Automatic vending machine

Claim 1

A vending machine for vending plural kinds of commodities, with each commodity being formed from at least three component materials, comprising: (1) input means for selectively inputing control data representative of a kind of commodity, a desired quantity of the commodity to be vended and desired ratios for said at least three component materials forms the commodity to be vended; (2) a memory storing numerical data; (3) a microcomputer, including a control program, for: (a) selecting numerical data from said memory according to said input data, and (b) computing output feed time duration control signals, representative of corresponding feed times that each component material should be supplied at a respective constant feed rate to form a desired commodity, using said input data and said selected numerical data, and wherein the feed time duration control signal for the third component material is obtained by substracting signals representing first and second short time intervals from the sum of signals representing the feed time durations for the first and second component materials, said first and second short time intervals being relatively short compared to the time durations represented by the at least three time duration control signals; (4) component supply means for supplying each of the three component materials at a substantially constant feed rate into a commodity container; and (5) control means, responsive to said output feed time duration control signals, for controlling the component supply means to cause said third component material to be dispensed during a period starting said first short time interval after the start of dispensing of said first component material and ending said second short time interval before the end of the dispensing of said second component material.