bill reader / bill change maker / coin acceptor / coin changer

Giuseppe

Just a thought but is there any way a BS2 can serially communicate with bill readers and coin changers? I was thinking if it is possible to create a vending machine with a BS2. I thought about and I want to say yes but the only thing I see a big problem is receiving and dispensing money. If there was a device that could "tell" the BS2 how much money is in and vice versa (BS2 tell the coin machine to dispense $xx.xx) it would be a pretty fun project. Anybody know if it is possible?

Mike Green

There are a lot of coin and bill acceptors and dispensers on the market. How they communicate depends on the features you want. Some send and accept pulses, sometimes at a +24V supply voltage. Some use RS232 serial data. A Stamp could use either for communication and would need some external hardware whether to interface to the +24V or RS232 signal voltage. The Stamp would need to keep track of the amount of money accumulated. It's not the job of the coin or bill acceptor to do that. Similarly, the Stamp would need to figure out what coins and/or bills to dispense. A money dispenser doesn't keep track of that.

Do some research on the internet.

Up4Days

Funny thing is I used to do maintenance on such devices for our local transit authorities bus electronic fairboxes. The way the coins were read was with LED/photo resistor modules manufactured at precise distance (mm)·measurements and the bills were read only assuming a one dollar bill was inserted, meaning if you inserted a 20 by accident you were S.O.L. I could see where a basic stamp would do very well on a project like this. Seems to me a·Basic Stamp·program that counts photo interuptions could be written with relative ease, even one that would release change too. It would be quite a project but I'm thinking it could be done.

PS bill readers that identify specific denominations·in todays market work by pretty complex laser readers some older ones are·less accurate·light readers (shining UV light through the bill)·but both can be purchased, probably pretty expensive though.