Hi guys, hope you are well! I am trying to retrofit an old snack vending machine. The old microcontroller is limiting in what I want to do, so I wanted to see if I could use an Arduino board instead.
After the MEI system accepts and acknowledges the bill or credit card payment, I want this to be an input for the Arduino to activate a sequence (for example, turning on LEDS, a pump and/or a motor).
Can anyone please provide some guidance on how to use the off-the-shelve MEI system as an input for the Arduino? I also welcome any other suggestions that I may be missing.
Can anyone please provide some guidance on how to use the off-the-shelve MEI system as an input for the Arduino?
I imagine that the vendor/manufacturer could. They seem pretty stingy with information on the page you linked, though, so they may want to charge you for it.
The MEI will have to be on-line to a credit card company (Visa and/or Mastercard, etc) to authorise payments. You will also have to get the credit card company to accept you as an authorised 'agent' before they will accept payments through your machine. They will also take a percentage of the payment for their work.
Let's assume that I will set up the proper electronic processing for the credit card with the credit card reader manufacturer to authorize the payments. What information do I need to integrate the reader with an Arduino? I notice that this manufacturer has more info on their reader if this helps: http://www.coinco.com/media/product_docs/vantage/Vantage-Manual_d928998r3.pdf
For example, after I swipe my credit card for $1 and the credit card reader processes the payment, I would like the Arduino to read the input from the credit reader (that $1 has been paid) to activate a sequence of things (turn on LEDS or motor...etc).