JPH107278A - Card feeder - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide automatic feed for a plurality of cards whose thickness is different from each other by detecting the thickness of the card discharged from a card hopper with a thickness sensor, rotating a clearance adjusting part according to data from the thickness sensor, and automatically-adjusting a clearance between a clearance adjusting part and a conveyance passage. SOLUTION: By rotating a discharge roller 3a, the lowest card in a card hopper 2 is discharged to be traveled on a conveyance passage 16. A thickness sensor 4 detects the thickness of the passing card, and transmits a required amount of pulse signals to a clearance adjusting motor 11 based on the detected signal through a clearance adjustment control circuit in a clearance adjustment part control board 10. The pulse signals permits the clearance adjusting motor 11 to rotate by a designated angle in the prescribed direction, and the rotation is transmitted to a clearance adjusting part 5 through a pulley and a timing belt. The clearance adjusting part 5 rotates by an angle corresponding to the rotational angle of the clearance adjusting motor 11 to make the prescribed radius part of a surface which faces the conveyance passage 16 face the surface of the conveyance passage and set a clearance between the clearance adjusting part 5 and the conveyance passage 16 at a prescribed value.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a card supply device used for a card issuing machine or the like for supplying cards, and more particularly to a card supply device for supplying a plurality of types of cards having different thicknesses.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A conventional card supply device used for a card issuing machine or the like for supplying a card is disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2-21.
As disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 5622, a partition plate is provided near a card outlet of a card set for filling a card to be supplied, and the mounting position of the partition plate is adjusted according to the thickness of the card. To eject a card having a predetermined thickness.

[0003]

In the conventional card feeding apparatus as described above, in order to supply a plurality of types of cards having different thicknesses, the mounting position of the partition plate is adjusted so as to match each thickness. Since it is necessary to prepare a plurality of adjusted card sets and mount a card set according to the thickness of the card to be supplied to the card supply device, storage and management of the card set is troublesome and costly, In addition, there is a disadvantage that the operation is troublesome because the replacement work of the card set is required, and an operation error is likely to occur.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION An object of the present invention is to solve the above-mentioned drawbacks of the conventional card supply device, to make it easy to operate without causing an operation error, and to store, manage and exchange card sets. An object of the present invention is to provide a card supply device that can reduce costs because of not using the card supply device.

[0005]

According to the present invention, there is provided a card supply apparatus comprising: a card hopper for stacking and holding a plurality of cards; and a lowermost card among the plurality of cards stacked on the card hopper. A discharge roller for discharging the card,
A transport path for guiding the travel of the card discharged by the discharge roller, a thickness sensor for detecting the thickness of the card discharged by the discharge roller, and a portion facing the transport path by rotating. A gap adjusting portion having a conveying path facing surface having a variable radius, wherein the gap adjusting section is rotated in accordance with information from the thickness sensor to adjust a gap with the conveying path. In particular, there is provided a gap adjusting portion having a transport path facing surface in which the radius of the portion facing the transport path changes continuously or changes stepwise.

[0006]

Next, embodiments of the present invention will be described with reference to the drawings.

FIG. 1 is a left side view showing an embodiment of the present invention, FIG. 2 is a plan view of the embodiment of FIG. 1, FIG. 3 is a right side view of the embodiment of FIG. 1, and FIG. FIG. 5 is a right side view showing an operation of the embodiment, and FIG. 5 is a right side view showing an operation state of the gap adjusting unit of the embodiment of FIG.

In FIGS. 1, 2 and 3, a card hopper 2 held by a frame 1 holds a plurality of cards to be supplied. The discharge roller 3a is
It comes into contact with the lowest card among the cards filled in the card hopper 2 and is driven by the discharge motor 7 via the pulley 15a, the timing belt 6a and the one-way pulley 13a. The discharge roller 3b comes into contact with a card discharged by the discharge roller 3a and traveling on the transport path 16, and is driven by the discharge motor 7 via the pulley 15a, the timing belt 6b, the one-way pulley 13b, the discharge gear 12a, and the discharge gear 12b. Is done.
The operation of the discharge motor 7 is controlled by a discharge control circuit provided on a discharge control board 8 via a motor control cable 9a. The gap adjusting unit 5 has a conveying path facing surface whose radius continuously changes as it rotates. The conveying path facing surface faces the conveying path 16, and the pulley 15 b and the timing belt are driven by the gap adjusting motor 11. 6c
And its rotation is driven via a pulley 15c. The thickness sensor 4 detects the thickness of the card ejected by the ejection roller 3 a and traveling on the transport path 16, and transmits the card to the gap adjustment control circuit provided on the gap adjustment unit control board 10 via the signal cable 14. I do. The gap adjustment control circuit of the gap adjustment unit control board 10 controls the operation of the gap adjustment motor 11 via the motor control cable 9b in accordance with a signal from the thickness sensor 4 to rotate the gap adjustment unit 5 to stop the gap adjustment unit 5. Adjust the position.

