John Toebes John Toebes
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Electronics

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Super User
06 October 2009
Hits: 4485

With the help of Harry, I've managed to get the Pepsi machine back into basic running order and cleaned up.  One suggestion that he has was to put labels on magnets so that they could be easily changed.  With a little of those sheet magnets, it turned out to work great as you can see below

Read more: Pepsi Machine Restore
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Super User
03 June 2008
Hits: 8607

In the process of repairing my Pepsi machine, I needed to figure out how the Vari-Price 50 changer actually worked.  There are no decent circuit diagrams for how the changer works.   

Common Wires

Wire Location
Black-J-24 5 INV
Black-J-12 C
Black-J-28 10 INV
Black-J-30 Unlabeled (Above Credit)
Yellow CREDIT

Coin Setting Wires

Setting
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
White-J-28 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Blue-J-27 20 25 30 35 40 45 50 50 S3
Yellow-J-23 30 35 40 45 50 50 S1 S1 S1
Red-J-25 S2 S1 S1 S1 S1 S2 50 S2 S2
Black-J-26 10 20 30 40 15 25 35 45 10 20 30 40 15 25 35 45 10 20 30 40 15 25 35 45 10 20 30 40 15 25 35 45 10 20 30 40

Board Images

(Click on image to zoom in)

Anticipated Change

Amount Inserted

10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Price
Setting
10

None

Nickle

Dime

Dime+Nickle 2 Dimes

Not Possible

15

Not Enough

None

Nickle Dime Dime+Nickle 2 Dimes

Not Possible

20 Not Enough None Nickle Dime Dime+Nickle 2 Dimes Not Possible
25 Not Enough None Nickle Dime Dime+Nickle 2 Dimes

Not Possible

30 Not Enough None Nickle Dime Dime+Nickle 2 Dimes
35 Not Enough None Nickle Dime Dime+Nickle
40 Not Enough None Nickle Dime
45 Not Enough None Nickle
50 Not Enough None

 

Connections to C at Dispense State

Amount Inserted

10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
Price
Setting
10 W- - - -K W- - - - W-B- - -K W-B- - - W-B-Y- -K Not Possible
15 Not Enough W- - - -K W- - - - W-B- - -K W-B- - - W-B-Y- -K Not Possible
20 Not Enough W- - - -K W- - - - W-B- - -K W-B- - - W-B-Y- -K Not Possible
25 Not Enough W- - - -K W- - - - W-B- - -K W-B- - - W-B-Y- -K Not Possible
30 Not Enough W- - - -K W- - - - W-B- - -K W-B- - - W-B-Y- -K
35 Not Enough W- - - -K W- - - - W-B- - -K W-B-Y- -
40 Not Enough W- - - -K W- - - - W-B- -R-K
45 Not Enough W- - - -K W-B- - -
50 Not Enough W- - - -

 

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Super User
31 May 2008
Hits: 5834

As part of doing the code for our new picmas tree, I needed to come up with a way to sort a small array of numbers on the Microchip 16F685 processor that we are using. I've looked through a few different sort algorithms and came across the Gnome Sort algorithm on Wikipedia. It was originally created by Dick Grune although his web page is only available on archive.org. The algorithm is ideal for this small processor as it is simple, predictable and uses virtually no memory. The pseudo code for this function is basically:

function gnomeSort(a[0..size-1]) {
i := 1
j := 2
while i < size {
if a[i-1] >= a[i] {
i := j
j := j + 1
} else {
swap a[i-1] and a[i]
i := i - 1
if i = 0 {
i := 1
}
}
}
}

Converting this to the 16F685 is a little more complicated as you only have a single pointer register, but since you are only comparing values next to each other you can load FSR once and just increment/decrement to get to the values. Two other creative tricks that I applied to reduce the code and memory footprint is to reverse the destructive comparison to recover the value to swap and then to use the typical three XOR back and forth to swap the values without an intermediary.

;
; PARAMETERS
; SORT_ARRAY - Array to be sorted
; SORT_LENGTH - Number of bytes in the array to sort
; SORT_J - Temporary variable to hold the end sort pointer
;
; NOTES on implementation
; This uses the typical XOR trick to swap the two array elements
; FSR points to the second of the two array elements that we are comparing.
;
SORT
MOVLW SORT_ARRAY+1
MOVWF FSR ; i = 1
INCF FSR,W
MOVWF SORT_J ; j := 2
SORT_1 ; while i < size
MOVFW INDF ; a[i]
DECF FSR
SUBWF INDF,W
SKPNC
GOTO SORT_2
; if a[i-1] >= a[i]
MOVFW SORT_J ; i := j
MOVWF FSR
SUBLW SORT_ARRAY+SORT_LENGTH-1
SKPC
RETURN
INCF SORT_J,F ; j := j + 1
GOTO SORT_1
SORT_2 ; else
SUBWF INDF,W ; Recover a[i]
XORWF INDF,W ; Swap a[i] and value for a[i-1]
XORWF INDF,F
XORWF INDF,W
INCF FSR ; point to a[i]
MOVWF INDF ; store a[i]
DECF FSR ; i := i - 1
MOVLW SORT_ARRAY
SUBWF FSR,W ; if i = 0
SKPNZ
INCF FSR,F ; i := 1
GOTO SORT_1 ; }
END

 

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