Article dispensing – With recorder – register – indicator – signal or exhibitor – Empty source indicating means
Reexamination Certificate
1998-09-09
2001-04-10
Skaggs, H. Grant (Department: 3651)
Article dispensing
With recorder, register, indicator, signal or exhibitor
Empty source indicating means
C221S002000, C221S007000, C221S014000, C221S131000, C221S281000, C221S270000, C700S236000, C700S242000, C700S244000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06213341
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates in general to safes, and relates in particular to safes for receiving supplies of change and dispensing predetermined amounts of that change on request.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Cashiers and clerks at retail sales locations need a ready and convenient supply of change on hand at all times. “Change” as used herein is not limited to coins, but also includes bills of denominations sufficient to meet change-making requirements for the particular business. Failure to maintain adequate change at a cash register or the cash drawer of a point-of-sale terminal may at times delay completing retail transactions while the cashier obtains a new supply of change, a practice which may reduce the total volume of sales and irritate customers who must wait while the cashier or a supervisor delivers change from a locked safe or some other secure location.
The requirement for maintaining an adequate and convenient supply of change is particularly important in certain kinds of retail sales locations such as convenience stores and gas stations, where the amount of each transaction may be relatively low and cash frequently is tendered to pay the transaction. Moreover, some suppliers of merchandise for convenience stores traditionally require payment in cash on delivery of the merchandise, and those cash payments will further deplete the amount of money remaining in the cash register or point-of-sale terminal drawer for making change.
Safes intended for storing and dispensing change are known in the prior art. Such safes heretofore have been relatively complex in construction and may lack the flexibility of storing and dispensing change of varying amounts and capacities. Moreover, such change-holding safes of the prior art lack the accounting and audit capabilities desirable to identify amounts of change dispensed and to audit the amounts remaining in the safes. Such known change dispensing safes also lack provisions for temporarily storing and accounting for deliveries of change by an armored-car messenger or other service, so that the change is at hand but remains secured within the safe itself.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Stated in general terms, a change safe according to the present invention has a plurality of columns, each column receiving several units of change so that each unit occupies a predetermined location in the column. The change safe detects the level of units in each column, so that the amount of change in each available denomination is always known. The actual change, whether a predetermined number of wrapped coins or of paper currency, preferably is loaded in cylindrical tubes of predetermined configuration, so that the dispensing mechanism and sensing elements always act on articles of the same predetermined size and shape. The present apparatus on demand vends individual units that contain selected variable amounts of coin or currency so that each tube in each column contains a known amount of change. The denominations of coin or currency in the tubes loaded into each column and dispensed from those columns, and various parameters relating to permitted vending operation for each denomination, are selectable by the user of the safe, providing flexibility for conforming the use of the present safe to the needs of different locations in which the safe is used.
Stated somewhat more particularly, sensors are associated with each column detect the tubes at the predetermined locations in the columns. Those sensors determine at all times the number of tubes remaining in the safe for dispensing. In the disclosed embodiment of the safe, tubes are dispensed from the lowermost location of each column, and the tube-dispensing mechanism is selectively operable to determine whether an article is present at that location, so that no article-detecting sensor is required for the lowermost location in each column.
Stated in somewhat more detail, the article dispensing mechanism includes an element moveable in a first direction to withdraw the lowermost article from a selected column, thereby dispensing that article from the safe. However, that displacement element is selectably operative to move in a second direction which engages the lowermost article and attempts to displace that article in a direction along which movement is blocked. If an article is present in the lowermost location, that blocked movement of the displacement element in the second direction is detected so that the displacement element indicates the presence of an article at that location. However, if the displacement element moves in the second direction without hindrance, that movement indicates the absence of an article at the lowermost location, corresponding to a condition in which the particular column contains no article to be dispensed.
The article dispensing apparatus includes a displacement element moveable on an orbital path that includes the position occupied by the lowermost article present in a selected column. However, the lowermost article is moveable from that position only in a first direction of movement of the displacement element, namely, the direction to dispense that article from the column. When the displacement element is operated to move in the opposite direction along the orbital path, the lowermost article (if present) prevents the displacement element from completing that commanded movement, and that blocked movement is detected to indicate that an article is present at the lowermost location of the particular column.
The moveable displacement element is mounted on a carriage that traverses to juxtapose the displacement element with the lowermost location of each selected column in the change-dispensing apparatus. The apparatus responds to a request for change of a particular denomination by traversing the carriage as necessary to align the displacement element with a column holding at least one tube containing change of that denomination, and then operates the displacement element to dispense the selected number of articles from that particular column, whereupon the cashier or other person using the apparatus can retrieve the dispensed tube. A sensor detects the presence of each article being dispensed, to verify the act of dispensing an actual physical article in response to the dispensing command.
Tubes are loaded into the columns through separate loading ports at the upper ends of the columns. The loading ports normally are closed by an element that blocks access to the columns, except when change-holding tubes are being loaded into the columns. The control mechanism associated with the change safe selectively unlocks the blocker door, allowing an operator to shift that blocker door to a position opening the ports for loading tubes into the columns. The position of the blocker door is sensed, so that the control mechanism associated with the change safe can provide appropriate operator prompts to close that door after loading a supply of the tubes into one or more columns.
The upper end of each column preferably includes apparatus that prevents each newly-inserted tube from dropping into the column until that tube is completely inserted through the loading port into the column. This arrangement prevents newly-inserted tubes from descending nose-first into a column, which might jam a subsequent dispensing effort and would produce a false indication of the quantity of tubes loaded into the column. The lower end of each column preferably has a joggle or similar provision for contacting the first tube dropped into an empty column, so as to break the fall of that tube and prevent the falling tube from bouncing out of position when hitting the bottom of the column.
The change dispensing safe according to the present invention also permits selective programming of each column for the denomination of change to be dispensed, and other column-specific variables such as time-of-day use restrictions, maximum number of tubes permitted per dispensing operation, whether prepayment is required from a cash drawer before dispensing change is permitted, and the like.
Gunn William L
Keith, III Jasper Newton
Morgan W. Chris
Brink's Incorporated
Kilpatrick & Stockton
Skaggs H. Grant
LandOfFree
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