SHUFFLING MACHINE

Abstract

A shuffling machine includes a base, a card-shuffling compartment, a card-moving mechanism, a card-allocating mechanism, and a card-pushing mechanism. The base is covered with a casing. One side of the card-shuffling compartment has a card-discharging port and a card inlet, and another side has a box opening. A card box is accommodated in the box opening. The card box has a card space therein. The card-moving mechanism includes a lift platform. A guide roller unit is provided on the lift platform. The lift platform is located in the card-shuffling compartment and passes through the card space. The card-allocating mechanism includes a card-allocating box. The card-allocating box has a plurality of grid layers. The card-pushing mechanism includes a push block that is moved horizontally. The card-allocating box is moved up and down for the push block to correspond to one of the grid layers.

Claims

1. A shuffling machine, comprising a base, a card-shuffling compartment, a card-moving mechanism, a card-allocating mechanism, and a card-pushing mechanism; the base being covered with a casing; a card-discharging port and a card inlet being disposed on a first side of the card-shuffling compartment, a second side of the card-shuffling compartment, adjacent to the card-discharging port, having a box opening, the card-shuffling compartment and the box opening being exposed to the casing, the box opening being configured for accommodating a card box; a third side of the card-shuffling compartment, opposite to the box opening, having a vertical cutout groove; the card box having a card space therein, the card space communicating with the card-shuffling compartment; the card-moving mechanism being mounted on the base, the card-moving mechanism including a lift platform driven to move up and down by an external power source, a guide roller unit driven by the external power source being provided on the lift platform, the lift platform passing through the cutout groove and being located in the card-shuffling compartment, the lift platform further passing through the card space; the card-allocating mechanism being mounted on the base, the card-allocating mechanism including a card-allocating box driven to move up and down by the external power source, the card-allocating box having a plurality of vertically arranged grid layers, the card-allocating box being located adjacent to the card-discharging port and the card inlet; the card-pushing mechanism including a card-pushing slide rail, a card-pushing slider, an upright rack and a push block disposed on the upright rack, the card-pushing slide rail being horizontally mounted on the base, the card-pushing slider being slidably connected to the card-pushing slide rail, the upright rack being coupled to the card-pushing slider, the upright rack and the push block being arranged on one side of the card-allocating box, facing away from the card inlet, the push block corresponding in position to the card inlet, the card-allocating box being moved up and down for the push block to correspond to one of the grid layers, the card-pushing slider being driven by the external power source to slide horizontally toward the card inlet.

2. The shuffling machine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the card-moving mechanism includes a card-moving slide rail and a card-moving slider, the card-moving slide rail is vertically connected to the base, the card-moving slider is slidably connected to the card-moving slide rail, the lift platform passes through the cutout groove of the card-shuffling compartment and is connected to the card-moving slider, and the card-moving slider is driven to move up and down by the external power source.

3. The shuffling machine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the card-allocating mechanism includes a card-allocating slide rail and a card-allocating slider, the card-allocating slide rail is vertically connected to the base, the card-allocating slider is slidably connected to the card-allocating slide rail, the card-allocating box is connected to the card-allocating slider, and the card-allocating slider is driven to move up and down by the external power source.

4. The shuffling machine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the card-pushing mechanism further includes a drive belt, a motor having a driving wheel, and a driven wheel, the drive belt is wound around the driving wheel and the driven wheel, and the card-pushing slider is connected to the drive belt.

5. The shuffling machine as claimed in claim 1, wherein a card-discharging module is disposed on the first side of the card-shuffling compartment, the card-discharging module includes an upper roller driven to rotate by the external power source and a lower roller against the upper roller, the first side of the card-shuffling compartment further has a through hole, the upper roller and the lower roller are pivotally connected in a cover, the cover covers the through hole, the cover has the card-discharging port, and the card-discharging port corresponds in position to the through hole.

6. The shuffling machine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the second side of the card-shuffling compartment further has a slot, a press lever unit is pivotally connected to an outside of the card-shuffling compartment and is able to pass through the slot, and the press lever unit is pivoted to pass through the slot and press against the guide roller unit on the lift platform.

7. The shuffling machine as claimed in claim 1, wherein a photoelectric sensor is provided below the guide roller unit.

8. The shuffling machine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the card box further has a top opening and a bottom opening, and one side of the card box has a rear opening facing the cutout groove.

