As described in Patent Document 1, a tablet cassette has been structured as follows: a rotatably-driven rotor is disposed in a bottom of a cassette body; the outer peripheral surface of the rotor is formed with a plurality of guide grooves in an axial direction and a circumferential groove in a circumferential direction; the guide groove is communicated with a tablet outlet formed in the bottom of the cassette body; a partitioning member is attached to the outer surface of the cassette body so as to enter the circumferential groove of the rotor; and the lowermost tablet and another tablet placed thereon, which are introduced to the guide groove, are separated from each other by the partitioning member so that only the lowermost tablet is dispensed from the tablet outlet. Patent Document 2 further describes a similar partitioning member that is inserted in an insertion hole of a cassette body and is secured by a cover. The aforementioned tablet cassettes need to use the rotor that has a different guide groove depending on the size of the tablet, and also need to change the attachment position of the partitioning member.
Thus, various proposals have been made so as to dispense a plurality of types of tablets having different sizes using the same tablet cassette.
Patent Document 3 discloses a tablet cassette configured as follows: a rotor includes a core body and an outer cylindrical body releasably engaging the core body; the outer cylindrical body having a guide groove with different width and depth is replaceable depending on the size of the tablet to be dispensed; a partitioning member is configured to be movable up and down by tightening or loosening a bolt; and the position of the partitioning member is changed depending on the size of the tablet to be dispensed. However, the above-described structure requires two complicated tasks, i.e., a change of the outer cylinder bodies and replacement of the partitioning member. Patent Document 3 also discloses that a ring body is fitted between the outer surface of the rotor and the inner surface of the cassette body to reduce the cross-section of the guide groove, and that a groove-depth adjuster movable in a radial direction is provided on a bottom of the guide groove so as to adjust the depth of the guide groove. However, it is difficult to mount and fix the ring body, and moving and fixing the groove-depth adjuster for each guide groove are complicated and time-consuming. Since the outer cylindrical bodies and the ring bodies are changed according to the shape of the tablet, replacement parts therefor are required.
Patent Document 4 discloses the following structure: a plurality of insertion holes are provided in a cassette body, and a partitioning member is fitted and fixed to the insertion hole located at a height corresponding to the size of a tablet; alternatively, a plurality of insertion holes and positioning holes are provided, the partitioning member is inserted in the insertion hole located at a height corresponding to the size of a tablet, and a pin provided in the partitioning member is fitted into the positioning hole to fix the partitioning member. However, the above-described structure has a problem that it cannot adjust the entry amount of the partitioning member to a guide groove.
In Patent Documents 1 to 4, the lowermost tablet and another tablet placed thereon, which are introduced to the guide groove, are separated from each other by the partitioning member, and these tablets make a sliding contact with the partitioning member as the rotor rotates. This results in a problem that the tablets are easily damaged.