Patent Grant
7347782
This invention relates generally to gaming printers and more specifically to printers for use in cashless gaming machines that produce cash-out paper vouchers or print-on-demand player tracking card/vouchers.
The gaming machine manufacturing industry provides a variety of gaming machines for the amusement of gaming machine players. An exemplary gaming machine is a slot machine. A slot machine is an electromechanical game wherein chance or the skill of a player determines the outcome of the game. Slot machines are usually found in casinos or other more informal gaming establishments.
Gaming machine manufacturers have more recently introduced cashless enabled games to the market and these have begun to find wide acceptance in the gaming industry. Cashless enabled games are so named because they can conduct financial exchanges using a mixture of traditional currencies and vouchers. Typically, a cashless enabled game has a gaming printer to produce vouchers and a bill acceptor that supports automatic reading of vouchers. To coordinate the activities of multiple cashless enabled games, one or more cashless enabled games may be electronically coupled to a cashless enabled game system that controls the cashless operations of a cashless enabled game.
When a player cashes out using a cashless enabled game coupled to a cashless enabled game system, the cashless enabled game signals the system and the system may determine the type of pay out presented to the player. Depending on the size of the pay out, the cashless enabled game system may cause the cashless enabled game to present coins in the traditional method of a slot machine, or the cashless enabled game system may cause a gaming printer in the cashless enabled game to produce a voucher for the value of the pay out. The voucher may then be redeemed in a variety of ways. For example, the voucher may be redeemed for cash at a cashier's cage or used with another cashless enabled game. In order to use the voucher in a cashless enabled game, the voucher is inserted into a bill acceptor of another cashless enabled game at a participating casino and the cashless enabled game system recognizes the voucher, redeems the voucher, and places an appropriate amount of playing credits on the cashless enabled game.
Cashless enabled games have found an increasing acceptance and use in the gaming industry, both with players who enjoy the speed of play and ease of transporting their winnings around the casino and casinos who have realized significant labor savings in the form of reduced coin hopper reloads in the games, and an increase in revenue because of the speed of play. Practical field experience with printers used in cashless enabled games has illustrated that there are areas for improvement in the current printer designs and implementation. These areas in need of improvement include methods and means of detecting paper jam events.
A paper jam can occur for a number of reasons. Various schemes for dealing with paper jams in existence today rely on either containing the voucher until completely printed or declaring a paper jam if the voucher does not reach a sensor in a certain amount of time. One short fall of these schemes is that the printing process normally continues after the paper jam occurs, thus creating a partially printed or otherwise undesirable printed cash out ticket or voucher. Next, the paper jam normally requires an attendant or technician to travel to the gaming machine and physically remove the voucher.
Therefore, a need exists for a paper jam detector that can detect a paper jam easily and quickly within a normal voucher printing event. The paper jam detector should make a decision to stop printing or provide paper jam information to a gaming machine or host for decision making. Various aspects of the present invention meet such a need.
In one aspect of the invention, a paper jam detector is integrated with a gaming machine printer that produces cash-out paper vouchers, print-on-demand player tracking cards or vouchers. A paper jam detector may be entirely self-contained and include all of the mechanical, electrical, electronic, and software components used to detect a paper jam and communicate with a gaming machine or a host. A paper jam detector may also be distributed throughout a gaming machine printer, thereby utilizing various components of the gaming machine printer's printing mechanism. The paper jam detector detects paper jam conditions by monitoring the movement of the paper through the mechanical portions of the gaming machine printer and signals to the gaming machine printer, gaming machine, or host when a paper jam occurs.
In another aspect of the current invention, the paper jam detector includes a paper movement detector for detecting paper movement created by printing or feeding of paper stock by the printing mechanism. The paper movement is detected by a roller, wheel, or other means that contacts the paper in such a manner that as the paper moves, the roller rotates. The roller includes an interface to a sensor that translates the movement of the roller into a paper movement signal. The movement signal is transmitted to s control module. The control module processes the paper movement signal by interpreting the paper movement signal to generate a paper jam signal.
In another aspect of the invention, the paper movement signal includes a component indicating the direction of the paper movement.
In another aspect of the invention, the paper movement signal includes a component indicating the speed of the paper movement.
In another aspect of the invention, the roller is coupled to an articulating mechanism allowing the roller to articulate away from or toward the path of the paper. The roller is further coupled to a sensor interface allowing a sensor to detect the articulation and generate an articulation signal. The articulation signal is transmitted to the control module and used to determine the presence or absence of the paper.
