JPH02204887A - Optical reader - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To keep a constant distance between a reading area and a sensor by securing such a constitution where one of two guide plates energizes elastically a medium to the other guide plate in a bar code reading state and a positioning bar of a holding case touches and rubs the latter guide plate with elasticity in accordance with the shift of a sensor driver. CONSTITUTION:When a bar code is read, a medium 30 is elastically energized to a 2nd guide plate 12 and therefore positioned with a 1st guide plate defined as a reference level. At the same time, a positioning bar 24a functions to keep a prescribed distance between a bar code sensor 9 held by a holding case 24 of a sensor driver 10 and the plate 11. Thus a stable distance is secured between the reading area of the medium 30 and the sensor 9. Furthermore the medium 30 is never damaged nor soiled since no contact is secured between the medium 30 and the bar 24a.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Industrial Application Field] The present invention is characterized in that when a medium such as a business card on which a barcode is written is inserted, a built-in barcode sensor moves back and forth to read the barcode of this medium. The present invention relates to an optical reading device capable of reading data.

[Conventional technology]

In recent years, for example, in European Patent No. 70, a code such as a bar code is written on a medium on which characters are printed, and automatic dialing can be performed by reading this code.
The code reading device disclosed in Patent No. 697 and the like has attracted attention as office automation progresses.

As a medium for performing such an automatic dialing operation, for example, FIG. 1 of British Patent No. 2063010,
As shown in FIGS. 5 and 10, there are cards such as business cards that have a barcode displayed outside the text printing area that corresponds to the above printed text of the telephone number.
Using such a card, for example, JP-A-60-163
As disclosed in connection with FIGS. 3 and 4 of the No. 154 publication, automatic dialing can be performed by reading this barcode.

Also, the address printed on cards such as the above business cards.

By adding barcodes corresponding to other information, it is also possible to manage business cards, etc.

At present, barcode display systems for business cards are not standardized, but if this is unified and standardized, it is fully predicted that business cards displaying barcodes will become widespread. Along with this, the demand for code reading devices for reading barcodes on business cards is expected to increase dramatically.

A barcode reader, which is an example of this type of code reading device, has a built-in barcode sensor that combines a light emitting element, a light receiving element, a lens, an optical fiber, etc.
This barcode sensor (scanner) is generally guided by a screw shaft or a guide shaft, and the barcode is read by moving it back and forth in a direction that intersects (orthogonal to) the direction in which the business card is inserted.

Examples of structures for reading barcodes by reciprocating a scanner include those disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 13858/1983, British Patent No. 1324448, and the like.

On the other hand, a barcode is printed and displayed on a surface other than the surface on which characters are printed on a business card as a medium, along a direction perpendicular to the direction of insertion into a code reading device, and British Patent No. 2063
As disclosed in FIG. 5 of the specification of No. 010, the business card inserted into the code reader with the short side as the tip is inserted into the code reader using the driving force of the built-in stepping motor while preventing incorrect insertion in the vertical and horizontal directions. Take in and transport.

The imported business card is stopped at a predetermined position, and its barcode is read by a scanner. When a barcode spans multiple lines, the paper feed structure of a well-known facsimile machine moves to the first barcode position, stops, and
The scanner scans, and the same operation is repeated one after another, and the business card that has been read is ejected from the code reading device.

[Problem to be solved by the invention]

Incidentally, the lens of the barcode sensor has a shallow depth of focus, and in order to ensure good reading accuracy, it is necessary to stabilize the distance between the reading area of the business card as a medium and the barcode sensor. However, in the conventional optical reading device described above, a slight error in the mounting position of the screw shaft or guide shaft causes a variation in the height of the barcode sensor that is moved back and forth. It was not easy to stabilize the distance. Therefore, it is conceivable to read the barcode while bringing a part of the member that moves back and forth integrally with the barcode sensor into contact with the medium, but in that case, the surface of the medium on which the barcode is written may be scratched or smudged. Depending on the material, there are concerns that dust may be generated from the medium and adhere to the lens of the barcode sensor, or that the transfer of the medium may be hindered by frictional force.

Therefore, an object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned problems of the prior art, and to stabilize the distance between the reading area of the medium and the bar 3 and the -de sensor without interfering with the transfer of the medium or causing scratches or stains. The objective is to provide an optical reader that can be maintained.

