key  24  for making an operating instruction. The operation key  24  includes a “START/STOP” key  241  for giving an instruction to start and stop the operation, a “CLEAR” key  242  for giving an instruction to clear a data and an “ACCEPT” key  243  for giving an instruction to accept an input.  
         [0028]    [0028]FIG. 3 is a side view showing a sectional structure of the bill receiving/processing machine  10 . A money kind discriminating/counting means  30  is provided on a feed passage  18  between the hopper  11  and the reject stacker  13 . The feed passage  18  of the reject stacker  13  is provided with a sorting plate  14  for sorting the fed bill to the feed passage  18 A on the lower stackers  121  to  127  side or to the feed passage  18 B to the reject stacker  13 . The feed passage  18 A on the upper portion of the stackers  121  to  127  is provided with sorting plates  151  to  156  corresponding to each of the stackers  121  to  127 . These sorting plates  151  to  156  discharge the bill downwardly, and sort and collect it to each of the stackers  121  to  126 . The stackers  121  to  127  are provided with impellers  161  to  167  for arranging and collecting the bill discharged from the upper feed passage  18 A. The feed passages  18 ,  18 A and  18 B are provided with various sensors for optically sensing the passage of the bill.  
         [0029]    [0029]FIG. 4 shows an internal configuration of the bill receiving/processing machine  10 . A control section  40  comprises a CPU for controlling the whole of machine, and is connected with a storage means  41 , the display/operation section  20  and the money kind discriminating/counting means  30 . Further, the control section  40  is connected a fault recovery processing section  42 , an alarm means  43  and a fault detection means  44  for detecting a fault such as jam or the like.  
         [0030]    The fault detection means  44  detects a fault generated in the money receipt transaction after the second time excluding the first time money receipt transaction, and then, operates the alarm means  43  via the control section  40  when detecting a generation of fault. The alarm means  43  rings a buzzer(not shown), visibly displays an alarm on the liquid crystal display section  21  of the display/operation section  20  and the LED display section  22 , and flashes the display of the stacker LEDs  171  to  177 . Further, the control section  40  controls the money kind discriminating/counting means  30 , and carries out money kind discriminating and counting, and further, controls of various sensors and signal processing. In addition, the control section  40  controls the sorting plates  14  and  151  to  156  and the impellers  161  to  167 . The storage means  41  stores data such as the kind and the number of bill of approved transaction.  
         [0031]    With the above configuration, the operation will be described below with reference to a flowchart of FIG. 5.  
         [0032]    First, a bill is set(placed) on the hopper  11  for each money receipt transaction(Step S 1 ), and when depressing the “START/STOP” key  241  of the display/operation section  20 (Step S 2 ), the bill placed on the hopper  11  is separated one by one, and then, is fed to the inside along the feed passage  18 . Further, the bill is fed to the money kind discriminating/counting means  30  so as to be sorted and counted(Step S 3 ). Then, when counting and money kind discriminating are normally completed, the effect is displayed on the LED display  22 (Step S 4 ), and the operator depresses the “ACCEPT” key  243  of the display/operation section  20  after confirming the display(Step S 5 ), and thereby, the first time transaction is completed(Step S 6 ). The operator collates the display of the display/operation section  20  and the stacker LEDs  171  to  177  with a statement slip relative to the money receipt transaction, and thereby, makes a decision whether or not money kind discriminating/counting is normally carried out. When depressing the “ACCEPT” key  243 , the money kind discriminating/counting data is approved, and then, is stored in the storage means  41 .  
         [0033]    Likewise, a bill of the second time transaction is set(placed) on the hopper  11 (Step S 10 ). In this step, the received bill of the previous transaction(first time transaction) is intactly received in the stackers  121  to  127 . When depressing the “START/STOP” key  241  of the display/operation section  20 (Step S 11 ), the bill placed on the hopper  11  is fed to the money kind discriminating/counting means  30  so as to be sorted and counted(Step S 12 ). Subsequently, a decision is made whether or not counting and money kind discriminating is normally completed by collating the data with the statement slip(Step S 13 ). If the collation result, normal, the second time transaction is completed(Step S 14 ), and thereafter, a decision is made whether or not the whole transaction is completed(Step S 18 ). If the transaction is not completed, the sequence returns to the above Step S 10  so that the above operation is repeated.  
