Coin sorters - More Pics Added 6/26/11

kb4iqm

Sr. Member
Mar 26, 2011
319
1
Southeastern Tennessee
I bought a Coinalyzer coin sorter recently and was having issues with it. This was discussed a little bit in another thread, but I felt it needed a thread of its own to keep from hijacking that other thread.

My first post there is;
http://forum.treasurenet.com/index.php/topic,393353.msg2802679.html#msg2802679

I will continue here;
kb4iqm said:
blkcwbyhat said:
KB: do you have a divider set up under the bottom? It kicks the rejects to one side,without it,they fall randomly.I made the wooden box thing with the center piece belt sanded with a 45 degree on each side,centered on the outlet.I made the box big enough to fit some small tupperware square boxes on each side.I'm still working on some type of thing to make it easier to feed,my thumb gets sore quick!!
The coinalyzer is an electronic coin mechanism for a vending machine and fits the industry standard coin mechanism mounts. I used to be in the vending business and still have some machines and parts in storage. I took an old vending machine coin door, stripped it down to the bare minimum, and made a stand to hold it vertical. I mounted the coinalyzer in place of the original mechanical coin mechanism, it fits perfectly. All I have to do is set a pail under the back of the coin door to catch the coins that pass. All rejects and coin returns go into the coin return hopper on the front of the coin door. The pass/reject/return port spacings on the coinalyzer are in the industry standard locations.

When I first set it up, it worked, but it had trouble discriminating reliably. It would pass some of what it should reject, and reject some of what it should pass. If I ran multiple passes it would eventially get them all right. Like if I run the reject clad cents through several times it would eventually get all of the copper out. Then do the same with the coppers and it would eventually get all of the clads out. After testing it like this for an hour or so, it stopped passing coins totally and rejecting everything fed to it. I put it aside to mess with later, have not tried it again since then.

If I can get the coin mechanism itself to work reliably, then I'll just set up a dime feed hopper from a slot machine with the discs resized for pennies. These hoppers can be bought for under $50 from vending suppliers that sell used parts on feebay, and replacement discs are available as they wear out. Would be less than $100 invested to automate the process if I do all of the mechanical work to put it together. Now that I think we can afford :laughing7:

Bob
I just checked the coinalyzer and it was working again, but still very unreliable. I noticed the trigger timer was set to "short". I set the trigger timer to "common" and that cleared up the majority of the reliability issue. I'm now getting a clad in the copper 100:1 or less now vs 10:1 like it was. I've run 6 rolls so far and no coppers in the clad yet. I'll run the rest of the box and see how it does.

By the way, the coinalyzer mechanism will support adding a coin counter. It outputs a grounding pulse on the grey wire for every coin accepted. If you connect the leads of a vending machine coin counter to the grey wire and the red wire, it will increment the counter once for each coin accepted. I'm going to order a resettable counter for mine.

Bob
 

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Re: Issues with Coinalyzer sorter resolved

The settings may need adjusted due to the penny you use to "compare". I got mine with a 79,and it worked perfect out of the box. Word has it that some of the early IH and wheat had a slightly different alloy,so it may need tweaked to keep them. Glad you got it up and running,keep us informed on the feeder device.
 

Coin sorters

blkcwbyhat said:
The settings may need adjusted due to the penny you use to "compare". I got mine with a 79,and it worked perfect out of the box. Word has it that some of the early IH and wheat had a slightly different alloy,so it may need tweaked to keep them. Glad you got it up and running,keep us informed on the feeder device.
I'm running the coinalyzer in reverse now, using a clad cent as the compare coin. This way the higher percentage ie clad cents pass through to the larger pail behind the door, while the lesser percentage ie copper cents are rejected to the smaller bin in front of the door. Wheat cents get rejected with the rest of the copper cents since they are not a compare match to a clad cent.

It'll likely be next month before I work on the feed system. I'll have to order some materials and supplies first.
 

Re: Issues with Coinalyzer sorter resolved

Never thought of using a clad as a compare! Great thinking! Should keep all the others.
 

Re: Issues with Coinalyzer sorter resolved

Tried your idea of a clad as a comparitor...seemed to work great,til I see a wheaty in the reject side! I fiddled with the switch and all,but there was no way it was going to take that particular cent! I tried other wheatys,old coppers,all went fine,except that one! And I re ran a bunch of my dump coins,found a few I had missed.I'm going to keep tweaking it tho.
 

