Coin Separation Impeller with Elastic Vanes for Jam Prevention
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing coin centrifuges are unreliable in separating coins, often resulting in multiple coins being transported together, leading to jamming issues and requiring manual intervention, and must be adapted to handle different coin sizes, which complicates the design of the separation mechanism.
Innovation Solution
A device featuring an impeller with elastic vanes that ensures individual separation of coins by contacting and pushing them through a gap, combined with a counter-rotating element and transport unit to manage coin orientation and size, allowing for universal applicability without the need for size-specific adjustments.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Device complexity
If a simple opening is provided in the disc for coin passage, then the device structure is simple, but multiple coins can pass through simultaneously causing unreliable separation
Solution Approach 1:
The impeller divides the coin passage into multiple segments through its vanes, which contact and guide individual coins through the gap. This segmentation ensures that only one coin passes through at a time, resolving the unreliability of simple openings while maintaining reasonable structural complexity.
Solution Approach 2:
The impeller acts as an intermediary element between the coin supply and the gap. It mediates the coin flow by contacting the coins and controlling their passage through the gap, ensuring reliable separation without requiring complex adaptive structures.
2Reliability
If the opening size is adapted to the smallest coins to prevent multiple coins from passing, then separation reliability improves, but the largest coins cannot pass through
Solution Approach 1:
The impeller provides a universal solution that works for all coin sizes. Its vanes contact coins at multiple points and control their passage through the gap, allowing the same gap dimensions to handle both small and large coins reliably without requiring size-specific adjustments.
Solution Approach 2:
The impeller vanes have different contact characteristics for different coin sizes. The vanes contact smaller coins at multiple points while contacting larger coins at fewer points, providing locally adapted interaction that ensures reliable separation for all coin sizes through the same gap.
3Device complexity
If coins are fed directly to the gap without additional mechanisms, then the device is simple, but coins lying on top of each other or side by side cause jamming
Solution Approach 1:
The impeller uses the centrifugal force and natural motion of the coins themselves to achieve separation. The vanes contact the coins and use their own motion to push them through the gap individually, eliminating the need for complex external feeding mechanisms while ensuring reliable coin flow without jamming.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
Ensures reliable and efficient separation of coins of varying sizes and orientations, preventing jamming and ensuring only one coin passes through the gap at a time, regardless of their thickness or diameter, thus maintaining operational efficiency and reducing manual intervention.
Implementation Method 1
An impeller (210) is arranged in the receiving area (200) and is formed in such a way that it can be used to convey coins (12) into the gap (208) of the delimiting element (206)... The impeller has a large number of vanes, which are in particular made of an elastic material, for example plastic, and which contact the coins to be fed to the gap when the impeller rotates. A force is transmitted to the contacted coin via the contact, by which the coin is transported in the direction of the gap.
Implementation Method 2
the coins of the coin quantity accommodated in the coin storage container are arranged on a rotating disk. The centrifugal force acting on the coins pushes them outwards on the disc.
Data Source
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AI summary
The device has a coin centrifuge (300) including rotatable disk (204) and a radial limiting element (206) for limiting a receiving region for receiving a quantity of coins to be sorted. A gap (208) for passage of the coins is provided in the limiting element for supplying the coins to a conveyor unit (18). An impeller (210) is arranged in the receiving region for conveying the coins into the gap. The impeller is driven such that the impeller exerts force (F1) on the coins in a direction of the gap during contacting with the coins via a wing of the impeller.