Paylink System
Support & Downloads
Technical Details
Purchase
Full Download Page
UPOS Support
Paylink Lite V2
Cashless Control
Pescara Converter

 

 
 
> Products: Paylink System > Milan Interface Technical Details
   

The Milan Interface unit, the interconnection part of the Paylink system, is a simple, compact unit that offers trouble free interfacing between your computer and money handling equipment. The Paylink System in conjunction with a Milan Interface board has been developed as a cost effective, high performance solution, ideally suited to the AWP, Amusement Games, Leisure and Kiosk industries.

For full details of everything that is covered, you can check out the Paylink System Description Manual from here.

The Milan Interface board is used as a part of a Paylink System and together they provide the following:

  • Device Independent Application Programming Interface. (Current manual available from here.)
  • Full Software Development SDK.
  • Standard USB 1.1 Connection
  • Hardware compatible with any operating system.
  • Easy Upgrade capability.
  • Money Handling Device support
    • Most current Bill Recyclers - including the Crane PI BNR and SCR (including the MDR variant), the B2B300 B2B100 and B2B60, the JCM Vega and iPro (or UBA) Recycler, the Innovative NV200 / SmartPayout and any MDB recycler (eg the VN2700 series).
    • Extended Escrow support for the Crane bill recyclers where multiple bills are validated and escrowed, and can still be returned to the user.
    • cctalk Coin hoppers - including encrypted Serial Universal and Serial Compact from Crane PS and Azkoyen and the Innovative SmartHopper as well as unencrypted units (such as the Asahi Seiko escalator)
    • Crane PI USB connected coin recyclers and dispensers, including the CR106, BCR, CLS and CX25.
    • cctalk coin acceptors (including NRI Eagle, MCL SR3, SR5, SR5i and MEI Cashflow series, e.g. CF952Xe)
    • encrypted and unencrypted cctalk note acceptors (including MCL Ardac Elite, Lumina, MC7200 and Innovative NV4, NV7, NV8, NV9, NV10)
    • ID003 note acceptors (including JCM iPro, WBA & UBA series)
    • MDB Coin Changers (including CoinCo Vortex & Global and MEI Cashflow 690)
    • MDB Bill Acceptors and Recyclers (including CoinCo Billpro)
    • The Fujitsu F56 / F53 Bill dispensers.
    • Full, machine independent, escrow note handling facilities
  • Auxiliary Device support
    • Up to 8 high power lamps
    • Up to 8 LEDs
    • Up to 16 Industry-standard switches
  • Serial Electronic Meter
  • 2.5A Polyfuses for 24v and 12v peripherals

Milan / Paylink Interface Power Supplies

Power Connector
Voltage 12V
Current 40ma for Milan / Paylink, Up to 2.5A for cctalk peripherals
 
 

Acceptor peripherals from cctalk connector

Voltage 12V
Current 2.5A Total continuous
 

Payout peripherals e.g. Coin Hopper (through Polyfuse on cctalk connector

Voltage 24V
Current 2.5A Continuous

Milan / Paylink Interface Environmental Ranges

Temperature Min Max
Operating C range 0 55
Storage C range -20 +70
 

Humidity: RH non-condensing

Up to 75%

Facilities, in Detail:

Device independent Application Program Interface:
The Paylink Money handling System comes complete with an API that makes the life of programmers easy, with a rich set of functions designed to provide the functionality they want, without getting involved in the detail of communicating with the peripherals.

After the Milan Interface is plugged into a USB slot, the Firmware on the Milan Interface communicates with a driver program supplied as a part of the Paylink System. Your application, running on the computer, communicates with this driver simply by making API calls. (At a low detail level, this is done by reading and writing into shared memory.)

There is no requirement for you to write worker threads on the PC to handle any serial protocol timing requirements, the driver and Milan Interface unit are continually running autonomously.