Re: Coin sorters

blkcwbyhat said:
Tried your idea of a clad as a comparitor...seemed to work great,til I see a wheaty in the reject side! I fiddled with the switch and all,but there was no way it was going to take that particular cent! I tried other wheatys,old coppers,all went fine,except that one! And I re ran a bunch of my dump coins,found a few I had missed. I'm going to keep tweaking it tho.
I wonder if that one wheat is actually one of those chinese counterfeits being sold on feebay that ended up in circulation. I know they make and sell a lot of fake 1943 copper wheats, would not suprise me in the least that they might make counterfeits of other key date/mint wheats.

I should begin work on my autofeed coin processor soon. I ordered 3 coin hopper assemblies and 5 CMI coin comparitors. I chose CMI due to higher quality and reliability vs the cheaper china unit used for the coinalyzer.

I'm going to set up a cents system that will process each cent multiple times for reliability. First check will seperate the zincs, then check those passed zincs once more with another test for coppers before dumping them into the zincs bin. The rejected coppers will also be checked again for zincs, then checked once for cents of the composition common for older wheats and IHPs before dumping in the coppers bin.

I want to try a system for checking halves for silver by passing clads and rejecting non-clads. One of the hoppers I ordered is already set up for halves. If that works well, I might try setting up the third hopper for dimes. It's coming already set up for quarters, but I would have to process a lot more quarters. I guess that's ok if I have a machine to do the hardest part :laughing7:

Bob
 

Re: Issues with Coinalyzer sorter resolved

you gotta be kidding me! Fake penny's??? I've heard about the silver dollar's,but penny's?
 

Re: Coin sorters

blkcwbyhat said:
you gotta be kidding me! Fake penny's??? I've heard about the silver dollar's,but penny's?
The chinese will make fakes of anything that they think they can make money on. Cents are easy to make, it only takes having one similar original to duplicate. Then they alter whatever design they wish to change, like date or mint mark. They will usually use different alloys to cut their cost to the bare minimum though. Wouldn't suprise me in the least that they would use a zinc or steel cored copper plated planchet to strike counterfeit wheats or canadian cents on. They can probably buy them at 1/4 the cost of a copper planchet, or less. They could be selling them by the roll or by the pound on feebay, most buyers would not know to check for the difference.

Bob
 

Re: Issues with Coinalyzer sorter resolved

Trust me,being a machinist,I know what they can do over there! Just sounds like a non starter to begin with. I recall something on the history channel or such,about a guy making fake casino chips.That sounds profitable!! But old wheaties?? I'd think the dies would cost more than the profit!
 

Re: Coin sorters

It really wouldn't be that hard to make a master die set in-house if they had the right equipment and were willing to spend the time. Though I wouldn't do it for numerous reasons, one of which would be the legalities, I could do it in my own little machine shop for very little actual cost. The quality doesn't have to be that high to make counterfeits of coins that are already expected to be found in average circulated condition. Getting a chemically induced toning to look right for the simulated age of the coin, and having that toning stay unchanged long enough to sell could be an issue. The 1943 copper chinese copies that I see being sold on feebay are usually advertised as BU, though they usually do advertise that they are copies.

One of my hoppers was shipped so far, it'll probably be here saturday.

Bob
 

Re: Coin sorters

The quarter hopper arrived today. I fired it up and tested it to see what range in coin sizes it would feed reliably. Quarters feed reliably, as expected. I tested 25mm tokens and they feed reliably since they are only a little larger than the quarters. I tested nickels and they feed pretty good, with only a miss here and there as a nickel falls out before that pin wheel slot makes it to the coin knife. Pennies and dimes are too thin for the pins on the quarter pin wheel. They lodge under the tips of the pins, jamming the wheel to a halt when they hit the coin knife. I can vary the feed speed by varying the voltage to the DC drive motor. 12 VDC seems to deliver a good feed speed to the coinalyzer.

My halves hoppers will be here Saturday, and the dimes conversion will be here next week so I can convert one of these hoppers over to dimes. I expect the converted dimes hopper will probably feed pennies just fine as-is. If not I'll just turn the dimes disc down a little bit on my lathe.

Bob
 

Re: Issues with Coinalyzer sorter resolved

post pics when you can get it set up! If its a reasonable price,I'd like to order one too!
 

Re: Issues with Coinalyzer sorter resolved

I always try to take a glance at them as I feed them in. Is it just me,or do the zincolns look as nasty as an old coin? I've seen some nasty tarnished zincoln! Maybe its a reaction to the plating or something,but I've seen some that just look older than dirt!
 

