Creating a Coin Collector for Vending Machines with 3D Printing

A few years ago, developing a prototype of a product was expensive and difficult to produce with plastic injection. Today, 3D printing has transformed the way we create and customize parts for electronic projects, you can produce any product, test it and spend very little money. In this article, we explore how 3D printing was instrumental in the development of a coin collector designed for vending machines. The housing of this system, which houses a coin acceptor, an LCD display, and a control board, was entirely designed and manufactured by JLC3DP.

3D Modeling and 3D Printing

The first step in product development or prototype is divided into two parts: designing the project in the 3D modeling tool and adapting the project to be manufactured using 3D printing based on fabrication rules of 3D printing processes. Below, we have the device presented with 3D modeling device.

The structure of the device consists of 4 general purpose buttons, an LCD display to present the information and the coin acceptor. On the back we have a power connector and an access drawer to collect the collected coins. The panel housing structure is constructed to be separate from the main body. This facilitates assembly and connection between the various parts of the device. Below you can see the 3D structure in exploded view of the project.

This assembly analysis step is of fundamental importance during the 3D modeling process. It ensures that we can evaluate the assembly process and minimize the risk of possible errors during the 3D printing process. Below we have the internal structure of the coin collector. As you can see, the system consists of an electronic coin acceptor, a 20x4 LCD display and a shield board for connecting all the cables to the Arduino UNO.

Electronic structure result of the project with 3D printing

Using the electronic connections, we developed the code. Its purpose is to read the coin acceptor pulses and display the value of the money count placed in the machine. To ensure that each pulse is correctly identified and counted, we use the Arduino's external interrupt. The next condition is used to detect that the user has inserted a 1 real coin. When a 1 real Brazilian coin is inserted, the system receives 4 pulses from the coin acceptor.

As you can see, the system correctly detects and calculates the value entered for each currency. From there we can expand to other applications and use it to create a product release system when the user inserts a certain amount of money.

Conclusion and upcoming updates for this project

The next step for this project is to develop an electronic board with ESP32 and remove the Arduino. The goal of using ESP32 is to allow the device to have access to the internet and we can receive this data on a web server to obtain payment information and store this information in a database. From this, we can expand the processing capabilities of the system and integrate it with other technologies

If you pursue quality and precision in your project, JLC3DP will be your ideal choice. With years of experience and advanced technology, we provide comprehensive solutions for 3D printing, ensuring that your ideas can be transformed into reality with excellent efficiency.