JPH0318384A - Game medium taking-in mechanism of game machine - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To smoothly and quickly take balls into a game machine by allowing the balls which are thrown in large quantities into a pan prior to a game to pass in a parallel state through ball passages of a plural piece portion. CONSTITUTION:A player of a game lays down a pan 3 to this side at the time of a game, and throws balls borrowed in a hall into the pan 3. The balls thrown into the pan 3 flow out naturally to a flow-down guide 5 side by the inclination of its bottom part 3b. As a result, the balls in the pan flow down through each passage in a state that three pieces of balls are continued in a horizontal line to a flow-down duct 6, and flow into an inlet duct 7 of a ball counting part one after another in a state that they are arranged in three lines. The ball counting part counts the balls which flow in through each passage and totals each passage portion, and counts the total number of the balls which are thrown into the pan 3. The counted balls are guided and led, for instance, into a reflux route of a ball replenishing mechanism.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION [Industrial Application Field] The present invention relates to a game media loading mechanism for loading a large number of game media such as pachinko balls into a gaming machine at once.

[Conventional technology]

Recently, a reel-type gaming machine (hereinafter referred to as a slot machine) that uses balls such as pachinko balls as a game medium has been proposed.

Using this ball for a slot machine as a game medium is
When a conventional slot machine is installed in an existing pachinko hall, the game medium of the conventional slot machine is medals, so the balls used as the game medium of the pachinko machine and the balls used as the game medium of the pachinko machine,
This is because it is desired to solve the problem of requiring a ball lending machine and a medal lending machine for medals used as game media for slot machines, which requires a great deal of cost for store equipment. Another reason is that if the game media of pachinko machines and slot machines are unified, the so-called strip equipment for replenishing balls installed in existing pachinko machines can be used for slot machines as well.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

However, currently, pachinko balls and medals have different unit prices as game media (one pachinko ball is 4 yen, and one slot machine medal is 20 yen), so pachinko balls with a game media unit price of 175 yen If used in slot machines, each slot machine would require at least five times the number of pachinko balls to be fed into and ejected from the number of pachinko balls used for one pachinko machine, which would reduce the number of steps involved. It becomes extremely troublesome.

In view of these points, the present invention provides an arrangement for a game medium that allows a large amount of balls to be quickly and smoothly thrown into the slot machine using pachinko balls as the game medium. The objective is to provide a mechanism for incorporating

[Means to solve the problem]

The structure of the present invention, which has been made to solve the above problems, is to form a ball outlet through which two to three or more balls can flow out in a row in a receiving tray for thrown balls, and to have two to three balls in this outlet. Connect a ball flow down duct having parallel passages that are sloped along the direction in which the balls are lined up and downward sloped in the direction in which these balls travel, and the downstream side of this flow down duct is injected. It is characterized by being connected to a sphere counting section.

[For production]

The balls that are thrown into the ball receiving tray all at once flow into the ball flow down duct from the outlet where two or more balls can pass side by side and are guided to the counting section, so a large number of balls are thrown in at once. However, the ball is smoothly and quickly taken into the gaming machine main body,
The total number is counted.

〔Example〕

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

3. FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional plan view of an example of the mechanism of the present invention;
2 is a view taken along the line A-A in FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a right sectional view of FIG. 1, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a side sectional view of another example of the ball receiving tray of the present invention.

In the figure, the device is the front panel of the gaming machine, and is attached to the front side of the box-like main body 2 so that it can be opened and closed or detached.

3 is located below the front of the panel 1, with the left and right sides being axes 3a, 3a.
3b is an inclined surface formed on the bottom surface of the saucer 3, which is attached to the panel so that it can be raised and lowered.
Reference numerals 3c and 3d designate magnetic members, such as iron plates, embedded in the upper front end surface and the lower front end surface of the saucer 3.