In another aspect of the invention, the paper jam detector, includes means for detecting the movement of the paper drive mechanism included in the printing mechanism. Movement of the paper drive mechanism is detected by a roller, wheel or other means that is mechanically coupled to the paper drive mechanism of the printing mechanism. As the movement occurs the roller turns. The roller includes an interface to a sensor. The sensor senses the movement of the roller and translates the movement into a paper drive signal. The paper drive signal is received by the control module. The control module interprets the paper drive signal to determine if the paper is moving.
In another aspect of the invention, the paper drive signal includes a direction component that may be used to determine the direction of movement of the paper drive mechanism.
In another aspect of the invention, the paper drive signal includes a direction component that may be used to determine the direction of movement of the paper drive mechanism.
In another aspect of the current invention, paper movement is detected by using an optical scanning device that reads the presence of a series of index marks on the paper. The index marks may be pre-printed on the paper or printed by the printing mechanism as the paper moves. As the paper moves, the optical sensor translates the paper movement into a paper movement signal. The paper movement signal is received by the control module of the printing mechanism. The control module interprets the paper movement signal to determine if the paper is moving.
In another aspect of the invention, the paper movement signal includes a component indicating the direction of the paper movement.
In another aspect of the invention, the paper movement signal includes a component indicating the speed of the paper movement.
These and other features, aspects, and advantages of the present invention will become better understood with regard to the following description, appended claims, and accompanying drawings where:
a-4D are semi-schematic views of a paper jam detector employing rollers in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention;
a-5c are semi-schematic views of an articulated paper jam detector in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention;
For the purposes of this document, the following definitions apply:
The printing mechanism receives thermally reactive voucher paper and generates images on the paper to create a voucher 114. The printing mechanism does so by heating a thermal element for each dot that is imaged. The printing mechanism typically creates dot images to a granularity of 8 dots per millimeter, each dot image using a separate thermal element to create a dot image.
A motion detection device integrated within the paper jam detector detects the presence or absence of paper, detects the movement of paper through the gaming machine printer, and determines the speed that the paper is moving through the gaming machine printer.
In slightly more detail, the gaming printer control module transmits printing mechanism control signals 316 to the printing mechanism. The printing mechanism control signals include voucher printing instructions for generation of the voucher by the printing mechanism. The printing mechanism uses the voucher printer instructions to print the voucher. The paper jam detector senses the movement of the printer paper through the printing mechanism and transmits paper movement signals 326 to the gaming printer control module.
In one embodiment of a gaming printer in accordance with the present invention, a game controller 108 is operably coupled to the gaming printer control module. The gaming printer control module receives printer control instructions 330 from the game controller. The gaming printer control module generates paper jam signals 332 indicating whether or not there is a paper jam within the printing mechanism. The gaming printer control module transmits the paper jam signals to the game controller. The game controller uses the paper jam signals to determine if there is a paper jam within the printing mechanism.
a-4D are semi-schematic views of a paper jam detector employing rollers in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention.
b is a semi-schematic diagram of an interrupter style optical device 416 that may be used as a roller sensor. An optical transmitter 418 transmits an optical signal 420 that is received by an optical receiver 422. In operation, the optical sensor generates a signal when an object interrupts the optical signal transmitted from the optical transmitter to the optical receiver.
Referring again to
In one paper jam detector in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention, the roller sensor is a quadrature encoder device, containing more that one set of shutters and optical sensors. In this embodiment, the paper movement signal generated by the sensor includes a direction component, allowing the paper jam detector to generate a paper movement signal indicating the direction of paper travel through the printing mechanism.
c is a graph depicting a paper movement signal generated by a roller sensor in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The amplitude of the paper movement signal is indicated along the Y-axis 424 and passage of time is indicated along the X axis 426. A paper movement signal 428 is characterized as a square wave pulse train indicating the rotational velocity of the paper jam detector roller. The output of the roller sensor is transmitted to a gaming machine control module for analysis. By analyzing the rate of change in the signal, the control module can determine if the paper is moving. In addition, the control module can determine the speed of the paper movement by measuring the period or frequency of the paper movement signal.
d is a semi-schematic drawing of a paper jam detector that is coupled to a paper drive mechanism that is part of a printing mechanism in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. In this embodiment, a paper jam detector 438 is mechanically coupled to a platen roller 430 used in a paper drive mechanism. The platen roller may be located anywhere within the paper drive mechanism, such as opposite a printer head 432. In other embodiments, the paper jam detector is coupled to the printing mechanism drive motor 434 or other motor driven parts inside of a printing mechanism through a mechanical coupling 436.
