Simple Bill Acceptor: Find & Use for Your Project

[matt1212]

Hi everyone, first post here but been reading the forums for a while. I am a 3rd year EE student working on a small side project.

My design requires a circuit to accept a $1 bill, validate it, and then perform an action. I have been looking at bill acceptors online and they all seem to have many inputs and outputs. I'm looking for an acceptor that basically has one output, signaling the successful acceptance of a $1 bill. I know this probably doesn't exist but I'm looking for someone to steer me in the right direction on what to buy and how I can make it do what it is I desire. Thanks in advance and sorry if this post wasn't in the proper forum, mods feel free to correct me on this.

 

[Mech_Engineer]

Bill acceptors can be pretty complex, but for a side-project it could be you don't care about rigorous counterfeit detection. In this case, something as simple as a business card scanner and some software might work... I would guess that an off-the-shelf bill acceptor would be preferrable, but you'll probably need to do some modification to achieve the output you're looking for.

http://money.howstuffworks.com/question269.htm

 

[matt1212]

I found this site here that looks promising:
http://james.lipsit.com/dollar_bill_acceptor.htm

The bill dispenser he uses appears to have just a simple output that goes high once $1 is inserted. Still having trouble finding any kind of schematics though. My biggest fear with using anything but a bill acceptor would be it accidentally taking other bills, as I have no way to make change.

I recently converted an old mini fridge into a kegerator for our college house. I think it would be really cool if I could make it accept $1 and dispense a 12oz beer.
Biggest problems currently include:
- Accepting $1 bills
- Regulating the amount of fluid dispensed, i.e. how do I dispense just 12oz fairly consistently

I'm capable of designing the controller I am just stuck on these few input and outputs.
By what is says in the link I posted, it appears this bill acceptor can be wired as 120v ac and has a simple output? Am I correct?