Re: Coin sorters

blkcwbyhat said:
post pics when you can get it set up! If its a reasonable price,I'd like to order one too!
Will do. The CMI CC-16D coin comparitor assemblies arrived today. Essentially they are CC-16D units mounted in metal frames that have coin chutes under the bottom of the comparitors to redirect the coins. The coin chutes take the place of the "bevel cut board" that is used under a coinalyzer setup. In the current configuration, pass coins fall straight through, but can be redirected fore and aft via an extra solenoid on the frame if desired. The reject chute is set up to send rejected coins out of a port in the lower right side of the frame.
 

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Re: Coin sorters

The later Zincoln cents will corrode much quicker and easier than the coppers. If you look at the plating under high magnification you can see lots of tiny pores through the copper plating on most of the new cents. The plating is so thin that the copper allows air and humidity to get through to the zinc, resulting in oxidation and galvanic reaction. The mint is going to have a battle on their hands replacing corroded Zincolns.
 

Re: Coin sorters

Two halves hoppers arrived yesterday, along with a set of CC-16 wiring harnesses. Once I figured out the pinouts (the wiring harnesses were for a different custom model) and reconfigured the leads, I began testing what one of the CC-16D's could do.

I was impressed with the capability of these to be adjusted precisely enough to discriminate relatively minor composition variations such as the older wheats and IHP's vs later coppers. Once adjusted, I ran multiple passes of mixed cents and it did not make a single sorting error. Way better than the coinalyzer!

Dimes were next. With a clad dime as a compare coin, it made no sorting errors. All clads passed and all silvers were rejected. With a 1964 roosie as a compare coin, some badly worn mercury dimes were rejected along with the clads, so we definitely want to run the dime sorter using a clad dime as the compare coin.

Quarters were only tested using a clad as a compare coin, no sorting errors. All clads passed and all silvers were rejected.

When testing with halves before, I had found that the coinalyzer had an issue discriminating reliably between clads and 40% silvers. The CC-16D can discriminate clads from 40% silvers, and 40% silvers from 90% silvers. I tried rapid-firing multiple random mixed clads/40%'ers/90%'ers through it to check reliability, not a single sorting error occured.

I still need to scrounge up some coin chute tubing so I can connect the hoppers to the comparitors, and the comparitors to one another on the penny sorter. I'm still trying to figure out what to use as a housing for this contraption. A tower computer case could be nice, but the ones I have around here are just not wide enough to fit one of these coin hoppers inside of.

Bob
 

Re: Coin sorters

The dimes conversion kit arrived, so I converted one of the halves hoppers to dimes. Tested it with pennies and it worked just fine as-is. The only modification that had to be done was to shave a little plastic off of one facet of the coin knife to keep the pins from rubbing it. I used the slightly thicker halves coin knife for the quarters hopper, and the slightly thinner quarters coin knife for the dimes/pennies hopper.

I bought boxes of pennies, dimes, quarters, and halves, so I can work on setting up and testing these coin sorter systems.

Bob
 

Re: Coin sorters

Do you mind posting what wires need what? I have a similar comparitor and have not got around to wiring it up. Would love to get a hopper for it too, so buy a halves hopper and get a dime conversion?
 

Re: Coin sorters

conpewter said:
Do you mind posting what wires need what? I have a similar comparitor and have not got around to wiring it up. Would love to get a hopper for it too, so buy a halves hopper and get a dime conversion?
Looking at the CC-16 facing the label on the front, the I/O connector (inline 6 pin molex) is on the left side of the plastic box the label is on. Pins are listed from the top down;

6 - Ground - Power Supply Return
5 - Power Supply Input - Apply Rated Voltage.
4 - Not Used
3 - Not Used
2 - Open Collector Coin Counter Output - Coin Accept Outputs A Grounding Pulse.
1 - Inhibit Input (For Inhibit models) - Ground To Enable CC-16 Operation.

The halves (also used for $1 slots tokens) hoppers are usually more plentiful and can be less expensive. But if you want to feed dimes without having to buy a full dimes conversion kit, you can buy a quarter or nickel hopper and just change out the shelf wheel for a dimes version. Those can be found for about $10 if you shop wise.

Bob
 

Re: Coin sorters

From where did you order your coin hopper assemblies and CMI coin comparitors?

Thanks, Nick
 

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