JPH07134862A - Magnetic card reader - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To prevent illegal use by the forging of a magnetic card by providing a thickness detector for detecting the thickness of the magnetic card within a conveying range of a conveying mechanism to judge the card with abnormality in the thickness thereof accurately. CONSTITUTION:A roller 2 for detecting the thickness is so arranged that a rotating shaft 18 with the roller fixed thereon moves vertically when the roller moves vertically with the advancing of a magnetic card 9. The vertical movement of the rotating shaft 18 is read out with a linear scale of a thickness measuring device mounted on the side of a magnetic card reader. The results of measuring the thickness are fed to a authenticity judging device to judge authenticity and as a result, a necessary direction is sent to the magnetic card reader. Thus, any magnetic card with the speed changed at a track (medium) for magnetic recording of the magnetic card is judged accurately whenever abnormality is in the thickness thereof.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a magnetic card reader, and more particularly to a magnetic card reader capable of finding a counterfeit product.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Magnetic cards are used in a wide variety of fields such as prepaid cards, telephone cards and identification cards. Recording and reproduction of these magnetically recorded cards are performed by a card reader. A conventional magnetic card reader is fed to a predetermined position of a transport mechanism from a magnetic card insertion slot, and a magnetic head arranged in the middle thereof reads information from a magnetic recording track of the magnetic card to an arithmetic unit. It is configured to send. If the information sent to the magnetic head is accurate, it is accepted and processed as a normal card. There is no end to the cases in which a magnetic card has been altered and misused, and much effort and money has been spent to deal with it. When the recorded information is illegal or necessary information is missing, the magnetic card reader discriminates that the information has been altered or forged, and the abuse is suppressed. Also, due to the structure of the magnetic card itself, it is difficult to read information with a general device, and even if it is possible to read the information, it is not easily available with an expensive device to reproduce it correctly. There is. However, if the magnetic recording medium itself of the magnetic card is modified, a predetermined signal is recorded, and if it is processed by a reading device into a state in which the information can be read, it may be misused, and measures against it have been necessary. .

[0003]

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION The present invention is a magnetic card reader which solves the above-mentioned problems, and provides a magnetic card which is altered or forged with an abnormal thickness even when the information on the magnetic card can be properly read. The purpose is to provide a magnetic card reader having a distinguishing function.

[0004]

According to the present invention, in order to solve the above-mentioned problems, when a tape or sheet on which normal information is recorded is forged and forged, the magnetic recording track portion of the magnetic card has a slight thickness. Paying attention to the change, a mechanism that can detect the thickness of the magnetic recording track portion of the magnetic card at a predetermined position in the magnetic card reader is installed in the middle of the magnetic card transport mechanism, and At the same time, a magnetic card reader is provided which can read the thickness information of the magnetic card and determine the authenticity of the magnetic card. That is, the present invention relates to a magnetic card reading device in which at least a magnetic card transport mechanism and a magnetic head for recording / reproducing a magnetic card transported in the middle of the transport range are arranged within the transport range of the transport mechanism. A magnetic card reader having a structure in which a thickness detecting device for detecting the thickness of the magnetic card is provided.

[0005]

[Function] When the magnetic recording medium itself of the magnetic card is modified, it is very difficult to adjust the thickness to the card thickness over the entire track length. Therefore, many counterfeit products can be detected by accurately detecting the thickness of the track portion. Can be identified. Further, there are many methods such as mechanical type, optical type and electronic type as the thickness detecting mechanism, and it is possible to provide a magnetic card reader capable of achieving the objective at a low cost because the mechanism can be selected according to the requirements.

[0006]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1 is a perspective view showing a magnetic card reader according to a first embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a plan view showing a magnetic card used in the embodiment, and FIG. 3 is a first embodiment of the present invention. 3A is a side sectional view for explaining the principle of the method for detecting the thickness of the card in FIG. 3, and FIG.
Is the case of a counterfeit product. FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a magnetic card reader according to a second embodiment of the present invention, and FIG. 5 is a second view of the present invention.
5A and 5B are side sectional views for explaining the principle of the method for detecting the thickness of the card in the embodiment, FIG. 5A shows the case of a genuine product, and FIG. 5B shows the case of a counterfeit product.

