How does a vending machine read money?
Vending machines are ubiquitous in our society; people walk past them and use them every day. They are found in offices, commercial establishments, medical offices, public buildings and sports facilities. People take out change and dollar bills from purses or wallets and pay to get food or drinks from an automatic vending machine. Have you ever stopped to wonder how the machines know what money you put in the slot? Have you ever wondered how the device knows if you put in a one or five dollar bill?
For those of you who have contemplated the money reading capabilities of vending equipment, the answers are quite simple. Coins are read based on their obvious physical properties. The thickness, diameter, and ridges on the edge are the main characteristics that are read by machines, but some advanced machines can also determine the chemical composition of a coin. For example, a quarter is 0.069 inches thick, 0.955 inches in diameter, and has 119 grooves around the edge. A nickel is 0.076 inches thick, 0.835 inches in diameter, and has a smooth edge, while a dime is 0.053 inches thick, 0.705 inches in diameter, and has 118 ridges along the edge. edge. In an advanced machine, a coin passes through an electromagnetic field generated by an electromagnet; this creates an electronic signature based on its chemical composition. If this signature does not match the signature of a genuine coin, the device rejects the coin. Although it is quite simple to see how coins are read, paper money is a different matter.
Most people at some point wished that machines would read their dollar bill as a twenty, but unfortunately, that doesn’t happen. Vending machines are smarter than they look and can tell the denomination of the ticket with no problem (although we sometimes have a hard time getting a ticket into the machine). Paper money printed in the United States contains many different security features designed to deter counterfeiters. There are also specific features that help with automatic name recognition. One of the most common methods is through the use of a magnetic scanner. Paper money is printed with magnetic ink that can be read by magnetic scanners. Another way that vending machines read paper money is with ultraviolet light. The vending equipment contains ultraviolet lights that scan the inserted bills. These lights determine the value of the bill by reading the fluorescent response.
Some vending machines allow users to make purchases with credit cards and read them like most credit card readers. They use a magnetic stripe reader to measure and calculate the thousands of tiny magnets that make up the stripe on the back of the card. These tiny magnets, aligned in a specific way, transmit information to the reader. When a credit card ages, the integrity of the magnetic stripe on the back of the card may have been compromised through damage or normal use; the magnetic stripe reader can no longer read the information because the small magnets are no longer aligned correctly or some are missing.
While it’s human nature to look for ways to cheat technology, vending machines, while not completely invulnerable to tampering, are hard to rip off. Their technology is adept at reading all types of money and providing the correct amount of change. In a world filled with technological marvels, the old vending machine still amazes with its simplicity and near perfection.
