What is Pharmacy Pill Counter Machine?
This is a machine that provides tight control over pill inventory without investing on time, oversight or machine calibration.
It aids a quick and accurate prescription filling of pills.
By so doing, it eliminates the possibility of human errors thus allowing direct and immediate patient care.
The population of the world has grown a great deal, prompting the need for efficiency.
This machine enables the delivery of patient services in a more efficient, effective and accurate way without wasting economic resources.
Why do You Need Pharmacy Pill Counter Machine?
Manual counting of pills was the practice for many years until these machines came into play.
There are several benefits that the pill counter machine has come with, including:
· Cost-effectiveness
It is cheap since the machine does the counting that would have been done by several employees.
You only need one or a few operators.
· It is Error-proof
Human counting errors that occur during manual counting are eliminated.
With this machine, you don’t have to restart all over again after a pause.
It will proceed from where it had stopped once started again.
· Saves time
This machine is very efficient. It sorts, dispenses and counts at high speed thus saving time.
It also saves time by allowing the operator to perform other duties as it continues to count the pills.
· Accurate
The machine aids in the accurate counting of pills.
Its accuracy stands at 100% (except when it develops faults due to dust accumulation in the tray sensor window).
This helps in ensuring that patients in nursing homes and pharmacies get the right medication and dosage at the right time.
Components of Pharmacy Pill Counter Machine
There are five different components contained within the operation circuit of a pharmacy pill counter machine.
They include the keypad, micro-controller PIC16F877A, 16*2 LCD, DC motor and IR LED and IR sensor.
· Keypad
The keypad is a membrane with non-moving parts that has sixteen buttons which are in matrix form.
It has digital numbers from 0-9, A, B, C, D and characters * and #.
It is used to key in the number of pills required to be packaged in the system.
It has eight pins of data lines connected to eight pins of the controller.
From the keyboard, the controller reads the data and calculates the desired tablet quantity displayed on the liquid crystal display.
· Micro-controller
This component has a PIC pin assignment for control system PIC16F877A with five ports assigned A, B, C, D, and E.
It is part of the mid-range family of PIC microcontroller device.
When the microcontroller is pushed, DC drive motor starts the counting machine so that it can perform its function.
· LCD module
This is a screen where the counting numbers are displayed.
Here a PC 602-F is used to connect six micro-controller pins and two backlight pins for supplying power.
Through the D4-D7 pins of LCD, data is sent from the controller to the screen.
· Brushed DC motor and Vibration motor
These are electric motors designed to run from a direct power source.
Brushed DC motor was the initial driver for mechanical loads.
In this machine, it rotates the plastic circular plate carrying a tablet.
It is controlled by a relay driver circuit which is connected to the micro-controller.
The vibration motor facilitates the falling of tablets into the rotary plate.
The PIC controller controls this process. It works the same as a rotary motor.
· IR LED and IR sensor
These are sensors. IR LED generates rays that operate the sensors and also helps in the passing of pills in a keyway.
Inside this sensor, there is an infrared detector.
Through the reaction to infrared radiation, both thermal and photonic detectors capture the passing pills.
It then sends the data to the micro-controller for counting of numbers.
The IR sensor crosses the pills by sending digital data of 0, 1, 2, and 3 to micro-controller.
How the Pharmacy Pill Counter Machine Works
When you are ready to count pills using this machine, pour the tablets into the machine.
In the keypad digit numbers 0-9, key in the number of pills you want the machine to count.
The LCD will display a welcome screen and a quantity of pills to be packaged.
In the PIC controller, press the start button to drive the DC motor which is the vibrating and counting motor.
At the bottom of the machine, push the button * so that the pills can begin to move.
The IR sensor will then begin to sense the passing pills and send digital data to the micro-controller.
For example, when one tablet passes, it sends 0 data, then 1, 2, until counting is complet.