[Means to solve the problem]

In order to achieve the above object, the present invention includes a sensor drive body that holds a barcode sensor and is driven by a screw shaft and reciprocates in the axial direction of the screw shaft, and a sensor drive body for rotationally driving the screw shaft. an optical reading device comprising a first driving means and a second driving means for transporting a medium inserted from the outside, and reads a barcode written on the medium with the barcode sensor; The driving body includes a holding case that holds the barcode sensor with a protruding positioning piece, and a biasing means that elastically biases the holding case at all times, and the positioning piece of the sensor driving body A space for transferring a medium is defined between a first guide plate that is in elastic contact with the second guide plate and a second guide plate that is disposed opposite to the guide plate so as to be able to approach and separate from the first guide plate. The present invention is characterized in that the medium is configured to elastically urge the medium toward the first guide plate.

[Effect]

When reading a barcode, the medium is elastically biased by the second guide plate, so it is positioned using the first guide plate as a reference surface, while the barcode sensor held in the holding case of the sensor driver is moved by the positioning member. Since the distance between the medium reading area and the barcode sensor is maintained at a predetermined distance from the first guide plate, the distance between the medium reading area and the barcode sensor can be stabilized, and since the medium and the positioning piece are not in contact with each other, the medium will not be scratched or damaged. There are no holes that cause dirt, and when a bar code is not being read, the medium can be transferred smoothly by separating the second guide plate from the first guide plate.

〔Example〕

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS An optical reading device according to an embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to FIGS. 1 to 5. Here, Fig. 1 is a plan view of the entire device with the top plate removed, Fig. 2 is an exploded perspective view showing the configuration of each part of the sensor drive body, and Fig. 3 shows the operation of the sensor drive body and the upper guide plate. FIG. 4 is a plan view of a main part showing a cam mechanism for raising and lowering the upper guide plate, and FIG. 5 is an explanatory view showing the operation of this cam mechanism.

As shown in FIG. 1, this optical reading device includes a stepping motor 4 that rotationally drives a drive roller 3 via a gear group 2 and a screw shaft 6 that rotationally drives a screw shaft 6 via a gear group 5. A sensor drive body 10 holds the DC motor 7, a guide shaft 8 extending parallel to the screw shaft 6, and a barcode sensor 9, and reciprocates in the vertical direction in FIG. 1 while being guided by the screw shaft 6 and the guide shaft 8. , a lower guide plate 11 with an opening 11a, an upper guide plate 12 disposed above the lower guide plate 11 and rotatably supported at one end, and an upper guide via gears 13 and 14. A cam 15 for raising and lowering the operation piece 12a of the plate 12, and a photointerrupter 16 for detection.
17, push button switches 18, 19, etc., are generally configured.

The driving roller 3 driven by the stepping motor 4 is for transporting the business card 30 inserted into the frame 1 from the business card insertion slot 20 in the left-right direction in FIG. ing.

That is, the business card 30 inserted from the business card insertion slot 20 is
The card is held between the drive roller 3 and the driven roller 21 and first transferred to the left in FIG. 1, and then intermittently transferred to the right in FIG. It is discharged from the mouth 20. By controlling the stepping motor 4, the business card 30, which is intermittently fed to the drive roller 3, is
It is designed to stop each time a plurality of lines of barcodes printed on the lower surface of the figure appear in the opening 11a.

The screw shaft 6 and the guide shaft 8 are installed in a direction perpendicular to the direction of transport of the inserted business card 30, and a single spiral groove 6a is carved on the outer peripheral surface of the screw shaft 6. .

A gear 13 is fixed to both ends of the screw shaft 6, and a gear 14 with a cam 15, which is always biased by a coil spring 22, is rotatably inserted into both ends of the guide shaft 8. When a sensor driver 10 (to be described later) pushes the gear 14 against the coil spring 22, the gears 13 and 14 mesh with each other.

The sensor driver 10 includes a base 23 that has teeth 23a that mesh with the helical groove 6a of the screw shaft 6 and is slidably inserted into the guide shaft 8, and a base 23 that holds the barcode sensor 9 and connects the guide shaft 8. It consists of a holding case 24 rotatably connected to the base 23 via a coil spring 25 interposed between the base 23 and the holding case 24. A positioning piece 24a is provided protruding from one side end of the portion. The coil spring 25 rotates around the guide shaft 8 on the base 23.
is constantly biased in the clockwise direction as shown in FIG. 6
a, and the positioning piece 24a is always in elastic contact with the vicinity of the opening 11a of the lower guide plate 11, which will be described later.