         [0034]    In the above Step S 13 , if a decision is made such the counting and money kind discriminating is not normal, error recovery processing is carried out(Step S 15 ), and subsequently, fault recovery processing is carried out(Step S 20 ). The error recovery processing is completed by taking the bill out of the stackers  121  to  127 , and depressing the “CLEAR” key  242  of the display/operation section  20 . Thereafter, the same money kind discriminating/counting as above is carried out(Step S 16 ), and the sequence proceeds to the above Step S 18  after money kind discriminating/counting is normally completed.  
         [0035]    [0035]FIG. 6 shows the details of fault recovery processing(Step S 20 ). In the stacker LEDs  171  to  177 , the approved number of sheets is displayed in a state of flashing(Step S 21 ), and a bill is taken out of the stackers  121  to  127  when a fault is generated, and is collected, and thereafter, is set(placed) on the hopper  11 (Step S 22 ). Then, when depressing the “START/STOP” key  241  of the display/operation section  20 (Step S 23 ), money kind discriminating/counting for recovery is carried out(Step S 24 ), and when depressing the “ACCEPT” key  242 , and thereby, a discriminated bill is fed to the corresponding stacker. In this case, the approved number of sheets of the stacker is subtracted, and the subtracted number is displayed on the stacker LEDs  171  to  177 (Step S 25 ). Thereafter, the completion of the fault recovery processing is confirmed, and the control sequence ends(Step S 26 ).  
         [0036]    Next, the detailed fault recovery processing will be described below with reference to FIG. 7. In FIG. 7, the ordinate takes the number of bill, and the abscissa takes a money kind (1$ bill to 100$ bill). In this embodiment, the following case is described. The bill receiving/processing machine  10  is arranged in a cash vault(cash center) of the bank X, and cash is sent to the cash vault from branches A to C of the bank X, and further, the cash(bill) thus sent is continuously processed. In this case, for convenience of explanation, processing is carried out in the order of the branches A to C; however the processing order may be arbitrary.  
         [0037]    The cash sent from the branch A to the cash vault is attached with a statement slip describing the particulars for money kind as shown in FIG. 8A. The bill is placed on the hopper  11  of the bill receiving/processing machine  10 , and when depressing the “START/STOP” key  241  of the display/operation section  20 , and thereby, money receipt processing is started. The bill placed on the hopper  11  is all sorted into the stackers  121  to  127  for money kind, and then, the number of counted(received) sheets is displayed on the stacker LEDs  171  to  177  provided on the stackers  121  to  127 . If the displayed number of sheets and the particulars described in the statement slip coincide with each other in all money kind, the operator depresses the “ACCEPT” key  243  so as to approve the count data. The approved count data is stored in the storage means  41 . By doing so, the first time money receipt processing is completed.  
         [0038]    Next, the same money receipt processing as above is carried out as the second time transaction with respect to the bill sent from the branch B having the statement slip as shown in FIG. 8B. Finally, the same money receipt processing as above is carried out as the third time transaction with respect to the bill sent from the branch C having the statement slip as shown in FIG. 8C. This embodiment describes fault recovery processing in the case where a fault such as jam is generated in the third time money receipt processing.  
         [0039]    By the way, as shown in the statement slip of FIG. 8C, the received bill from the branch C is 235 sheets in total; more specifically, 1$ bill:  20 , 2$ bill:  35 , 5$ bill:  50 , 10$ bill:  10 , 20$ bill:  40 , 50$ bill:  30  and 100$ bill:  50 . When processing the received bill of 235 sheets, a jam is generated; therefore, part of the bill is received in the stackers  121  to  127 , and the remainders are left in the hopper  11  or the feed passages  18  and  18 A.  
         [0040]    When the jam is generated, the generation of jam is detected by the jam detection sensor as the fault detection means  44 , and then, the information is given to the control section  40 . Then, the control section  40  rings a buzzer so as to give an alarm for the generation of fault to the operator while displaying an error code on the liquid crystal display section  21  and “----” on the stacker LEDs  171  to  177  as an alarm output.  
         [0041]    In the above manner, the generation of jam is given as an alarm to the operator, and when the operator depresses the “CLEAR” key  242  of the display/operation section  20 , the display of approved sheets of the stacker LED corresponding to the stacker having the previously received bill changes from continuous lighting to flashing. The display changeover is carried out via the control section  40 . In this embodiment, the bill of the branches A and B is received and approved, and received and approved bill exists in the stackers  121  to  127  of all money kind. Therefore, the stacker LEDs  171  to  177  of all stackers  121  to  127  are flashing.  
