Automatic vending machine with lottery bonus

• US 4,213,524 A
• Filed: 07/21/1978
• Issued: 07/22/1980
• Est. Priority Date: 07/23/1977
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Shinko Automatic Device Company Limited
• Original Assignee: Shinko Automatic Device Company Limited
• Inventors: Miyashita, Toshio, Sawabe, Takeshi, Fujii, Yoshizo
• Primary Examiner(s): Spar, Robert J.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Wacyra, Edward M.
• Application Number:
  US05/926,603
• Time in Patent Office: 732 Days
• Field of Search: 194/2, 194/9, 194/10, 194/15.1 R, 194/DIG. 11, 273/138 R, 273/138 A, 273/1 T, 273/118 A, 273/119 A, 273/121 A, 273/122 A, 273/123 A, 273/124 A, 273/125 A, 273/1 G, 273/1 H, 235/92 GA, 235/92 CN
• US Class Current: 194/211
• CPC Class Codes: G07C 15/006 electronically
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 9/02 Devices for alarm or indication, e.g. when empty; Advertising arrangements in coin-freed apparatus alarms or warning devices indicating the interruption of flow to be metered G07F15/10

Abstract

An automatic vending machine comprises a plurality of electric lamps arranged geometrically on a front panel of a housing and a lamp control circuit for lighting the lamps successively and repeatedly in response to a signal which is generated in accordance with a vending operation of the machine. The lamps are arranged equidistantly along a circle and thus a light spot appears to rotate along the circle. In a preferred embodiment the lamp control circuit comprises a lottery circuit which produces a winning signal for discharging an extra article as a free addition and at the same time the light spot is stopped at a predetermined lamp having a lucky number applied thereto.

Claims

1. An automatic vending machine comprising:

a housing including a front panel;

means provided in the front panel for displaying at least one article available for users;

means provided in the front panel for receiving coins and/or bills;

stocker means provided in the housing for storing the articles available for users;

means for discharging at least one article stored in the stocker means in response to an article discharge signal through a discharge opening provided in the front panel;

a plurality of lamps arranged geometrically on the front panel and provided with covers having numbers applied thereto; and

a lamp control circuit for lighting on and off said lamps successively and repeatedly in response to a signal which is generated each time the vending operation is effected, a repetition period of the lighting on and off being such that a light spot appears to move along said geometrical lamp arrangement, wherein said lamp control circuit further comprises a lottery circuit for producing a winning signal in response to a signal generated by the vending operation of the machine to stop the light spot at a predetermined lamp having a lucky number applied thereto and the machine further comprises means to drive said article discharging means additionally to discharge at least one extra article as a free addition in response to the winning signal.

2. An automatic vending machine according to claim 1, wherein said lamps are arranged equidistantly on a circle.

3. An automatic vending machine according to claim 1, wherein said lamps are arranged substantially equidistantly along a spiral.

4. An automatic vending machine according to claim 1, wherein said lamps are arranged along a zig.zag track.

5. An automatic vending machine according to claim 1, wherein said lamps are arranged equidistantly along a straight line.

6. An automatic vending machine according to claim 1, wherein said lamps are arranged equidistantly along a curved line.

7. An automatic vending machine according to claim 1, wherein said repetition period is made longer progressively so as to decrease progressively the moving speed of the light spot.

8. An apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising article selection means for selecting any one of a plurality of kinds of articles, whereby said at least one extra article is the same as that selected by the user.

9. An apparatus according to claim 1 further comprising article selection means for selecting any one of a plurality of kinds of articles, whereby said at least one extra article is one of the articles selected by the article selection means.

10. An automatic vending machine according to claim 1, wherein said lottery circuit comprises a gate connected between the clock pulse generator and the lamp driving circuit, a timing circuit for receiving the signal generated in response to the vending operation of the machine to make said gate conductive for the given time period, a ring counter for receiving said clock pulses, a coincidence circuit for detecting a coincidence between a count of said ring counter and that of the ring counter in the lamp driving circuit to produce a coincidence signal as the winning signal and a ring counter control circuit for receiving said winning signal to control the lamp driving circuit in such a manner that the light spot is stopped at the predetermined lamp having the lucky number applied thereto.

11. An automatic vending machine according to claim 1, wherein said lottery circuit comprises a gate connected between the clock pulse generator and the lamp driving circuit, a timing circuit for receiving the signal generated in response to the vending operation of the machine to make said gate conductive for the given time period, a rotary switch having a rotary arm which is driven by an output signal from said timing circuit and a plurality of contacts, an AND gate having one input connected to the output of the timing circuit through a delay circuit and the other input connected to at least one of the contacts of the rotary switch to produce an output signal as the winning signal, and a ring counter control circuit for receiving the winning signal to control the ring counter in the lamp driving circuit in such a manner that the light spot is stopped at the predetermined lamp having the lucky number applied thereto.

12. An automatic vending machine according to claim 1, wherein said lottery circuit comprises a counter for counting the number of the vending operations of the machine, a preset circuit for presetting a given count, a coincidence circuit for detecting a coincidence between the count of said counter and the preset count to produce a coincidence signal as the winning signal, and a control circuit for receiving said winning signal to control the lamp driving circuit in such a manner that the light spot is stopped at predetermined lamp having the lucky number applied thereto.

13. An automatic vending machine according to claim 1, wherein said lottery circuit comprises a second clock pulse generator, a ring counter for receiving the clock pulses from said second clock pulse generator to produce an output pulse every time it counts a maximum count value, a preset circuit for presetting the maximum count value of the ring counter, a timing circuit for receiving the signal generated in response to the vending operation of the machine and the clock pulses from the second clock pulse generator to produce an output pulse in synchronism with the clock pulse, a coincidence circuit for detecting a coincidence between said output pulses from the ring counter and the timing circuit to produce a coincidence signal as the winning signal, and a control circuit for receiving the winning signal to control said lamp driving circuit in such a manner that the light spot is stopped at the predetermined lamp having the lucky number applied thereto.

14. An automatic vending machine according to claim 1, wherein said lottery circuit comprises a random number generator for producing a random number in response to the signal generated by the vending operation of the machine, an address generator for receiving the random number to produce an address corresponding to the received random number, a random accessory memory having a given number of address positions among which at least one predetermined address position has been preset as a winning position, a read out circuit for reading out the address position corresponding to the related address, a decision circuit for detecting whether the read out address position has been preset as the winning position or not, and an address change circuit for changing the related address number by a predetermined number when the related address position has been already read out, whereby when the winning signal is supplied from the decision circuit to the lamp driving circuit, the light spot is stopped at the predetermined lamp having the lucky number applied thereto.

15. An automatic vending machine according to claim 14, wherein said lottery circuit is constructed by a microcomputer.