underthepier/coin

MAKE YOUR OWN SLOT MACHINE
Making slot machines isn't too difficult. They have a much easier life than most of the things I've made because they only work when a coin is inserted - unlike clocks and interactive museum exhibits. The technology needn't be too difficult and they can be just brilliantly satisfying to make. I've split it into 3 sections, COIN MECHANISMS CONTROL SOUND/ VIDEO AND COMPUTERS

Coin mechanisms
The coin mechanism checks the coin is genuine, and then switches a momentary electrical contact to start the machine going. If you're not too worried by people putting coins of the wrong value in - and washers etc, its simple to make a coin mechanism yourself. If you want to be sure the correct coin is inserted, buy a commercial coin mechanism.

HOMEMADE COIN MECHANISMS
The simplest way to make a coin mechanism is to buy a low torque microswitch (RS components 339-207, about £3.50).

The weight of a coin is enough to trip the switch as it falls. You can make the coin slot and slide out of metal, plywood or even cardboard.
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if you know a bit about electronics, its even simpler to use a slotted opto switch or inductive sensor, as adjusting the microswitch can be fiddly.

COMMERCIAL COIN MECHANISMS
There 2 basic types, mechanical and electronic.

In the mechanical ones the coins roll down a slope. Coins of the wrong size and metal fall off and come back out the reject slot below. Genuine coins travel along the slope and off the end, tripping a microswitch as they fall.
The advantages are: they’re simple, can be used outdoors and are relatively cheap – about £20 from www.brentelectronic.com. Disadvantages are they jam more easily than the electronic ones.

Inside the electronic coin mechanisms, the coin rolls past two coils which sense the eddy currents generated by the moving coin. A microprocessor then compares the eddy currents with those of genuine coins, stored in its memory. An electromagnet then deflects fake coins out the reject slot. Real coins produce an output on a serial or parallel port (the parallel port is simplest to use, one pin usually changes state for each coin denomination).

The advantages are that coins jam less often and the electronics can recognise every different coin (some even have logic to add the coins until the required value has been inserted). Commercial arcades prefer them as they take more money because people can use the machine with whatever change they have in their pocket. The disadvantages are that they are more expensive – about £100 from www.brentelectronic.com, and can be less straightforward to connect to the rest of the machine.
The simplest one to use I've found is a Comestero RM5. You can buy a power supply/relay board for it which gives a simple relay .1 sec pulse when the right amount of cash has been inserted. (You change the amount using switches on the coin mech). There is even an add on LED display to show how much has been put in.