Vending Machine
To get more experience with Arduinos and microcontrollers, I started a personal passion project: designing and building a vending machine from scratch. Using an Arduino Uno, various electrical components, plywood, and some tools, I've been developing the entire system -- from the physical structure to the messages displayed on the screen.
This is a work-in-progress, and below is my work so far.
Rough Sketches
Click on each to view in detail
Electrical Schematic
Circuit Iteration
In Iteration 1, only the IR sensor and LCD is wired up. In the video, I am testing the functionality of the sensor and seeing if it can detect the presence of a coin. Once it does, the counter goes up by $0.25.
Iteration 2 sees the integration of four buttons and a servo motor. Only one button is functional, however, and it simulates the user input aspect of the vending machine. Once the counter reaches the desired amount, $2.00, the motor begins to rotate.
Lastly, in Iteration 3, I have removed unnecessary wiring from the buttons and added in all four motors. Each button represents a different item and they are all wired to their own, distinct servo motor.
View the Arduino code for this project on Github.