A space for transferring the business card 30 is defined between the temporary lower guide plate 11 and the upper guide plate 12.
The upper surface becomes the sliding surface of the business card 30 during transportation, and the light from the barcode sensor 9 is irradiated into the opening 11a of the lower guide plate 11 when reading the barcode. Further, since a coil spring 28 is interposed between the upper guide plate 12 and the top plate 27, which are rotatably supported on the shaft 26, the upper guide plate 12
is always urged downward, but since the L-shaped operating pieces 12a protruding from both ends of the upper guide plate 12 are in constant contact with the cams 15 located at both ends of the guide shaft 80, the cam 15, the upper guide plate 12 approaches and moves away from the lower guide plate 11. Further, the upper guide plate 12 is formed with a downwardly protruding pressing portion 12b at a position corresponding to the opening 11a, and when the upper guide plate 12 approaches the lower guide plate 11 during barcode reading, this pressing portion The portion 12b comes into elastic contact with the business card 30 above the opening 11a.

A photo interrupter 16 is a sensor that detects that a business card 30 is inserted from the outside, and a photo interrupter 17 is a sensor that detects that a business card 30 is inserted from the outside.
0 has reached the innermost part of the frame 1, and the push button switch 18 is turned on when the sensor driver 10 moves to the upper end in FIG. It is turned on when the driver 10 moves to the lower end in FIG.

Next, the operation of the optical reading device configured like a ridge will be explained.

When a business card 30 is inserted from the business card insertion slot 20, the photointerrupter 16 detects this and the stepping motor 4 is driven, and the business card 30 is inserted between the driving roller 3 and the driven roller 2.
1 toward the innermost part of the frame 1, and when it reaches the innermost part, the photointerrupter 17 detects this and the drive roller 3 is rotated in the reverse direction, and the barcode of the first line of the business card 30 is read. The stepping motor 4 stops at the moment it emerges into the opening 11a.

Then, the barcode is exposed in the opening 11a and the business card 3 is opened.
0 stops, the sensor driver 10 moves through the opening 11 while being guided by the screw shaft 6 and the guide shaft 8.
The barcode is read by the barcode sensor 9 as it moves along the longitudinal direction of a. At this time, the gear 14 that had been pushed into the sensor drive body 10 has separated from the gear 13 as shown in FIG.
5, the upper guide plate 12 is lowered by the spring force of the coil spring 28 to the position indicated by the two-dot chain line in FIG.
2b comes into elastic contact with the business card 30, and the business card 30 is positioned in the height direction using the lower guide plate 11 as a reference plane. Furthermore, when reading this barcode, as the sensor driver 10 moves, the positioning piece 24a of the holding case 24 slides while remaining in elastic contact with the opening 11a of the lower guide plate 11, so that the positioning piece 24a slides into the opening 11a. The distance between the reading area of the business card 30 and the lens of the barcode sensor 9 is always kept constant.

When the reading of one line of barcode is completed and the sensor driver 10 reaches one end in the longitudinal direction of the opening 11a, the gear 14 is pushed in and meshes with the gear 13, so that the driving force of the screw shaft 6 is transferred to the cam. 15, the fifth
As shown in the figure, the operating piece 12a is pushed up by the large diameter portion of the cam 15 and the pressing portion 12b of the upper guide plate 12 is raised, and the push button switch 18 or 19 is pushed into the sensor driver 10 and turned on. , DC motor 7
A stop signal is outputted to stop the rotation of the screw shaft 6, and the stepping motor 4 is instead driven again to cause the second line barcode of the business card 30 to appear in the opening 11a.

After this, the DC motor 7 is driven again and the screw shaft 6 starts rotating in the opposite direction, so the sensor drive body 10 starts moving toward the other end in the longitudinal direction of the opening 1.1 a. Since the cam 15 rotates while the meshing relationship of .14 is maintained, the operating piece 12a is in contact with the small diameter portion of the cam 15 when the gear 14 is separated from the gear 13.

Thereafter, by repeating the same operation, multiple lines of barcodes printed on the back side of the business card 30 can be sequentially read by the barcode sensor 9 held in the sensor driver 10.