All facilities, such as coin routing, coin / note inhibits, etc., have a device independent interface implemented. This means that an acceptor can be substituted with a model with a completely different method of handling this, and no changes whatsoever is required in the application.

Full Software Development SDK:
The Paylink System provides a DLL (or Shared Object) which supports the Application Program interface (API) that communicates with the Milan Interface board and hence your system's external peripherals. As well as the device driver, the download includes all the resources needed by a programmer in order to use this API, including a number of sample programs to make clear its operation and to allow the functioning of a system to be proven before the application development is started.

Standard USB 1.1 interface:
The Milan Interface unit plugs into a USB Version 1.1 or 2.0 connector on your computer, As none of the conventional computer ports are used to communicate with the money handling peripherals, the full facilities of the computer are still available to the system designer.

The Milan Interface unit internals are completely powered from the USB connection, external power is only needed for distribution to peripherals.

Hardware compatible with any operating system:
The Milan Interface uses the industry standard USB interface and, as a consequence, any computer or operating system can be easily supported. At present drivers are available for the “Windows” family of operating systems released after (and including) Windows XP. (This includes Microsoft® Windows® XP / XP Embedded  / 7 / 8 / 10) and for the Linux operating system for kernel versions 2.6 and later.

Easy Upgrade Capability:
The Paylink System handles all the details of communicating with money handling equipment. As new units are developed and existing units enhanced, the Milan Interface unit firmware is easily field upgradeable, (via an easy to use USB based update facility) while the interface for the programmer remains the same.

Money Handling Device support
The Mila Interface unit was specifically designed from the outset to offer a single interface to money handling equipment though many different protocols and connections.

USB Connected Bill and Coin Recyclers from Crane PI
The Paylink System Driver interfaces with such devices as the BNR, CX25, CLS, CR106 and BCR over a USB connection.
All the necessary facilities of the units are presented to the application to allow for their efficient usage, including the ability of the note recyclers to retain a number of input bills before either stacking them internally or returning them to the user.

MDB based Credit / Debit card acceptance devices
The MDB protocol provides for the connection of a cashless device. Typically these allow users to pay with Credit or Debit cards. Units that allow for this are available from Nayax, OTI and CPI. The Paylink System provides a full API to allow programmers to use these without any further software.
The MDB protocol allows the devices to work in one of two modes, generally referred to as Level 2 and Level 3. Paylink supports both methods through the same API, making easy for the system designer to change mode at any point.

cctalk DES Encrypted Bill Recyclers (including NV11, NV200 / SmartPayout, JCM VEGA)
The cctalk communications is a fully BACTA compliant implementation. The Milan Interface unit fully supports the DES encryption scheme used to securely communicate with these hoppers. This means that users do not need to become involved in the details of the encryption scheme.

cctalk Encrypted Coin hoppers (including Serial Universal, Serial Compact and Azkoyen)
The cctalk communications is a fully BACTA compliant implementation. The Milan Interface unit fully supports the cctalk encryption scheme needed to communicate with these hoppers. This means that users do not need to become involved in the details of the encryption scheme.

cctalk unencrypted Coin hoppers (including Asahi Seiko escalator)
The cctalk communications is a fully BACTA compliant implementation. The Milan Interface unit fully supports the older cctalk message scheme needed to communicate with these hoppers, and the user can remain unaware of which protocol is being used.

Multiple Hopper support From one to eight hoppers are supported, though to prevent excessive current drain, only one hopper motor is usually operated at a time, unless the programmer choses to override this limit.

The default coin value for each hopper is determined either by an association hopper’s cctalk address and a value in the system configuration, or by the value stored in the hopper's EPROM (according to CPI's latest standard). The pay out interface is device independent; in a multi-hopper system, the Paylink System automatically works down from the highest denomination to the lowest, paying out as many coins as possible at each stage. Control over this process is provided by individual hopper inhibits.


cctalk coin acceptors (including SR3, SR5, SR5i)
The cctalk communications is a fully BACTA compliant implementation.
At present, only one coin acceptor, at address 2, is supported.

