Issue
150 January 2003
GUI
Interfacing
A
Straightforward, Simple Solution
CURRENCY
CONVERTER
This
month’s project incorporates Amulet’s GUI hardware solution
along with a bill (paper money) acceptor, iButton reader,
and microcontroller to produce a currency converter
for an arcade center (see Photo 2). The Phantacy Phactory
arcade uses iButton technology to store user credits.
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(Click
here to enlarge)
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Photo
2—The Phantacy Phactory’s home page was designed
with FrontPage. It’s displayed on the STK-GT570
using the AGB64LV01 Easy GUI Controller Chip. |
You
can use an iButton to purchase game plays and refreshments,
eliminating the need for cash or tokens. To automate
the operations, this project creates a system to accept
$1, $5, $10, and $20 bills and credit a user’s iButton
with the appropriate amount of credit (see Figure 2).
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(Click here to enlarge)
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Figure
2—The currency converter includes a microcontroller
for reading and writing iButton data. A bill acceptor
outputs monetary value pulses to the microcontroller
as paper money is accepted. A GUI LCD touch screen
requests data from the microcontroller based on
the HTML web pages it hosts. |
BILL
ACCEPTOR
The
Mars Electronics AL4 series bill acceptor is a secure
module that outputs pulses based on a bill’s denomination
(see Photo 3). A detailed description of currency acceptance
is beyond the scope of this article, but I will revisit
the topic in a future column if my readers show enough
interest.
|
(Click
here to enlarge)
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Photo
3—The AL4 is one of many products Mars Electronics
International makes for the amusement and vending
machine industry. This unit will validate $1, $5,
$10, and $20 bills. |
Configuration
switches on the AL4 can set the number of output pulses
per dollar. For this particular project, I chose four
pulses per dollar (i.e., one credit = $0.25).
