Automatic Coin Sorter Brings Order To Your Coin Jar

Few things hold as much promise as the old coin jar. Unfortunately, what’s generally promised is tedium, as one faces the prospect of manually sorting, counting, and rolling the accumulated change of cash transactions past. Unless, of course, you’ve got a fancy automatic coin sorter like this one.

True, many banks have automatic coin sorters, but you generally have to be a paying customer to use one. And there’s always Coinstar and similar kiosks, but they always find a way to extract a fee, one way or another. [Fraens] decided not to fall for either of those traps and roll his own machine, largely from 3D-printed parts. The basic mechanism is similar to that used in commercial coin counters, with an angled bowl rotating over an array of holes sized to fit various coins. Holes in the bottom of the feed bowl accept coins fed from a hopper and transport them up to the coin holes. The smallest coins fall out of the bowl first, followed by the bigger coins; each coin drops into a separate bin after passing through an optical sensor to count the number of each on an Arduino. Subtotals and a grand total of the haul are displayed on a small LCD screen. The video below shows the build and the sorter in operation.

[Fraens] built this sorter specifically for Euro coins, but it should be easy enough to modify the sorting slots for different currencies. It’s not the first coin sorter we’ve seen, of course, and while we applaud its design simplicity and efficient operation, it can’t hold a candle to the style of this decidedly less practical approach.

20 thoughts on “Automatic Coin Sorter Brings Order To Your Coin Jar

  1. “as one faces the prospect of manually sorting, counting, and rolling the accumulated change of cash transactions past.”

    Not really, unless you tolerate a “bank” that doesn’t have basic banking equipment… like a coin counter. Don’t put up with that bullshit.

    1. Yes, it is much better to put your money into a mega bank that that doesn’t give a rat’s rear end about you. And you don’t have to worry about such a bank becoming insolvent.

      1. It will never be worth less than the scrap value of the metal from which it’s made. That makes it more “inflation resistant” than paper currency or bit patterns, right?

  2. As a kid, I had one with an angled ramp that a coin rolled down. While rolling, the coins leaned onto an angled wall with holes cut out of the various sizes of coins, smallest ones at the start (top) of the ramp. The coins would fall into vertical shafts that were open at the front so you could see the stack, with indicator marks at convenient intervals denoting not the number of coins but the represented monetary value. I’ve always liked the simplicity and physicality of that design, and it was fun to throw coins in and hear / watch them roll down and fill their stacks.

  3. > True, many banks have automatic coin sorters, but you generally have to be a paying customer to use one.
    I don’t understand the issue with being a bank customer. Are there some parts of world where you don’t need to have a bank account to receive a salary?

      1. Interesting link, thanks. I’m not surprised with number in developing countries. But I know that in my country having a bank account for receiving a salary is a legal requirement, so I don’t understand who are those 8% without it. Even unemployed who are receivers of social welfare need it.

Leave a Reply to some dudeCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.