Surf - Timer has built-in support for bill acceptors and coin acceptors:

• Support for several different interfaces.
• Option to specify and display a minimum cash payment.
• Option to print a receipt for each payment.
• Option to have an e-mailed receipt sent to the user for each payment (and/or to the kiosk owner).
• Option to customize the receipt with your own graphic and text (using a RTF file as a header).

What PC interface should you use

One simple way to interface coin acceptors and bill acceptors is to send the pulses from the acceptor to the DSR  (Data Send Ready) pin on the serial port. This typically requires a few   components like a resistor and a capacitor. This type of interface has the advantage of being inexpensive but also unreliable if the PC is very busy when the money is in inserted.

It is recommended that you use a solution that sends data to the serial port through the data pin.  A configuration often used is slave-master, where the PC interface (slave) waits to be queried by the master (PC) before sending signals to the PC.  In some cases, if the PC interface does not receive an inquiry in the predefined time slot it will inhibit acceptance of the bill validator and coin acceptor.

In most cases, the PC interface is $100 USD or more. One exception is the GBA (Global Bill Acceptor).  In this case the bill acceptor includes all the logic required to communicate through a serial port.

The following reliable solutions are supported by Surf - Timer:

Bill Acceptors

• Global Bill Acceptor (GBA) with RS-232 interface.Click here for details

• Global Bill Acceptor (GBA) with TL interface. The only advantage of using the TL interface for the GBA is if you also require a coin acceptor. In that case you only need one serial port for both the coin acceptor and bill acceptor.Click here for details

• Coinco bill acceptor with cable from Upstate Networks Inc.

Coin Acceptors

• Microcoin S5/QL with the TL interface.Click here for details

• Cashflow 330 coin with ARB-06 interface. The ARB-06 also offers support for the GBA.Click here for details

• Cashflow 330 coin with Eurocoin interface.

Surf - Timer also supports pulse interface when sending the pulses directly to the DSR pin on the serial port. This is however not as reliable as the other interfaces.