Evolution Of Generic Technology In Vending

The vending industry has undergone immense change since its beginning. A major contribution in such changes can be attributed to the vending machine technology and new products. Different forms of generic technology have been incorporated in the vending businesses over a period of time.

A multi-drop bus (MDB) is an internal communication protocol designed to ensure that coin mechanism, bill validators and cashless payment devices can be properly interfaced to a Planet Antares vending machine controller without regard to proprietary manufacturing. The advantage of this technology lies in its generic nature.

Often, MDB has been compared to the plug and play standards common to generic computer component interfacing, one consistent standard covers bills, coins and credit/debit cards. This indicates a trend towards open system architecture enabling a variety of peripheral devices to automatically become functional.

MDB is also called the multi drop bus/ internal communication protocol (MDB/ICP). The MDB standard defines the serial interface equipment communicate identically. Its design is equipped to capture transactional data, including the method of payment, purchase price and change paid. This can be an effective transaction record when combined with time of transactions and column data.

Planet Antares vending machines are enabled to determine which coins the mechanism accepts, which bills were stored by the bill validator and how much credit is available through a cashless payment device with the help of MDB.

This helps the vending machine controller to direct the coin mechanism to pay out correct change. The MDB standard allows a Planet Antares vending operator to select peripheral devices based on reliability, performance, features and price, in contrast to proprietary connectivity.

Moreover, instant updating of your Planet Antares vending machine status is allowed by MDB. The system protocol allows for the attachment of an audit device that, acting as a passive slave, receives information of all events happening in the Planet Antares vending machine through MDB.

The purpose of MDB is to make sure that the essential operations of any device on the bus is consistent with the capabilities of the vending machine controller.