Check out the final version of Adam Riso’s Piggy Bank project that he shared on the Adafruit Forums! This project is adoreable, and would be equally appreciated by adults looking to be frugal as well. (Gives TD Bank’s Penny Arcade a run for its … well … money.)
I finally finished my piggy bank project that I made for my daughter (she’s 3).
It uses:
- Arduino Mega
- 4 Coin Acceptor
- Thermal Printer
- Adafruit Wave Shield
- 16×24 Matrix
- Electrochromic film</li>
- 16×2 RGB LCD
- Various buttons, etc.
The way it works is that you deposit coins and after a pre-defined time out it will “tally” the deposit. A receipt can be printed after the deposit is made by pressing the button. A switch activates the electrochromic film to “see into” the piggy bank where the money is. Of course there are various buttons to play kid-friendly songs (and I added a key-switch to disable the music if it gets over used )
Thanks for help from the forum members!
Featured Adafruit Product
Coin Acceptor – Programmable 4 Coin Type: Your project may be free-as-in-speech, but that doesn’t mean it has to be free-as-in-beer. This handy coin validator/acceptor module is just like the ones you’ve seen in arcades. This model has the cool ability to accept up to 4 different coins! For example, you can program it for 4 different US coins, or European, or Japanese OR you can have it accept 4 coins from different countries – say a Chinese Yuan, Japanese Yen, American Quarter and European Euro. First you’ll have to program it with what coins you want it to accept. Any coin from 15mm to 29mm in diameter can be used. Each coin is assigned a number of pulses, so for example, a nickel should be 1 pulse, a dime, 2 pulses, a quarter 5 pulses and a half dollar 10 pulses. When a valid coin is inserted, the output line will pulse for 20-60ms (configurable). The acceptor looks for diameter, thickness, dropping speed, etc to determine if a coin is valid. (read more)