Reference numeral 4 denotes a mounting portion for the saucer 3, which is recessed in the front panel in order to hold the saucer 3, which can be raised and lowered, in a fixed position during raising and lowering. A ball outlet 4b is formed into a continuous sloped surface 4a that matches the bottom sloped surface 3b of the tray 3, while magnets 4c and 4d correspond to the magnetic members 3c and 3d of the saucer 3. It is buried.

-4- From this, the ball receiving tray 3 can be raised freely with respect to its mounting portion 4 around the shaft 3a, and when standing up or lying down, the magnets 3c, 4c, or , 3d, and 4d attract each other to maintain their posture. In addition, 3e is a ball hole formed in the bottom of the saucer 3, 3
f is a shutter that opens and closes the shutter.

Reference numeral 5 denotes a short cylindrical downward flow guide formed on the back side of the saucer mounting part 4, continuous with the ball outlet 4b, and the saucer 3, the mounting part 4, and the flow guide 5 are attached to the front panel 1. There is.

Reference numeral 6 denotes a downstream duct disposed inside the front surface of the main body 2 so as to be continuous with the downstream guide 5, and this duct 6 is connected to the outlet 4b.
As shown in FIG. 2, the bottom surface 6b of the front half side 6a is sloped downward toward the left side in FIG. On the other hand, on the tip side of this downward slope, the passage is bent to the left by II890 degrees, as shown in FIG. This is to prevent the path of the downflow duct 6 from being tampered with by inserting a stick or the like into the path from the outflow port 4a by bending the path of the downflow duct 6 in the middle. This is to fit it into. The bending direction and bending angle of the downstream duct 6 are arbitrary, taking into consideration the space of the main body 2, as long as it fits within the main body 2.

Thus, in the downstream duct 6 bent to the left by 81,890 degrees, the bottom surface 6d of the rear half 6c is formed at the same inclination angle as the bottom surface 6b of the front half 6a.

In addition, the passage on the left side of the front half side 6a of the downstream duct 6 is as follows:
On the rear half side 6c, the bottom surface 6d' of the passage is one step lower than the bottom portion 6d. In addition, on the inner surface of the flow duct 6, a curved current plate 6e is arranged on the outer circumferential side of the curved portion, so that the curved flow of the balls flowing down in parallel is smooth and approximately uniform throughout the passage. It has been devised. Furthermore, the second half 6c of the downstream duct 6 is
A passage separator 6f is attached to d.

Reference numeral 7 denotes an inlet duct of an input ball counting section (not shown) connected to the downstream duct 6, into which the balls flowing down the downstream duct 6 in three rows are introduced as they are, together with the balls in each row. Reference numeral 7a denotes a counting sensor disposed at the entrance of the inlet duct 7. Therefore, the thrown ball counting section counts the balls passing through the inlet duct in each row based on the signal from the sensor 7a, and the ball receiving tray 3 for the thrown balls is counted.
Count the total number of balls thrown into the ball.

Reference numeral 8 denotes a shutter member for the ball outlet 4b that is openable and closable in contact with a notch 5a parallel to the front panel surface formed in the flow guide 5, and prevents the balls from flowing out when the front panel 1 is opened from the main body 2. It is a member for

For this reason, the shutter member 8 has a shutter main body 8a facing the outlet 4b, an intermediate portion of the member 8 being pivotally attached to the back surface of the front panel 8b, and a rear end of this member 8 being pivotally attached to the lower end 9a of the actuating lever 9. installed.

The upper end 9b of the operating lever 9 is pivotally connected to an operating latch 10a of an opening/closing lock 10 on the front panel l.
0a is operated to open the front panel 1, the shutter body 8a closes the bulb outlet 4b, and the operating latch 1
When the shutter 0a is positioned on the closing side of the front panel 1, the shutter body 8a is positioned out of the ball outlet 74b.

In addition, in the figure, 11 is an ashtray, and this ashtray is also attached to the front panel so that it can be raised freely.

In the embodiments described above, the saucer 3 is raised manually, but it may be constructed so that it is raised by the weight of the ball when the ball is placed therein.