9. The shuffling machine as claimed in claim 1, wherein the push block 45 is connected to the upright rack to form an L shape.

Description

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

[0014] FIG. 1 is an exploded view of the present invention;

[0015] FIG. 2 is a perspective view of the present invention;

[0016] FIG. 3 is a side sectional view of the present invention, wherein the playing cards are placed in the card-shuffling compartment;

[0017] FIG. 4 is a schematic sectional view of the present invention, wherein the lift platform is moved up;

[0018] FIG. 5 is a front sectional view of the present invention, wherein the playing card is sent to the grid layer;

[0019] FIG. 6 is a schematic sectional view of the present invention, wherein the playing cards are allocated to the grid layers in a random manner;

[0020] FIG. 7 is a schematic sectional view of the present invention, wherein the press lever unit presses against the playing cards on the lift platform;

[0021] FIG. 8 is a front sectional view of the present invention, wherein the push block pushes the playing cards back to the lift platform; and

[0022] FIG. 9 is a schematic sectional view of the present invention, wherein the push block pushes the playing cards back to the lift platform in a random manner.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

[0023] Embodiments of the present invention will now be described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings.

[0024] Referring to FIG. 1 through FIG. 9, the present invention discloses a shuffling machine 10. The shuffling machine 10 comprises a base 11, a card-shuffling compartment 12, a card-collecting compartment 13, a card-moving mechanism 20, a card-allocating mechanism 30, and a card-pushing mechanism 40. The card shuffling compartment 12, the card-collecting compartment 13, the card-moving mechanism 20, the card-allocating mechanism 30 and the card-pushing mechanism 40 are disposed on the base 11. The base 11 is covered with a casing 14. The card-shuffling compartment 12 is a vertical space larger than the outer edge of a playing card 1. A card-discharging module 50 having a card-discharging port 51 and a card inlet 15 are disposed on one side of the card-shuffling compartment 12. An opposing side of the shuffling compartment 12 is adjacent to the card-collecting compartment 13. The card-collecting compartment 13 is a vertical space larger than the outer edge of a playing card 1. One side of the card-shuffling compartment 12, adjacent to the card-discharging module 50, has a slot 16 and a box opening 17. The card-shuffling compartment 12, the card-collecting compartment 13 and the box opening 17 are exposed to the casing 14. A press lever unit 18 is pivotally connected to the outside of the card-shuffling compartment 12 and is able to pass through the slot 16. The box opening 17 is configured for accommodating a card box 60. One side of the card-shuffling compartment 12, opposite to the box opening 17, has a vertical cutout groove 19. The card box 60 has a card space 61 with a top opening 62. The bottom of the card box 60 has a bottom opening 63. One side of the card box 60 has a rear opening 64 facing the cutout groove 19. The card space 61 communicates with the card-shuffling compartment 12. The card-moving mechanism 20 includes a card-moving slide rail 21, a card-moving slider 22 that is slidably connected to the card-moving slide rail 21 and driven to move up and down by an external power source, and a lift platform 23. The card-moving slide rail 21 is vertically connected to the base 11. A guide roller unit 24 driven by the external power source is provided on the lift platform 23. A photoelectric sensor 25 is provided below the guide roller unit 24. The lift platform 23 is located in the card-shuffling compartment 12. The card-moving slider 22 passes through the cutout groove 19 of the card-shuffling compartment 12 and is connected to the lift platform 23, so that the lift platform 23 can be freely, vertically moved in the card-shuffling compartment 12 and the card space 61 of the card box 60. The photoelectric sensor 25 detects the presence or absence of playing cards 1 on the guide roller unit 24. The card-allocating mechanism 30 includes a card-allocating slide rail 31, a card-allocating slider 32 that is slidably connected to the card-allocating slide rail 31 and driven to move up and down by the external power source, and a card-allocating box 33. The card-allocating slide rail 31 is vertically connected to the base 11. The card-allocating box 33 has a plurality of vertically arranged grid layers 34. The card-allocating box 33 is located adjacent to the card-discharging port 51 and the card inlet 15. The card-allocating slider 32 is connected to the card-allocating box 33, so that the card-allocating box 33 can be freely, vertically moved relative to the card-discharging port 51 and the card inlet 15. The card-pushing mechanism 40 includes a card-pushing slide rail 41, a card-pushing slider 42 that is slidably connected to the card-pushing slide rail 41 and is slidable horizontally, a drive belt 43 driven by the external power source, an upright rack 44, and a push block 45 disposed on the upright rack 44. The upright rack 44 and the push block 45 are arranged in an L shape. The card-pushing slide rail 41 is horizontally mounted on the base 11. The upright rack 44 is coupled to the card-pushing slider 42. The card-pushing slider 42 is connected to the drive belt 43, so that the drive belt 43 drives the card-pushing slider 42, the upright rack 44 and the push block 45 to move synchronously. The upright rack 44 and the push block 45 are arranged on one side of the card-allocating box 33, facing away from the card inlet 15. The push block 45 corresponds in position to the card inlet 15. When the card-allocating box 33 is moved up and down, the push block 45 corresponds to one of the grid layers 34. The card-pushing slider 42 is configured to slide toward the card inlet 15, so that the push block 45 can move back and forth to pass through the grid layer 34 and the card inlet 15. With the above structure, the card-allocating box 33 receives the playing cards 1 from the card-shuffling compartment 12 via the card-discharging port 51, and the playing cards 1 are allocated and stacked in the grid layers 34 in a random manner. The push block 45 pushes the stacks of playing cards 1 in the grid layers 34 one by one back to the lift platform 23 via the card inlet 15, thereby achieving a more even and fairer shuffle by destroying and rearranging the order of the playing cards one by one.