In this way, in the above embodiment, the pressing part 12b of the upper guide plate 12 comes into elastic contact with the business card 30 when reading a barcode, and this business card 30 is positioned with the lower guide plate 11 as a reference plane, and the sensor is driven. As the body 10 moves, the positioning piece 24a of the holding case 24 slides near the opening 11a of the lower guide plate 11, so that the distance between the reading area of the business card 30 and the barcode sensor 9 is kept constant. Can be read with high accuracy. In addition, since the positioning piece 24a is not in contact with the business card 30, the spring force of the coil spring 25 applied to the positioning piece 24a can be set roughly, and the structure of the sensor driver 10 can be simplified, and the business card 30 can be easily set. There is no risk of damaging or staining the business card 30, and even if the paper quality of the business card 30 is weak against friction, there is no problem such as dust forming and adhering to the lens of the barcode sensor 9.

Further, in the above embodiment, when the sensor driver 10 is in the standby position (upper end or lower end in FIG. 1) and no barcode is being read, the gears 13, 14 and the cam 15 Since the upper guide plate 12 is pushed up in the direction away from the lower guide plate 11 through
It is possible to smoothly transfer between the two.

Furthermore, in the above embodiment, the sensor driver 10
The toothed portion 23a of the base 23 is brought into elastic contact with the spiral groove 6a of the screw shaft 6 by the spring force of the coil spring 25. Even if there is an error, the meshing relationship between the tooth portion 23a and the spiral groove 6a is ensured, and the driving force of the screw shaft 6 can be reliably transmitted to the sensor drive body 10. In other words, the sensor drive body 10 can be smoothly reciprocated without having to specify the distance between the axes of the screw shaft 6 and the guide shaft 8 with high precision. If the movement of the sensor drive body 10 is blocked, the screw shaft 6 can be allowed to rotate idly, so that overloading the DC motor 7 can be prevented.

Note that in the above embodiment, the tooth portion 23a of the base 23 of the sensor driver 10 is brought into elastic contact with the screw shaft 6;
The structure of the sensor drive body 10 may be changed as appropriate, such as by inserting the screw shaft 6 into the base 23 and screwing them together, or by moving the upper guide plate 2 closer to and away from the lower guide plate 11. The means are also not limited to the above cam mechanism.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As explained above, the present invention defines a space for transferring a medium between a pair of opposing guide plates, and when reading a barcode, one guide plate elastically biases the medium toward the other guide plate. At the same time, as the sensor driver moves, the positioning piece of the holding case slides while remaining in elastic contact with the latter guide plate, so the distance between the reading area of the medium and the barcode sensor held in the holding case is reduced. This has the remarkable effect of enabling highly reliable reading without causing scratches or stains on the medium.Also, when barcodes are not being read, the former temporary guide can be used as the latter guide. By separating the medium from the guide plate, the medium can be smoothly transferred.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

The drawings all relate to one embodiment of the present invention; Fig. 1 is a plan view of the entire device with the top plate removed, Fig. 2 is an exploded perspective view showing the configuration of each part of the sensor drive body, and Fig. 3 is a sensor drive. FIG. 4 is a plan view of a main part showing a cam mechanism for raising and lowering the upper guide plate; FIG.
The figure is an explanatory diagram showing the operation of this cam mechanism. 3... Drive roller, 4... Stepping motor, 6... Screw shaft, 7...
...DC motor 8 ... Guide shaft, 9
...Barcode sensor, lO...Sensor driver, 11...Lower guide plate, 11a...
...Opening, 12...Top guide plate, 12a...
...Operation piece, 12b... Pressing part, 13.1
4...Gear, 15...Cam, 23...
... Base, 24 ... Holding case, 24a.
...Positioning piece, 25...Coil spring (
(biasing means), 28... coil spring, 30...
...Business card (medium). Rod 3 diagram

Claims (1)

[Claims] a sensor drive body that holds a barcode sensor and is driven by a screw shaft and reciprocates in the axial direction of the screw shaft; a first drive means for rotationally driving the screw shaft; and a medium inserted from the outside. and a second driving means for transporting the medium, the optical reading device reads a barcode written on the medium with the barcode sensor, wherein the sensor drive body has a positioning piece protrudingly provided to read the barcode written on the medium. The barcode sensor is provided with a holding case that holds the barcode sensor, and a biasing means that elastically urges the holding case at all times, and a first guide plate with which the positioning piece of the sensor driver comes into elastic contact with the guide plate. A space for transporting the medium is defined between the second guide plate and a second guide plate arranged to face each other so as to be able to approach and separate from each other, and when reading a barcode, the second guide plate elastically moves the medium toward the first guide plate. An optical reading device characterized in that it is configured to be biased.