Example 1. As shown in FIG. 1, the magnetic card reader 16 of the first embodiment of the present invention is an example using a mechanical thickness measuring method. As shown in FIG. 2, the structure of the magnetic card 9 used in this embodiment is made of plastic, and a magnetic recording track 7 is provided on the right side of the back surface 6 in the traveling direction. The structure is embedded in the card 9. Magnetic card reader 16 shown in FIG.
Has a card insertion slot 4 having a width substantially equal to the width of the magnetic card at one end, and guide grooves 14 for the magnetic card provided in the depth direction are provided on both inner sides thereof. A transport mechanism 13 for transporting the magnetic card is provided in the central depth direction, and the transport mechanism 13 is composed of a pair of a rubber belt and a pulley with the position of the guide groove 14 at the center.
The magnetic head 1 is arranged in the middle of the transport mechanism 13 so as to come into contact with the magnetic recording track of the transported magnetic card. Between the card insertion slot 4 and the magnetic head 1, a pair of rollers 2 for thickness detection are vertically arranged around the position of the guide groove 14. Roller 2 for thickness detection
Is attached to a rotary shaft 18 that is movably mounted in the vertical direction in the thickness measuring devices 3 on both sides of the magnetic card reading device 16, and is arranged so as to sandwich the track portion of the magnetic card from above and below. As shown in FIG. 3, the roller 2 for thickness detection
Is configured so that when the magnetic card 9 enters and moves up and down, the rotary shaft 18 to which the roller is fixed moves up and down. The vertical movement of the rotary shaft 18 is read by the linear scale of the thickness measuring device attached to the side of the magnetic card reader, and the thickness measurement result is sent to the authenticity determining device,
The structure is such that the authenticity is determined, and as a result, the necessary instruction is sent to the magnetic card reader. The length of the thickness detection region 8 shown in FIG. 2 is a, and the position and number of regions can be changed as necessary. Using the magnetic card reader 16 of this embodiment, the detection accuracy of the thickness detector is 100
When the thickness was set to 1 mm or less, two thickness detection areas 8 were set, and 50 regular cards and 50 modified cards were mixed and read, the modified cards could be separated.

Example 2. The magnetic card reader 17 of the second embodiment shown in FIG. 4 is an example in which a thickness measuring device 11 using laser light is used as an example of using an optical method for detecting the thickness of a magnetic card. As shown in the principle in FIG.
The lower surface of the magnetic card 9 whose upper surface is positioned by the holding plate 15 reflects the laser beam from below, and the distance from the reference surface (here, the lower surface of the holding plate 15) and the thickness of the magnetic card due to foreign matter are attached. This is a method of detecting the thickness of the magnetic card 9 based on the difference in the distance from the surface in the state of the change. Here, the pressing plate 15 may be a roller or the like as long as the position of the upper surface of the magnetic card 9 can be held at a fixed position during measurement. In this embodiment, a thickness measuring device 11 using a laser beam is arranged between the card insertion slot 4 of the magnetic card reading device 17 and the magnetic head 1 so that the laser beam hits the magnetic recording track portion of the magnetic card. ing. Similar to the first embodiment, using the magnetic card reader 17 of the present embodiment,
When the modified card and the regular card were mixed and read, the modified card could be separated.

[0009]

As described above with reference to the embodiments,
According to the present invention, a magnetic card in which a magnetic recording track (medium) portion of a magnetic card is modified can be surely judged to have an abnormal card thickness, and it is possible to prevent misuse due to modification of the magnetic card. A device can be provided.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a magnetic card reader according to a first embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view showing a magnetic card used in the embodiment.

FIG. 3 is a side sectional view for explaining the principle of the method for detecting the thickness of a card according to the first embodiment of the present invention.
(A) is a genuine product, and FIG. 3 (b) is a counterfeit product.

FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a magnetic card reader according to a second embodiment of the present invention.

5 is a side sectional view for explaining the principle of the method for detecting the thickness of a card according to the second embodiment of the present invention, and FIG.
5A shows a case of a genuine product, and FIG. 5B shows a case of a counterfeit product.

[Explanation of symbols]

 DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1 Magnetic head 2 Roller 3 Thickness measuring device 4 Card insertion port 5 Authenticity judging device 6 Back surface 7 Magnetic recording track 8 Thickness detection area 9 Magnetic card 10 Foreign matter 11 Thickness measuring device 12 Arrow indicating laser beam path 13 Conveying mechanism 14 Guidance Groove 15 Holding plate 16 Magnetic card reading device 17 Magnetic card reading device 18 Rotation axis a Detecting part length b Track width c Roll distance d Roll distance

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A magnetic card reading device in which at least a magnetic card transport mechanism and a magnetic head for recording / reproducing a magnetic card transported in the middle of the transport range are arranged within the transport range of the transport mechanism. A magnetic card reading device having a structure in which a thickness detecting device for detecting the thickness of the magnetic card is provided.