The paper jam detector uses this mechanical coupling to determine whether or not the printing mechanism is operating. Specifically if the platen roller is rotating or the drive motor is operating. In response to the motion of the printing mechanism, the paper jam detector generates a paper drive signal that may be used to infer whether or not a paper jam has occurred within the printing mechanism. For example, the printing mechanism may be in a jammed condition as a result of a mechanical failure or an obstruction. If so, the printing mechanism prevents the movement of the paper drive mechanism, and in turn the movement of the paper.
In other paper jam detectors in accordance various embodiment of the present invention, other types of sensors are used to detect movement of the roller platen or printing mechanism. Other non-contacting types of sensing elements may be used with appropriate modification of the one or more shutters. For example, the sensor element may employ capacitance sensors or other types of proximity detecting sensors. In addition, reflective optical sensors may be used to detect movement of the shutters. The roller platen may be mechanically coupled to the sensor as well in which case sensors employing resistive elements or limit switches may be used to detect mechanical movement by the roller platen. In addition, sensors with resistive elements or limit switches may be used to detect movement when mechanically coupled to the paper drive or printing mechanism.
a-5c are semi-schematic views of an articulating paper jam detector in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. The previously described paper jam detector roller 402 may be rotatably coupled to a moveable support 500. The support is moveably coupled to a mounting base 501 by one or more elastic members, such as spring mount 502. The elastic members urge the moveable support toward the paper path of a paper voucher 114 being printed. The roller is also urged toward the paper voucher such that the roller contacts the paper voucher as the paper voucher is being printed. The roller further includes one or more shutters 424 that are positioned so that, as the roller rotates about a shaft 408, the shutters intermittently interrupt an optical path in an optical sensor 412 as previously described.
b is a semi-schematic drawing of the paper jam roller of
c is a semi-schematic drawing of the paper jam roller of
In operation, as shown in
The determination of the speed of the paper moving through the printer is important in identifying the situation when a player, or other person, is pulling on the voucher prior to the completion of the printing on the voucher. Pulling on the voucher will change the speed of the paper moving past the paper jam detector and change the paper movement signal output from the sensor which can be detected by a gaming printer's control module. Although, not technically a paper jam, this event does occur in the field and can cause the following voucher to become jammed by tearing the partially printed voucher into multiple parts. The paper jam detector can detect this event and take corrective action or announce the condition to a gaming machine or host for decision making purposes.
b is a semi-schematic diagram depicting use of pre-printed index marks for optical scanning in accordance with an exemplary embodiment of the present invention. An optical scanning device 600 is capable of detecting individual dot images on a paper voucher 114 being printed by a printing mechanism 314 and moving under the optical scanning device as previously described. As the paper is moved under the scanner by the printing mechanism or other means, as indicated by direction of paper travel arrow 604, the optical scanner reads index marks 606. In response to the successive index marks, the optical scanning device generates a paper movement signal 605 having a time varying component similar to the paper movement signal 428 shown in
The processor is further coupled to sensor devices 1022 by an input device controller 1020 via the bus. Example input devices include sensors that the paper jam detector uses to detect paper movement through a gaming machine printer's printing mechanism as previously described. The processor receives input device signals from the sensor devices via the input device controller and the bus and uses the sensor device signals to detect the state of the paper in a gaming machine printer.
The processor may be further coupled to a network device 1014 via a network device controller 1012 and the bus. The process uses the network device to communicate with other processing systems, such as a gaming machine printer, gaming machine, or other host as previously described.
Although this invention has been described in certain specific embodiments, many additional modifications and variations would be apparent to those skilled in the art. It is therefore to be understood that this invention may be practiced otherwise than as specifically described. Thus, the present embodiments of the invention should be considered in all respects as illustrative and not restrictive, the scope of the invention to be determined by any claims supported by this application and the claims' equivalents rather than the foregoing description.
This application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/402,820, filed Aug. 12, 2002 which is hereby incorporated by reference as if fully stated herein.
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| Number | Date | Country | |
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| 20060033261 A1 | Feb 2006 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
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| 60402820 | Aug 2002 | US |
