Importance

Loading Importance Indicators...

Abstract

A vending machine dispensing cups containing freshly made beverages comprises inter alia a cup dispenser delivering the cups one by one to a filling device. The cup dispenser includes a magazine for several succeeding rows of stacks of cups situated on a bottom. This bottom is shaped with a delivery opening allowing the front stack of cups to fall downwards by gravity upon an advancing in the magazine so as to position on a delivery mechanism present below the delivery opening. At activation this delivery mechanism is adapted to remove the lowermost cup in the stack and to deliver the cup to the filling device. The cup dispenser comprises furthermore a sensor detecting that the uppermost cup in the stack present in the delivery opening is positioned below the bottom of the magazine, the sensor furthermore activating a driving means to advance the row of stacks in the magazine. Furthermore the sensor allows the following stack to fall through the delivery opening. In order to obtain a particularly compact cup dispenser and at the same time a vending machine allowing delivery of two different cup sizes while maintaining the above compact cup dispenser, the cup dispenser comprises two magazines for their respective row of cup stacks and each with a driving mechanism and a delivery opening with a delivery mechanism. These two magazines are shaped in such a manner that the associated chambers for the rows of stacks extend coaxially and comprise delivery openings positioned immediately adjacent one another.

Loading the Abstract Image...

First Claim