Alberichi coin selector AL05

There should be a 10 pin connector (10 male posts, 2 columns of 5). Pins will be numbered odd/even:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Pin 1 is GND; pin 2 is PWR (nominally 12VDC).

Pin 6 is an inhibit signal (~5V to lockout the mechanism). Pin 5 is "programmable" -- as an input OR output -- to a certain extent.

Beyond that, it gets complicated. :>

The coin mech can be operated in different modes. The functions of the remaining pins depend on the mode in which it is operating.

As a "dumb" validator, the other pins (7,8,9,10,3,4) represent different channels that can be "programmed" to pulse based on the denomination of the coin(s) validated. Each output can be programmed to pulse once (when the programmed coin type is recognized) or multiple times (e.g., to make a $1 coin appear as four 25c coins). The width of the pulse (along with polarity) can also be programmed.

[all of these are open collector outputs so will need a nominal pullup; being OC, they can be wired together to present a single pulse stream to your device]

A separate 4 pin connector provides an EIA232 interface (RxTx) but that's more involved (protocol).

Talk to the disti from whom you purchased the mech. There's some software that makes this a lot easier to sort out!

Good Luck!

you seen this?

The thing's got a serial port, but there's no protocol document, so you may have to watch for pulses on the parallel port

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Thank you guys for reply (Don, Jasen ). So basicaly i can power it with some external 12v DC source and connect the inhibit line to some RPI GPIO.

When i get signal i start to count impulses. I know that the programming can be done with software so i guess that the only think that i need is to watch for inhibit line.

So, you are suggesting that i put some 1K resistor between raspberry GPIO and inhibit line ?

GM

More or less. You'll need to monitor at least one of the other "pulse" outputs. And, you'll need to decide what sort of protection you may need between the coin mech and the electronics (depends on how hostile your environment; coin mechs tend to be targets for adversaries)

You *drive* the inhibit line. The purpose of the inhibit line is to prevent the mechanism from "accepting" ANY coins. In many devices, the device may not want to accept a coin (because it can't/won't provide the service/product that is being "purchased"). By inhibiting the coin mech, you ensure any coins deposited (even VALID coins!) are rejected -- returned to the user -- so you don't get complaints: "That machine ate my coins and didn't give me !"

You haven't indicated where you acquired your coin mech. I.e., it may have previously been programmed in some other "mode". Without control over that, you'll have to experiment to see how the coin mech *appears* to respond to coins deposited.

As I said up-thread, talk to your disti. You're looking for a piece of software (runs on a PC) called "CoinSelProg.exe" that will let you "talk" to the MCU *in* the coin mech and alter its settings.

[If you've just stumbled on one of these "as a hobbyist", the road is a little rougher...]

Put whatever you think you need to protect your electronics. You *will* need pull-UPS on the "pulse" outputs as they are open collector and won't source current (to your electronics).

The coin selector is programmed to accept 0.5, 1 and 2 Euros and it will be used for door opening.

Is there any way that you can wrote down some basic schematics on how to connect this to raspberry ?

Am asking this because as far as i can see ( different model ) this guy is using just one line (inhibit) and witho out pull ups. Ok maybe he set them in the code.

btw. i can not talk to my disti :-) because this type of coin acceptor is quite old and i would like to use it for test. New version will be from comestero.

Gm

If the new mech speaks CCTALK or CCTALK over USB that is nothing like the parallel interface used by the other mechanism, If you want to do some preparation before the new coin accepter arrived, sort out your 12V power supply, (and voltage level converter if doing 5V cctalk via the raspberry pi UART), and read up on cctalk and serial ports in general

The linux programmers guide, is a good starting place for serial in general and the cctalk docs from "CoinControls" for cctalk. there's also examples all over the internet. do a search.

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