Vending Machine/Cashless Device

MDB/ICP protocol

The Multi-Drop Bus/Internal Communications Protocol is a voluntary standard for vending machine communication. This is a serial bus interface working at 9600baud in a master-slave arrangement, where the vending machine controller is the master.Each peripheral is assigned a unique address and command set.

MDB has support for the following devices:-

• Coin Changer
• Bill Validator
• Cashless devices
• Communications Gateway
• Universal Satellite Device
• Coin Hopper or Tube Dispenser

In order to operate the serial line as a bus with multiple devices attached MDB uses a 9bit serial over the traditional 8bit, 9n1 vs 8n1 The master Poll's each device for activity, all communication sessions are initiated by the master addressing a slave, slaves are only allowed to respond when addressed, this prevents bus collisions.

The master indicates an address byte/start of session by setting the 9th bit, the correct slave responds as needed and on sending it's last byte it also sets the 9th bit to indicated end of it's session (although the master will ACK this)

We've started build now on own home grown Cashless Device

The MDB spec already takes into account cashless devices, so we simply have to build a device that conforms to the spec.

Device Level

The specification defines 3 levels of cashless devices, with more more features the higher the level. The Vending Machine (VMC) also has a level, and a device and VMC can only communicate using the highest commonly supported level. As our VMC is only level 1, we only need to implement a level 1 cashless device.

So let's look at what a level 1 device needs to do. Here we will reference commands by their plain English names. For the technical details on these commands, please refer to the specification section 7. For details on how these commands are sent/received by the VMC, refer to secitons 2,3 and 4.

States

A (slightly simplified) diagram of the state machine, with commands sent from/to the VMC in capitals.

The cashless device is basically a state machine with 5 states (7 for level 2 and 3 machines). These states are:

1. Inactive
2. Disabled
3. Enabled
4. Session Idle
5. Vend

When turned on, the cashlss device enters state 1. Almost all state transistions are initiated by the VMC, with the exception of 3 -> 4, which is initiated by the cashless device on a valid card read.

If the cashless device receives a command it cannot act upon in its current state, or receives an unexpected command whilst in an uninterruptable state it must ACK(nowledge) the command, then on the next POLL from the VMC, issue a COMMAND OUT OF SEQUENCE response.

The VMC will then respond with a RESET command, putting the reader back to state 1.

Uninterruptable States

During certain command sequences, the VMC should not issue any additional commands to the cashless device. These are the Uninteruptable States. If the VMC does issue any additonal commands during one of thes states, the reader should responds with COMMAND OUT OF SEQUENCE, as noted above.

These sequences for a level 1 device are:

VMC Command	Cashless Device Response	Result
SETUP/CONFIGURATlON DATA	READER CONFIGURATION DATA
EXPANSION/REQUEST ID	PERIPHERAL ID
READER CANCEL	CANCELLED
VEND REQUEST... VEND CANCEL	VEND DENIED
VEND REQUEST	VEND DENIED
VEND REQUEST	VEND APPROVED	VEND SUCCESS
VEND REQUEST	VEND APPROVED	VEND FAILURE
SESSION COMPLETE	END SESSION

The highlighted rows are all possible sequences in the vend state (state 5), so this state is completely uninterruptable.

Commands

Where a response is ACK, this can also be NAK (Not Acknowledged).

You will notice that some responses appear in the table twice. This is because the cashless device can respond ACK to a request for data, sending the data in response to a later POLL.

Command	Sub-command / Data	Response	Req?	Spec Page Num	Implemented?
Reset	(none)	ACK	Required	102	Yes
Setup	Config Data	Reader Config Data	Required	103	Yes
	Max/Min Prices	ACK	Required	106	Yes
Poll	(none)	Just Reset	Required	108	Yes
		Reader Config Data	Required	108	No
		Display Request	Our VMC doesn't support this!	108	No
		Begin Session	Required	109	No
		Session Cancel Request	Required	112	No
		Vend Approved	Required	112 + 123	No
		Vend Denied	Required	113 + 123	No
		End Session	Required	113 + 126	No
		Cancelled	Required	113 + 133	No
		Peripheral ID	Required	113	No
		Malfunction / Error	Required	115	No
		Command Out of Sequence	Required	116	No
		Diagnostic Response	Required	122 + 147	No
Vend	Vend Request	Vend Approved	Required	123	No
		Vend Denied	Required	123	No
	Vend Cancel	Vend Denied	Required	125	No
	Vend Success	ACK	Required	125	No
	Vend Failure	ACK	Required	126	No
	Session Complete	End Session	Required	126	No
	Cash Sale	ACK	??	127	No
Reader	Reader Disable	ACK	Required	132	Yes
	Reader Enable	ACK	Required	132	Yes
	Reader Cancel	Cancelled	Required	133	No
Expansion	Request ID	Peripheral ID	Required	138	No
	Diagnostics	Diagnostic Response	Optional?	147	No

Command Sequences

• All sequences are shown from the point of view of the cashless device.
• CHK indicate the calculated CHK byte
• * indicates the mode bit is set.

Start Up / Reset

The only difference between these two sequences is the beginning. The start up sequence begins when the cashless device receives an address command from the VMC, the reset sequence when the cashless device receives a RESET command.

The only difference between these commands is that the mode bit is set. (--'RepRap' Matt 20:12, 16 August 2011 (BST) this is incorrect)

Command Received	Command Sent	Data	Hex	Current State
For Startup only
Address		{none}	10H* CHK	X
	ACK	(none)	00H*	X
For Reset only
RESET		(none)	10H* CHK	X
	ACK	(none)	00H*	X
POLL		(none)	12H* CHK	X
	JUST RESET	(none)	00H CHK*	X
For Both
SETUP CONFIG DATA		feature level, columns on display, rows on display, display info	11H* 00H 01H 00H 00H 00H CHK	X
	READER CONFIG DATA	feature level, country code high, country code low, scale factor, decimal places, app max response time, misc	01H 01H 18H 26H 05H 02H 0AH 00H CHK*	X

Not true!