Coin Pusher machine

Summary

This is a mini coin pusher machine.

It is design to play with 1 euro cents and 2 euro cents coins but you can use any coin with similar dimensions (15-25mm diameter and 1.7 – 2mm height).

I’ve built it around what I had lying around (especially a NEMA 17 stepper Motor, a stepper driver salvaged from a 3d printer and a ESP8266). These might not have been the best choices, but I wanted to stick with what I had on hand.

BOM

• 12 M3 X 30mm screws
• 4 M3 X 10 mm screws
• 4 M3 X 20mm screws
• NEMA 17 stepper motor
• Stepper driver (pololu or equivalent, the application is really simple, anything capable of making a stepper driver make 360° turn with decent torque is sufficient)
• ESP8266 or any micro controller you are used to (Arduino)
• Power supply around 12V – 1A. I used a 15V .4A from a broken hair clipper. Not ideal but it works.
• All the printed parts

Printing

• Dozer might need support for the slid under the plate
• I’ve tried different orientations for the right and left sliders, I printed them “facing up” so I didn’t need supports but you might get away printing them “flat” with supports.
• Every other pieces : Should no need any particular attention.
• I mostly used .2mm layer height and a .6mm nozzle. These should not influence the result.

Assembly

• Start by assembling the motor to the motor support.
• Then screw the motor support to the base plate.
• Add the pacer and the crank to the motor shaft
• Start screwing one of the side guides on the base plate, slide the dozer sideways and then screw the other side.
• After that there’s no particular order to mount all other pieces, I hope it is quite intuitive.

Electronics

• Wire your stepper driver to the micro controller
• Plug the stepper motor to the stepper driver
• Add power

Misc thoughts

Obviously there’s a lot of room for improvement, I’m not really familiar with 3D CAD software. Some choices are limited by my 3D skills.

I tried to make everything simple to print (no supports needed) and I spitted some parts for ease of prints and modification (especially around the motor so you can use other kinds…)

I used tinkercad – once again, maybe not optimal but it was convenient.

Feel free to remix, edit, modify, make your own version.

Source if you want to remix or customize : https://www.tinkercad.com/things/e6SbyxiWyx2