[0025] The assembly, function and details of the present invention are described below. Referring to FIG. 1 through 9, the present invention is electrically connected to a control device (not shown), and the control device may be a circuit board or a computer, but not limited thereto. When in use, the shuffling machine 10 is started to move the lift platform 23 down to the bottom of the card-shuffling compartment 12, and the card box 60 containing multiple decks of playing cards 1 is placed into the box opening 17. The lift platform 23 is located under the bottom of the card box 60 (as shown in FIG. 3). The card-shuffling compartment 12 has the cutout groove 19, and the card box 60 has the top opening 62, the bottom opening 63 and the rear opening 64. In this way, the card-moving slider 22 can drive the lift platform 23 move freely without hindrance. At this time, the card-allocating slider 32 of the card-allocating mechanism 30 is driven to a random position for one of the grid layers 34 of the card-allocating box 33 to correspond in position to the card-discharging port 51, and then the card-moving slider 22 of the card-moving mechanism 20 is driven to move the lift platform 23 up to touch the bottom of the playing cards 1. The lift platform 23 continues to move up (as shown in FIG. 4). Through the bottom opening 63 and the top opening 62, the lift platform 23 containing the playing cards 1 moves up to the position of the card-discharging port 51 of the card-discharging module 50 (as shown in FIG. 5). The card-discharging module 50 includes an upper roller 52 driven to rotate by the external power source and a lower roller 53 against the upper roller 52. The card-shuffling compartment 12 has a through hole 121 corresponding in position to the card-discharging port 51. The upper roller 52 and the lower roller 53 are pivotally connected in a cover 54. The cover 54 covers the through hole 121. The cover 54 has the card-discharging port 51. The guide roller unit 24 rotates to deliver one playing card 1 to pass through the through hole 121 and enter the gap between the upper roller 52 and the lower roller 53 for sending the playing card 1 from the card-discharging port 51 to the corresponding grid layer 34. Next, the card-allocating slider 32 of the card-allocating mechanism 30 is driven to a random position for one of the grid layers 34 of the card-allocating box 33 to correspond in position to the card-discharging port 51. Then, the guide roller unit 24 further sends one playing card 1 from the card-discharging port 51 to the corresponding grid layer 34. Repeating the above action that one of the grid layers 34 of the card-allocating box 33 is moved to correspond in position to the card-discharging port 51 in a random manner, the playing cards 1 are allocated evenly and randomly to the grid layers 34 of the card-allocating box 33 (as shown in FIG. 6) until the photoelectric sensor 25 detects that there is no playing card 1 on the lift platform 23 and sends a signal to the control device to stop the guide roller unit 24.