         [0042]    More specifically, the stacker LED  171  of the stacker  121  for 1$ bill makes a flashing display of 35 sheets(=15(branch A)+20(branch B)). Likewise, in the stackers  122  to  127  after 2$ bill, the stacker LED 172  for 2$ bill makes a flashing display of 45 sheets, the stacker LED 173  for 5$ bill makes a flashing display of 40 sheets, the stacker LED 174  for 10$ bill makes a flashing display of 45 sheets, the stacker LED 175  for 20$ bill makes a flashing display of 40 sheets, and the stacker LED 176  for 50$ bill makes a flashing display of 45 sheets, and the stacker LED 177  for 100$ bill makes a flashing display of 70 sheets, respectively. The operator, who has known the generation of fault by a buzzer sound or the like, takes all received bill out of the stackers  121  to  127  having a flashing display, and the bill remaining in the feed passages  18  and  18 A due to the jam. Further, the operator takes the bill remaining in the hopper  11 , and then, collects the bill, and thereafter, again places it on the hopper  11 . Thereafter, when the operator depresses the “START/STOP” key  241 , fault recovery processing is started by the fault recovery processing section  42 .  
         [0043]    The fault recovery processing is carried out in the following manner.  
         [0044]    The bill placed on the hopper  11  is discriminated in its money kind while the number of sheets being counted by the money kind discriminating/counting means  30 , and thereafter, is fed and received in the stackers  121  to  127  corresponding to the money kind. In this case, every when the bill is fed to the stackers  121  to  127 , a subtraction from the number of sheets displayed on the stacker LEDs  171  to  177  is made, and thereafter, the number of sheets is displayed. For example, the stacker LED for 1$ bill first makes a flashing display of “35”, and the point of time when one 1$ bill is fed to the stacker  121 , one is subtracted, “34” is displayed in a state of flashing. Every when the bill is fed and received in the stacker  121 , the displayed number of sheets is decreased in succession, and the display becomes “0” at the point of time when the transaction from the branches A and B is completed. When the transaction of the branch C is started, the number of sheets is increased and displayed, and then, the stacker LED  171  for 1$ bill makes continuous lighting display; finally, the display of 1$ bill becomes “20”.  
         [0045]    In the above manner, the statement for money kind of only money receipt transaction generating a fault is displayed on the stacker LEDs  171  to  177 . The LED display section  22  displays the total number. Namely, without manually sorting the bill, it is possible to realize data selection relative to the money receipt transaction generating a fault.  
         [0046]    Next, the following is a description on processing in the following case; more specifically, although no fault is generated, when receipt money processing of the branch C is carried out, the number of sheets counted by the machine does not coincide with the number of sheets described in the received money statement of the branch C. The reason why the number of sheets does not coincide is considered as being a counting mistake by a person who is charge of making the received money statement. Coincidence is not obtained; for this reason, the bill of the transaction of the branch C is sorted and cancelled, and then, must be returned to the branch C. Although the bill of the branch C is mixed with the bill of the branches A and B already approved and received in the stacker, all of the bill is taken out, and is placed on the hopper  11  after depressing the “CLEAR” key  242 .  
         [0047]    The storage means  41  stores the value adding of received and approved bill of the branches A and B, and thereby, the bill is received in the stackers  121  to  127  until it reaches the number of sheets of “the branch A+the branch B” for money kind. Thereafter, the sorting plate  14  is changed so that the bill after that is discharged to the reject stacker  13 . In this manner, the bill of the branch C is sorted without manual work.  
         [0048]    The above is a description on the case where a fault is generated and the transaction is canceled without generating a fault. The different control is carried out in the “CLEAR” key  242  operations after a fault is generated and when no fault is generated, although the control operation is the same, and therefore, this is one of features of the present invention. Further, the money kind of the bill is seven; however, the number of money kinds may be arbitrarily set, and the stacker may be provided in accordance with the number of money kinds. As the above fault, bill jam is recited as an example. In this case, the discrimination and count mistake or the like are set as the fault.  
         [0049]    As described above, according to the present invention, in the bill receiving/processing machine, when a fault is generated, the alarm of generation of fault is given to the operator, and the operator resets all bills on the hopper based on the given alarm, and thereby, it is possible to perform fault recovery processing. Therefore, no troublesome work is done. Further, the bill receiving/processing machine of the present invention includes no temporary reserving section; therefore, a cost reduction can be achieved. Furthermore, in the case where counting is completed in a money receipt transaction, and there is a difference between the number of counted sheets and the number of declaration sheets described in the received money statement, all bills are reset on the hopper, and thereby, the bill of money receipt the transaction is discharged to the reject stacker, so that canceling processing can be rationally made.