As long as your greatest common factor between coins is 5 cents, this works great! I programmed the coin acceptor to output 1 pulse for nickels, two pulses for dimes, and 5 pulses for a quarter. Then, the Arduino multiplies the pulses by $0.05 to give an accurate representation as to the amount of money put in. The coin acceptor works by pulsing a programmed number of pulses to the Arduino. After playing around with a few variables, I moved on to the coin acceptor.įor the coin acceptor, a simple google search lead me to Skipped's instructable. Somebody had already posted working code for the screen.

The amazon comments section was helpful for this step. I worked one device out at a time, starting with the screen. The coin acceptor required 12 volts, while the Arduino uses 5v, so for now, I powered the coin acceptor with a 12-volt DC power adapter. It was helpful to have a breadboard to mount a common ground to.

I then mounted everything inside of a shoe box and wired it all using jumper cables to make connections. I also had quite a few arcade buttons laying around from a previous project. Over the summer, I started by buying an Arduino, coin acceptor, an LCD screen and a magnetic reed switch. With any project, I find it works best to get the electronic side of things working first.

Build your own vending machine