Info please

Hello, I desperately need someone to explain me in general how the coin-mechanism works in soda-machines (or in any other kind of machine, actually). What I need to know is how the system recognize the coin's type, and also how it looks like from the inside (a coin is inserted to the machine, where does it go to, and how?)

[joesquid]

There's a wide variety of coin-mechs out there and though they operate in much the same way, knowing which one you have goes a long way to helping you.  I'm assuming you have one and are having problems with it.  Let us know what type and what's wrong and I'm sure I ,or one of the others, can provide assistance.
Eric

[johnieG]

In general coin mechs use basic physics to determine if a coin is validated, this is the function of the coin acceptor/rejector,
coins have pysical properties, mass, metal content (electro-magnetic properties) and diameter, & thickness, all of these are used to determine the coin's validity, if accepted the mech sorts (deflects the coins travel path thru the mech.) them to the proper coin path to pass the coin along to the coin/credit switches below to enable a vending cycle, and then into the coin (cash) box, if not, then it's rejected to the path that goes to the coin return cup. see? easy as fusion!