Currency sorter

Abstract

A currency sorter has: take-in means (106) for taking currency notes in sorter one by one; discriminating means (105) for discriminating the currency notes; stacking means (111 to 115) for stacking the currency notes according to the discrimination result obtained by said discriminating means; bundling means (200) for bundling a predetermined number of the currency notes; a money returning unit at which an odd currency note which is a fraction of the predetermined number of the currency notes is returned, first conveyer means for conveying the predetermined number of the currency notes from all deposited in said stacking means with grabbing them to the bundling means; and second conveyer means for conveying the odd currency notes left in the stacking means with grabbing them to said money returning unit. The sorter may further have printing means (212) for imprinting predetermined information on a band supplied to said bundling means; and print control means (400) for controlling said printing means imprint information indicating one of stacking means from which the currency notes are derived, whether stacked currency notes are mixture of the new and old versions or discriminatively stacked new or old version or whether the currency notes are mixture of the fit and unfit conditions or discriminatively stacked fit and unfit condition.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application is a division of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 11 / 243,268 filed Oct. 4, 2005.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates to a currency sorter, and more particularly, to the one that serves to take in mixed currency deposited in sheets, discriminate, sort them out denominations, face values, or versions, put them into stacking units, and bundle a predetermined number of the notes.BACKGROUND ART[0003]In financial companies and organizations, a currency sorter is generally used to facilitate organizing and handling deposited currency notes. When a bunch of currency notes of normal and unfit conditions and of various face amounts together are deposited (normal notes are referred to as “fit notes” hereinafter while “unfit notes” means those which are significantly fatigue due to grime and breakage), such a currency sorter serves to sort the currency notes according to their respective denominations and fit / unfi...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0014]The present invention is made to overcome the above-mentioned disadvantages, and accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a currency sorter that facilitates retrieving and returning a fraction of a predetermined number of currency notes left unbundled and that also facilitates diagnosing failure in the bundling.

[0032]In the second aspect of the present invention, the currency sorter is provided with conveyer means capable of moving up and down behind the stacking unit, the bundling unit, and the money returning unit for holding the predetermined number of the currency notes stacked in the stacking unit to transfer them to the bundling unit and for holding a fraction of the predetermined number of the currency notes left in the stacking unit to transfer them to the money returning unit. The single means of the sorter serves to transfer both the bunch of the currency notes ready to bundle and the odd money in sheets, and this simplified structure enables reduced manufacturing cost. Additionally, since the money returning unit can be located at a certain height in the front of the sorter, and the odd notes can be easily taken out.

Problems solved by technology

However, it is an annoying task to evacuate a fraction of the predetermined number of the currency notes from the stacking unit.

On the other hand, if the various process information data were put on the bundling band, it is difficult to diagnose various malfunctions caused during the bundling.

Such malfunctions apt to occur during the bundling are often resulted from some troubles caused in the previous stage during putting the currency notes in stacking.

For instance, it is empirically known regarding the frequently caused bundling failure that the currency notes have often their corner bent due to a switch nail in the course of conveying them into the stacking units, and / or an organizing mechanism fails to put the notes into an orderly heap in the stacking units, either case of which results the currency notes in being stacked so awkwardly as to lead to unsatisfactory results of the bundling.

If it can be supposed from the bundling band how the bundling failure occurred due to the currency notes lousily stacked in stacking, it is still unknown which stacking unit is the place that developed the bundling failure, and this makes a diagnosis of the malfunction difficult.

In the case that all but one in the bunch are the notes of the new version, since the setting contents cannot be known, it is hard to track how the single note of the old version was immixed and also hard to presume if it is as a result of the selected sorting manner or rather of failure in the sorting, or of the existence of some bugs in administrative software program.

This kind of trouble is caused not only in handling the mixed currency of the new and old versions but in the case of a sorter with the discriminatively switching means for sorting out the fit and unfit conditions to bundle them in separate bundles or bundling the mixed notes together.

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