1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to article vending mechanisms and, more particularly, to a dispenser system incorporating high density, gravity feed, angulated trays for storage of one or more articles therein and a loading/retrieval system therefor.
2. History of the Prior Art
The prior art is replete with vending systems for a myriad of dispensable items. The most common items include cigarettes, candies, chips and soft drinks. Such items have been sold through vending machines for decades and the associated technology is therefore well established. In the main these items comprise fungible goods, in that one bag of potato chips or ice is pretty much like another stored in the same machine. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 3,712,507 teaches an article dispensing apparatus for bags of ice and the like. The apparatus is constructed with at least two drums having a common vertical axis about which the drums rotate. When the drums turn the articles located in the compartments slide along the shelf. As the articles in one drum are dispensed, the second drum is engaged and begins its rotation. This affords the user the opportunity to acquire as many units from drum rotation as needs. With such a construction, however, the articles themselves must be shoved, moved and dropped. They are, therefore, not the kind susceptible to breakage example is the vending apparatus set forth and shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,621,746. This newspaper vending assembly comprises a drum having an open top and a sliding door on the vertical face. The unit affords convenience to the user by a rotating mechanism of basic construction. A more advanced dispensing system is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 3,780,909 wherein a vending machine for vending packaged products is set forth and described. The technology in this reference requires a higher degree of electrical and mechanical design which again affords access to a plurality of similar packages. More recent developments in vending machine technology has facilitated the dispensing of less fungible commodities. It is now commonplace for a single vending machine to be capable of dispensing several hundred items. When these items are not fungible and comprise over one hundred different categories, rather than five to ten categories, the complexity of the dispensing operation is vastly increased. This situation is readily seen in video cassette dispensing systems. Here the number of tapes stocked in a single system can be on the order of several hundred. The advantage of the system is to provide access to the individual "titles" available therein. The system must therefore be capable of stocking, reloading, and dispensing individual titles which must, by definition, be separately stored within the system and handled gently. This basic machine outline necessitates the utilization of a computer network for locating and handling individual storage areas and tape cartridges. The rewards of a cost effective system which is also reliable, substantially maintenance free and "user friendly" includes a profitable market acceptance in the rapidly growing field of video cassette rentals.
The advent of video cassette recorder (VCR) technology brought with it a revolution in the entertainment industry. VCR cartridges are small, easily handled and contain recorded entertainment such as full length motion pictures. This in conjunction with the fact that the VCR system has been mass produced into a consumer product which is both affordable and reliable has availed the entertainment industry of an incredibly broad market. This market is VCR cassette rentals. The longevity of VCR cassettes permits hundreds of replay operations without serious deterioration of the recorded medium. Thus the investment for a supply of video cassettes can be repaid many times over by re-renting the cassette to multiple consumers. The single most costly aspect of this operation is the personnel charge for operating the VCR rental outlet.
It has been well known that vending machine technology is capable of accommodating the direct sale of goods. Cigarettes, cold drinks and candies are just as easily sold through vending machines as they are at check out stands of convenience stores. For this reason, the profitability of the sale greatly increases as the demand on man hours for the sale decreases. The incorporation of this concept into the VCR cassette rental market was thus an inevitable event. Prior art dispensing systems addressing this market thus provide means for stocking, indexing, handling and dispensing hundreds of video cassettes with almost as many titles. One basic overriding requirement of such a dispensing system is, however, that it be "user friendly". Without consumer acceptance, the dispensing system is worthless. Prior art VCR dispensing systems have been constructed in a variety of configurations, some of which resemble basic vending machine concepts. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,598,810 teaches a vending system for TV film and other reusable articles. The user is assigned an identification code number and actuates the apparatus by use of that code number. The articles dispensed are contained therein in a storage bank comprising a generally vertical stack configuration. The cubicles within the stack are constructed for receiving the films to be vended and each cubicle has an upturned stop element at the bottom on the rear side to prevent the film from being moved out from the rear side of the cubicle when the film is returned thereto. The complexity of moving individual units within the stack is clearly set forth therein and it is accomplished through the utilization of a carefully controlled XY motion assembly system including threaded rods and a myriad of interacting elements operated through an electrical control circuit described therein.
Another prior art storage system utilizing a vertical bin array is set forth and shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,668,150. This 1987 patent to Marvin R. Blumberg teaches a vending machine for video cassettes and an array of storage bins for storing a plurality of containers. Each storage bin is vertically disposed relative to the other and has a bottom with an elongated slot adapted for engaging a controllable arm mounted for relative movement in an XY plane throughout the stack. Each bin supports a single cassette and yet allows the controllable arm to pass through the bin via the elongated slot for the purpose of inserting or removing the cassette relative to the bin. An advantage of the technology disclosed therein is the feasibility of the machine to store a relatively high variety of cassettes compared to the then known cassette vending machines.
As seen above, a common problem in the prior art relative to VCR cassette dispensing systems is the complexity of storage loading and unloading of individual cassette title groups. As shown by the prior art references, much effort is needed to retrieve individual cassettes. It would be an advantage, therefore, to overcome the problems of the prior art by providing a cassette storage system incorporating a self-discharge configuration with a plurality of identical cassettes stored in a common bin area.
The present invention provides such a system by utilizing a high density storage bank of angulated VCR cassette storage trays capable of holding a plurality of cassettes. Each storage tray is disposed in generally parallel spaced relationship with the others in the angulated bank permitting a gravity discharge of a VCR cassette therefrom with others stored therein. In this manner the VCR cassette retrieval and storage system can be fabricated to operate with multiple cassettes of a common title in a very reliable and simplified mode. By securing a series of common cassettes in the angulated trays or bins, behind a short frontal lip, retrieval is effected simply by pivoting the first end of each cassette upwardly. This step is easily reversed for restocking a series of identical cassettes in a common storage bin.