[0026] It is worth noting that in the process of discharging playing cards, the photoelectric sensor 25 detects the presence of playing cards 1 on the lift platform 23. When the lift platform 23 moves up to a set height and the number of playing cards 1 remained on the lift platform 23 is small, the press lever unit 18 is pivoted to pass through the slot 16 and press against the playing cards 1 on the lift platform 23 (as shown in FIG. 7), so as to increase the weight of the playing cards 1 for the guide roller unit 24 to discharge the playing cards smoothly.

[0027] Regarding the setting that the grid layers 34 are moved in a random manner, the example is as follows: Assuming that the card-allocating box 33 has sixteen grid layers 34 which are numbered 1 to 16 from top to bottom, during the shuffling action of the shuffling machine 10, the order of the random number setting for discharging the playing cards 1 to the grid layers 34 may be numbered 1.fwdarw.2.fwdarw.3.fwdarw.16.fwdarw.15.fwdarw.14.fwdarw.4.fwdarw.5.fwdarw.6.fwdarw.13.fwdarw.12.fwdarw.11.fwdarw.7.fwdarw.8.fwdarw.10.fwdarw.9 or numbered 8.fwdarw.11.fwdarw.1.fwdarw.6.fwdarw.15.fwdarw.4.fwdarw.9.fwdarw.2.fwdarw.7.fwdarw.13.fwdarw.3.fwdarw.14.fwdarw.5.fwdarw.12.fwdarw.16.fwdarw.10. There are at least 20 random number positional orders, and the last one is a natural random number that is not ordered.

[0028] When the playing cards 1 in the card box 60 are randomly allocated in piles in the grid layers 34 of the card-allocating box 33, the lift platform 23 moves down to the position of the card inlet 15. The card-allocating slider 32 of the card-allocating mechanism 30 is driven to move one of the grid layers 34 of the card-allocating box 33 to correspond in position to the card inlet 15. Then, the card-pushing slider 42 of the card-pushing mechanism 40 is driven to move the push block 45 to enter one of the grid layers 34. The push block 45 pushes the stacks of playing cards 1 in the grid layers 34 one by one back to the lift platform 23 via the card inlet 15, as shown in FIG. 8. A motor 46 having a driving wheel 47 and a driven wheel 48 are provided on the base 11. The drive belt 43 is wound around the driving wheel 47 and the driven wheel 48. Through the forward and reverse rotation of the motor 46, the card-pushing slider 42 is driven to slide horizontally on the card-pushing slide rail 41, and the upright rack 44 and the push block 45 are moved synchronously to push the playing cards 1 in the grid layers 34. The above action is repeated to push the stacks of playing cards 1 back to the lift platform 23. The lift platform 23 will gradually move down according to the current height, so that the playing cards 1 can be pushed back normally until there is no playing card in the card-allocating box 33.

[0029] It is worth mentioning that when the push block 45 pushes the playing cards 1 in the card-allocating box 33 back to the lift platform 23, the card-allocating box 33 is displaced for one of the grid layers 34 to correspond in position to the push block 45 in a top-to-bottom, bottom-to-top, or a random manner. When the card-allocating box 33 is displaced for one of the grid layers 34 to correspond in position to the push block 45 in a random manner, the shuffling action (as shown in FIG. 9) can double disrupt the order of the playing cards and increase the randomness of the playing cards, thereby achieving more even and fairer shuffling of the playing cards.

[0030] When all the playing cards 1 are returned to the card box 60, the shuffling machine 10 of the present invention can be used in cooperation with a robot arm or other mechanism to deal playing cards. The lift platform 23 lifts the playing cards 1 to the top of the card-shuffling compartment 12 for the robot arm or other mechanism to suck/draw the playing cards. Then, the used playing cards 1 are returned to the card-collecting compartment 3. Finally, the unused playing cards 1 in the card-shuffling compartment 12 are mixed with the playing cards 1 in the card-collecting compartment 13 and shuffled again. The structure for the card-collecting compartment 13 to deliver the playing cards 1 to the card-shuffling compartment 12 is not the subject matter of the present application and will not be described herein. If the shuffling machine 10 provided by the present invention is used independently, the shuffled playing cards 1 can be taken out of the card box 60 to deal the playing cards in a different manner.

[0031] Although particular embodiments of the present invention have been described in detail for purposes of illustration, various modifications and enhancements may be made without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention. Accordingly, the present invention is not to be limited except as by the appended claims.