A common, device independent system of routing is provided; which supports the diversion of given incoming coins to hoppers, automatically redirected to a cash-box when the hopper is full. Both the “path disable” technique used by the SR5, and the path redirect technique needed by the SR3 are implemented.

Both individual coins and the entire unit can be easily inhibited.

The automatic retrieval from the unit of the value of each coin is supported.

cctalk Encrypted note acceptors (including Lumina, MC7200, NV4, NV7, NV8, NV9, NV10, NV200)
The cctalk communications is a fully BACTA compliant implementation.

The Milan / Paylink Interface fully supports the cctalk encryption scheme needed to communicate with most bill validators as well as supporting the unencrypted protocol used by acceptors such as the AstroSystems GBA. This is all completely transparent to the application software, users do not need to become involved in the details of the encryption scheme.

Barcoded tickets reported by the standard cctalk messages are recognised and reported via standard API facilities.

Both individual notes and the entire unit can be easily inhibited.

The automatic retrieval from the unit of the value of each note is supported.

ID003 note acceptors (including and JCM iPro, WBA & UBA series)
A full implementation of the ID003 protocol is provided on either of the two RS232 communications channels, providing support for any acceptor running ID003. This protocol is compliant with the interface specification, from JCM.

Barcoded tickets are recognised and reported via standard API facilities.

Both individual notes and the entire unit can be easily inhibited.

The automatic retrieval from the unit of the value of each note is supported together with the nationality of the coin set. Where the acceptor rejects the command, a default set of 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 is used.

Auxiliary Device support

Up to eight LEDs / low power lamps
These are open drain outputs which will sink up to 30mA, at a maximum of 12V (resistive only).
Each drive pin is next to a 12v 30ma supply pin for easy connectivity.

Up to eight High power lamps or relays
These are open drain outputs which will sink up to 300mA, at a maximum of 36V (either Inductive or resistive).
Each drive pin is next to a 12v 30ma supply pin for easy connectivity where high power is not required.

Up to 16 Industry-standard switches
These are 3V3 CMOS thresholds with 3V3 pull-ups available that will each provide 5mA.
These are easily accessible by the user’s application and provision is made to use the switches in two modes:
Key Press Where a button may be pressed several times and it is important to know how many times (e.g. an game button) and
State Where the switch changes over a long time frame and all the application needs to know is where the switch is at any instant (e.g. a door switch).

Serial Electronic Meter
The Milan Interface unit supports one external meter, with a Motorola SPI Mode 2 interface, corresponding to that defined by Rev 3.4 of the Starpoint Document.

The Paylink System fully supports all 31 of the Starpoint’s counters and provision is made to allow the user’s application to easily support the BACTA standard for displaying counter values, as well as to implement any other scheme.

Due to the potentially critical nature of such a meter, the Milan Interface unit continually checks that the meter is operational.

Barcode printer
The API provides a simple method of specifying the data to be printed to an 18 digit barcoded ticket. At present the only unit supported by the Paylink System is the Futurelogic GEN5 ticket printer.


Power:
The Milan Interface unit internals are powered from the USB connection. The unit can distribute 12 power though a 2 pin JST power connector which is present on the unit, from which 12-volt output to the cctalk / meter peripherals is taken via a self-recovering fuse, to protect the output against short circuits.

The Milan Interface takes an auxiliary 24-volt power from an external power supply through the cctalk connector to drive heavy-duty peripherals such as a hopper. This 24-volt output to the peripherals is taken via a self-recovering fuse, to protect the output against short circuits.

Milan / Paylink Interface
Milan / Paylink Interface
Product Code: MIMHEI
Download Brochure
   
     
© 2012 Aardvark Embedded Solutions Limited                info@aardvark.eu.com
Registered in England and Wales Number 4335111