Can not read serial impulse from bill acceptor

[vgavdeev]

Hello! I am using Arduino with J5. It is really cool. Respect you. Now I need to read impulse from bill acceptor Apex 5400 by Arduino. Please give me an example of code.

[rwaldron]

Hello! Thanks for the kind words.

Apex 5400

Honestly, I've never used one of these before, or even seen one for that matter, but based on the Arduino examples I've seen in the wild, I think you can just use an instance of Digital (which is an alias to Sensor.Digital)?

I'm going to try to make a simulator, based on the datasheet

[rwaldron]

Ok, so based on the following data that I read in this manual: https://pyramidacceptors.com/pdf/Apex_Manual.pdf

1. Pulsing:
   • Fast Pulse (50ms on, 50ms off)
   • Slow Pulse (50ms on, 300ms off)
2. Pulse Per Dollar can be configured to any number between 1 and 127 (or none, but I didn't attempt to simulate that).
3. "Acceptance" is marked by a 100ms

With that, I created a "simulator" program that picks a pseudo random bill amount and "fast pulses" that amount, at 1 PPD, followed by a 100ms "acceptance":

int denominations[] = {1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100};
int ppd = 1; // Any number between 1 and 127
int pin = 12;

void setup() {
  Serial.begin(9600);
  pinMode(pin, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
  int index = random(0, 5);
  int denomination = denominations[index];

  Serial.println(denomination);

  int pulses = denomination * ppd;

  // P. 4, Fast Pulse 50ms on, 50ms off
  for (int i = 0; i < pulses; i++) {
    digitalWrite(pin, HIGH);
    delay(50);
    digitalWrite(pin, LOW);
    delay(50);
  }
  // https://pyramidacceptors.com/pdf/Apex_Manual.pdf
  // 100msec when bill is recognized.
  delay(100);
}

I loaded this onto an Arduino and set up this:

Then I used the following program to interpret the pulses as dollar amounts:

const { Board, Digital } = require("johnny-five");
const board = new Board();

board.on("ready", () => {
  const acceptor = new Digital(8);
  const denominations = [1, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100];
  let denomination = 0;
  let last = 0;
  let timeout = null;

  acceptor.on("data", () => {
    let { value } = acceptor;

    if (last !== value && value === 1) {
      if (timeout) {
        clearTimeout(timeout);
      }
      denomination++;
    }

    // If the last value was a countable pulse,
    // we MIGHT be at the end, so set a timeout
    if (last === 1 && value === 0) {
      timeout = setTimeout(() => {
        if (denominations.includes(denomination)) {
          console.log(`\$${denomination}.00`);
        }
        denomination = 0;
      }, 100);
    }

    last = value;
  });
});

Which produced output that looks like:

$ node eg/sensor-digital-bill-acceptor.js
1491510648386 Device(s) /dev/cu.usbmodem1411
1491510509794 Connected /dev/cu.usbmodem1411
1491510511515 Repl Initialized
>> $20.00
$50.00
$1.00
$10.00
$1.00
$10.00
$1.00
$1.00
$5.00
$50.00
$10.00
$20.00
$50.00
$1.00
$1.00
...

[rwaldron]

Hi! Just wondering if the code I provided above worked as shown?

[rwaldron]

@vgavdeev ping

[dtex]

Hi @vgavdeev Just wanted to follow up and see if you had a chance to try @rwaldron's suggestion

[dtex]

Hi @vgavdeev

We haven't heard back so I'm closing this, but I want you to know we aren't forgetting about this. I've added the Apex 5400 to our Johnny-Five Requested Features page. Hopefully we'll get a motivated contributor and they will come in and add support.