FIG. 5 is a sectional view showing this concept.
A reservoir part 3e for thrown balls is formed in front of a, and when the thrown balls accumulate in this part 3e, this side lowers due to its own weight, and this receiving tray 3
The ball is made to automatically flow down from the ball outlet 4a which is integrally formed on the tip side of the ball.

Note that the downstream guide 5 is also formed integrally with the saucer 3.

The ball taking-in mechanism configured as described above is used in the following manner, for example.

When not in use, the saucer 3 is stored in the mounting portion 4 of the front panel 1 in an upright position.

When playing the game, the player of the game tilts the saucer 3 towards the front and throws the ball borrowed from the hole into the saucer 3.

The balls placed in the saucer 3 naturally flow out to the downstream guide 5 side due to the slope of the bottom 8 part 3b, but in this mechanism, the saucer 3 containing the balls is erected with the balls placed therein.

As a result, the balls in the saucer flow down each passage into the downflow duct 6, in this example three balls in a continuous horizontal row, and flow into the inlet duct 7 of the ball counting section one after another in three rows. I'll go.

The ball counting section counts the balls flowing into each passage of the downflow duct 6, adds up the numbers for each passage, and counts the total number of balls thrown into the saucer 3. This count data is stored in the gaming machine itself or in a computer for central management as the initially loaded game medium for use in the game, and the game is started. Further, the counted balls are guided into, for example, a circulation route of a ball supply mechanism.

〔Effect of the invention〕

In this way, the ball loading mechanism of the present invention allows a large number of balls, which are thrown into the receiving tray prior to a game, to pass through multiple ball paths in parallel, thereby smoothly and quickly loading them into the gaming machine. Therefore, it is extremely useful as a ball loading mechanism for a so-called credit-type gaming machine, in which a large amount of actual game media is loaded into the game machine before a game is played.

In addition, in order to smoothly and quickly take in a large number of balls as described above, the passage for multiple balls arranged in parallel is designed so that the balls flow down in parallel evenly and without any interference due to their own weight. In addition to the downward slope of the passage, we also provided slopes and curved guide plates for the left and right sides of the passage, and each passage was given a different downward slope on the left and right sides, so even if there were a large number of balls, they could be placed in parallel. can be smoothly guided to the counting section.

Therefore, the present invention is particularly useful as a mechanism for capturing game balls in gaming machines such as slot machines that use balls as game media.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a cross-sectional plan view of the main parts of an example of the mechanism of the present invention;
2 is a view taken along the line A-A in FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a right sectional view of FIG. 1, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a side sectional view of another example of the ball receiving tray of the present invention. Engineering...Front panel, 2...Main body, 3...Saucer, 4...
- Mounting part of saucer 3, 5... Downstream guide, 6... Downstream duct, 7... Inlet duct of counting section, 8 - Shutter member, 9... Operating lever, 10... Lock

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] 1. A ball outlet is formed in a receiving tray for thrown balls through which two to three or more balls can flow out in a line, and a ball outlet is formed along the direction in which two to three or more balls are lined up at this outlet. is sloped, and
Game media intake for a game machine, characterized in that a ball flow down duct having parallel passages with a downward slope in the traveling direction of the balls is connected, and the downstream side of this flow down duct is connected to an input ball counting section. mechanism. 2. The receiving tray for the thrown ball is pivotably mounted on the front panel of the gaming machine main body, as claimed in claim 1.
The game media loading mechanism of the gaming machine described in Section 1. 3. A game media intake mechanism for a gaming machine as set forth in claim 1 or 2, wherein a shutter that can be opened and closed is attached to the ball outlet. 4. The game medium intake mechanism of the gaming machine according to any one of claims 1 to 3, wherein the ball flow down duct is formed by bending the flow path to the right or left in the downstream direction of the ball flow. 5. The game medium intake mechanism of the gaming machine according to claims 1 to 4, wherein the ball flow down duct forms a passage for each ball flowing down in parallel.