Coin acceptor instructions

[bld]

I just received my 4 coin acceptor, but I am having some problems reading the instructions...

On the product page it says "To program the validator, check the paper insert for instructions" but the only paper insert was one in Chinese, are there any instructions in English?

Discoveries so far...

• Hold set in for a few seconds, then release.
• A1 will be displayed, and you can start dropping coins in for learning it about first coin
• It starts counting up while you drop coins in.
• After ~15 cycles, it got enough info about first coin and display will show A1 again.
• Press and hold set again, and it will go to A2.
• Put coins in until display shows A2 again.
• Press and hold set again, and it will go to A3.
• Repeat steps from above.
• Press and hold set again, and it will go to A4.
• Put one coin in, and display goes blank...?
• Put another coin in, and it will flash the counter very fast.
• Repeat until you are bored putting coins in (I stopped at 80).
• Press all buttons, hold all buttons, nothing happens.
• Disconnect power and start over.....

Not wure what I am doing wrong, since this is the only thing I can make it do.

Update
Found some more things about this.
Suddenly it started to reject all coins, even during the learning process. Turned out that the coil on the solenoid is getting a bit warm, and as it gets warm, the plastic tube holding a magnet inside of it gets heated up too. The result form that is the magnet slipping out and into the solenoid, so it can no longer pull the slider out of the way and let the coin pass through. A fix for this is to take the solenoid off, test which way the magnet should face in the tube, put a bit glue into the tube, and put the magnet back in. And as it is important, I will repeat myself. Test wich way the magnet should face in the tube! If it is facing the wrong direction, it will be pushed into the acceptor, instead of pulled out of it. So check it before using any glue.
When gluing the magnet back in, put a few drops of glue in the tube, and press the magnet in so it is 1-2mm below the opening of the tube. This seems to give the best pulling force on it.

[bld]

How to fix the solenoid

Attention, this is NOT an official fix, and it is entirely on your own risk of trying this.

Start by taking the two screws holding the solenoid out.


In this tube there is supposed to be a little magnet, and after a while, it gets pulled out of the tube because of the heat and pull from the solenoid.


The magnet might fall out when you take the solenoid off, but here is how it looks, and the size compared to one of the screws holding the solenoid.


Start by putting the magnet into the tube, place the solenoid on the table with the hole up, and put the tube with spring into the hole in the solenoid.
Power on the coin acceptor, and let a coin go through. If it is an accepted coin, the solenoid should pull the spring and tube in, if it pushes it away, the magnet needs to be turned opposite in the tube.
To pull the magnet back out, take an M4 (or similar) bolt and simply pull it out using the magnet itself. Turn the magnet around and try again, if it gets pulled in, make a dot with a marker so you know which end is supposed to face out.

Take the magnet back out and put a few drops of glue into the tube, then put the magnet back in with the dot facing out.

Push the magnet in so it is just below the surface of the tube like this.

[adafruit]

woops, hold on. the instructions we got were in english - we'll scan them and put them up

[bld]

Found instructions on another website. Except it will only accept the first kind of coins I put in...

Next up... making things that can catch the coins http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:21785

[bld]

Still got strange things happening...

First got the setup fixed, set to 4 coins, 15 samples, 10 accuracy, and 1, 2, 3, 4 pulses.

When I then power it off, and back on, and enter the learning mode, I start putting the first coins in. 15 coins, and it then moves to coin 2, as soon as I put the first coin in, the 7 segments then turn off, and flash fast when the following coins are put in. After 15 coins it goes to next coin with the display dimmed. First coin, and it says 2, then 4, 6... and so on... until after 8 coins, it goes to coin 4. Coin 4 then starts at 2, then goes to 3, and so on... after 14 coins it is done with the last coin and flashing A4.

The instructions I found says that when I press setup, it will show A and is then programmed. But instead it turns off, then beeps like if it just was powered on.

When testing the coins, only the first coin is accepted, rest is rejected.

[bld]

Found another problem... It can not handle coins with a hole in.

I wonder if I can cheat that by putting a capacitor on the sensor detecting that.

[bld]

And last post for today...

A little sample code for it: http://pastebin.com/z5DnhtSF

[adafruit]

Hmm so it sounds like you got it set up but then you can't re-program it? we dont understand completely the issue you brought up

[bld]

Hmm so it sounds like you got it set up but then you can't re-program it? we dont understand completely the issue you brought up

I have managed to get it to accept the coins, but it was a pain in the...... I lost count, but it took over 10 attempts to get it to accept all coins (without hole in), and make it save it too.

First coin always worked
On second coin the display only flashed the numbers fast, then turned the display back off.
With third coin it started to get into problems. If the display was off, and only flashed the numbers, it worked. But if the display was dimmed, the coins would not be stored.
Fourth coin was the same as third, display off = good, display dimmed = not stored.

So I got over the problems, mostly. Only problem I got left is that it does not accept coins with a hole in. Which is pretty annoying, since the most used coins here are with a hole in.

[adafruit]

we did notice issues if we didnt provide it a good 12VDC but otherwise didn't see any dimmed lights. We've updated the description to note that hole-center coins wont work - US coins don't have holes in them so we didn't get to test with hollow coins!