National Business Systems, Inc.

Card Technology Corporation

Datacard Corporation

The Singer Company

Richard J LaManna

Edward L Cucksey

James L Hinton

Leo Kull

Igor Pankiw

Keith R Ashley

Michael D Polad

Jacob H Drillick

Philip M Roth

Edward W Hague

Keith Ashley

Phillip Roth

The present invention is a card transport mechanism for transporting cards (114) along a transport path (108) and method of operation thereof. A card transport mechanism (180) in accordance with the invention includes a pair of spaced apart channels (186, 188), each channel engaging a different one of a pair of opposed edges of the cards; a carriage (196) for holding the cards at a fixed position relative to the carriage during motion along the transport path, the carriage having first (198) and second (120) card contacting elements spaced apart at different positions along the transport path and projecting into the transport path for contacting and holding a card in the fixed position during motion along the transport path, the first card contacting element being compliant to move orthogonally from within the transport path to permit movement of the card along the channels while the carriage is stationary prior to contact of the card by the second card contacting element and the second card contacting element being compliant along the transport path in response to contact with the card to produce contact and holding of the opposed edges of the card with the first and second card contacting elements in the fixed position; and a carriage support (120), connected to the carriage, for guiding the carriage along the transport path.

Card transport mechanism and method of operation

The present invention is a card transport mechanism for transporting cards (114) along a transport path (108) and method of operation thereof. A card transport mechanism (180) in accordance with the invention includes a pair of spaced apart channels (186, 188), each channel engaging a different one of a pair of opposed edges of the cards; a carriage (196) for holding the cards at a fixed position relative to the carriage during motion along the transport path, the carriage having first (198) and second (120) card contacting elements spaced apart at different positions along the transport path and projecting into the transport path for contacting and holding a card in the fixed position during motion along the transport path, the first card contacting element being compliant to move orthogonally from within the transport path to permit movement of the card along the channels while the carriage is stationary prior to contact of the card by the second card contacting element and the second card contacting element being compliant along the transport path in response to contact with the card to produce contact and holding of the opposed edges of the card with the first and second card contacting elements in the fixed position; and a carriage support (120), connected the carriage, for guiding the carriage along the transport path.

The present invention is a card transport mechanism for transporting cards along a transport path and method of operation thereof. A card transport mechanism in accordance with the invention includes a pair of spaced apart channels, each channel engaging a different one of a pair of opposed edges of the cards; a carriage for holding the cards at a fixed position relative to the carriage during motion along the transport path, the carriage having first and second card contacting elements spaced apart at different positions along the transport path and projecting into the transport path for contacting and holding a card in the fixed position during motion along the transport path, the first card contacting element being compliant to move orthogonally from within the transport path to permit movement of the card along the channels while the carriage is stationary prior to contact of the card by the second card contacting element and the second card contacting element being compliant along the transport path in response to contact with the card to produce contact and holding of the opposed edges of the card with the first and second card contacting elements in the fixed position; anda carriage support, connected to the carriage, for guiding the carriage along the transport path.

An embossing machine and method is provided in which the mass of the carriage assembly carrying the card to and from various operations in the machine is significantly reduced by the utilization of a card carrying carriage mounted for movement in one direction from side to side on the machine via a stationary motor. The carriage is mounted on a guide bar which, together with the carriage, moves from the front to the back of the machine via a stationary motor. A new card supply hopper is arranged to stack cards vertically and feed them to the carriage one-by-one as the carriage approaches the hopper. An embossing assembly is operated by a single interposer arranged in a crank drive or two interposers arranged between actuating levers and the rams of associated male and female embossing wheels. A topper assembly minimizes foil usage by winding up only that foil which has been used during the topping of the previous card. The embossed and topped card is fed to a stacking assembly either through an arrangement of wires which causes the card to waterfall into a stacker channel or to slide into contact with a pivoting loader which pivots the card into a stacker channel.

Card embossing machine and method

A method of adjusting alignment of a magnetic head to be within an alignment specification in accordance with the invention includes recording on magnetic material of a test card a digital code having a greater number of bits per unit length than the set number of bits used for conventional magnetic recording of credit cards. The test card produces an electrical playback signal which varies in magnitude with head alignment at a second rate greater than a first rate produced during conventional recording. The test card is read repeatedly and alignment of the head is adjusted until a maximum electrical playback signal is produced indicating that the head is set within the alignment specification.

Method of adjusting head skew of magnetic recording heads

A system for embossing a plurality of lines and recording encoded tracks of digitally encoded characters for credit cards is disclosed. The system has an improved recording station for recording digitally encoded characters, indent embossing unit, card transporting unit, process for verifying the accuracy of recording the tracks; and stacker.

Credit card transporting embossing and recording system

A system and method for embossing a plurality of lines and recording encoded tracks of digitally encoded characters for credit cards is disclosed. The system provides an improved recording station for sequentially recording the characters and verifying that the characters were recorded without error. The improved method verifies the accuracy of the encoded data by a comparison of recorded data with data which was the source of the recorded data.

Credit card embossing and recording system

An embossing system is disclosed for embossing cards with characters of at least two pitches. A number of embossers equal to the number of lines of characters to be embossed on the card are positioned in line. Each embosser is dedicated to the embossing of a particular line of characters with a particular pitch. A common transport belt conveys the cards from an input hopper past the embossing stations of each of the in line embossers to a wait station. During embossing, the transport belt is moved from the current longitudinal position to the longitudinal position where the closest next character(s) are to be embossed by any one of the embossers. The embossed cards are conveyed from the wait station to a topper which applies topping to the embossed characters.

Credit card embossing system

An embossing system is disclosed for embossing cards with characters of at least two pitches. A number of embossers equal to the number of lines of characters to be embossed on the card are positioned in line. Each embosser is dedicated to the embossing of a particular line of characters with a particular pitch. A common transport belt conveys the cards from an input hopper past the embossing stations of each of the line embossers to a wait station. During embossing, the transport belt is moved from the current longitudinal position to the longitudinal position where the closest next character(s) are to be embossed by any one of the embossers. The embossed cards are conveyed from the wait station to a topper which applies topping to the embossed characters.

Automatic card embossing apparatus includes a rotatable embossing wheel carrying about its periphery punch and die pairs for all characters available for embossing. Each character position of the wheel defines an address and the wheel is controlled for rotation to a desired address for embossing the character there-located. Data identifying all embossable characters is processed to derive three control numbers for each character, the first control number identifying the corresponding wheel address for the corresponding punch and die pair, the second number identifying the horizontal position on the card where the character is to be embossed, and the third control number identifying the line number on the card. The data is sorted into ascending order of wheel addresses. In operation, a card is transported to a reference position relative to the embossing wheel and the embossing wheel is rotated to the address of the first control number. The distance to move the card based on the second and third control numbers is computed, and the card is transported to each successive position for that first character to be embossed. The embossing wheel then is rotated to the next address in accordance with the next first control number and the embossing and card transport functions are performed. Following embossing, the card is returned to its reference position, then to an output stacker where it is deflected into 'accept' or 'reject' portions as a function of error checks performed during data processing and embossing.

Growing community of inventors

Whippany, NJ, United States of America

Richard J LaManna