Next, the card ejection operation of the card supply device configured as described above will be described with reference to FIGS.

When the discharge control circuit of the discharge control board 8 receives a signal from the host device, the discharge control circuit supplies a control pulse signal to the discharge motor 7 via the motor control cable 9a. Thus, the discharge motor 7 rotates the pulley 15a in the direction of arrow A, and drives the rotation of the discharge roller 3a via the timing belt 6a and the one-way pulley 13a. The one-way pulley 13a transmits the rotation of the pulley 15a in the direction of arrow A to the discharge roller 3a, but does not transmit the rotation in the direction opposite to the direction of arrow A (the direction of arrow B) to the discharge roller 3a. When the discharge roller 3a rotates, the lowest card in the card hopper 2 that is in contact with the discharge roller 3a is discharged and travels on the transport path 16.

The card traveling on the transport path 16 passes through the thickness sensor 4 and the gap adjusting section 5 (the operations of the thickness sensor 4 and the gap adjusting section 5 will be described later) and is ejected to the position of the ejection roller 3b. You. When the card reaches the position of the ejection roller 3b, the ejection control circuit of the ejection control board 8
A control pulse signal is given to the discharge motor 7 so that 5a is rotated in the direction of arrow A. This allows the timing belt 6
b and one-way pulley 13b and discharge gear 12a
Then, the discharge roller 3b is driven via the discharge gear 12b. The one-way pulley 13b transmits the rotation of the pulley 15a in the direction of arrow B to the discharge roller 3b, but does not transmit the rotation in the direction of arrow A to the discharge roller 3b. The discharge roller 3b that has started rotating discharges the card that has reached the next step.

Next, the operation of the thickness sensor 4 and the gap adjusting unit 5 will be described with reference to FIGS.

When a card traveling on the transport path 16 passes through the position of the thickness sensor 4, the thickness sensor 4 detects the thickness of the passing card and detects the thickness of the card passing therethrough via a signal cable 14 to control the gap adjustment unit control board 10. The signal is transmitted to the gap adjustment control circuit. The gap adjustment control circuit supplies a required amount of pulse signal to the gap adjustment motor 11 via the motor control cable 9b according to a signal from the thickness sensor 4. The gap adjustment motor 11 that has received the pulse signal from the gap adjustment control circuit rotates by a designated angle in the direction of arrow C, and transmits the rotation to the gap adjustment unit 5 via the pulley 15b, the timing belt 6c, and the pulley 15c. I do. As a result, the gap adjusting unit 5 rotates by an angle corresponding to the rotation angle of the gap adjusting motor 11, and causes a portion having a predetermined radius of the surface facing the transport path 16 (the transport path facing surface) to face the transport path 16. As a result, the gap between the gap adjusting unit 5 and the transport path 16 becomes a predetermined value, and the card ejected by the ejection roller 3a can be passed. FIG. 5A is a view showing a state in which the gap between the gap adjusting unit 5 and the transport path 16 is minimized in this manner.
Is facing. This is the case when passing a card having the minimum thickness. FIG. 5B is a diagram illustrating a state when the gap between the gap adjusting unit 5 and the transport path 16 is maximized.
This is a state in which the card having the minimum diameter of the gap adjusting section 5 faces the transport path 16 and allows the card having the maximum thickness to pass therethrough.

The above-described embodiment is an example in which the radius of the gap-adjusting section facing the transport path is continuously changed. May be configured so that the radii of a plurality of sizes corresponding to are changed stepwise.

[0015]

As described above, the card supply device of the present invention detects the thickness of the card ejected from the card hopper by the thickness sensor, and controls the gap adjusting section according to the information from the thickness sensor. By rotating, the gap between the gap adjustment unit and the conveyance path can be automatically adjusted so as to correspond to the thickness of the card detected by the thickness sensor. It has the effect that it becomes possible to automatically supply with the card supply device of
Therefore, there is an effect that a card supply device that is easy to operate, does not cause an operation error, and does not require storage, management, or replacement of the card set, and can reduce the cost is obtained.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a left side view showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a plan view of the embodiment of FIG.

FIG. 3 is a right side view of the embodiment of FIG. 1;

FIG. 4 is a right side view showing the operation of the embodiment in FIG. 1;

FIG. 5 is a right side view showing an operation state of the gap adjusting unit of the embodiment of FIG.

[Explanation of symbols]

 Reference Signs List 1 frame 2 card hopper 3a / 3b discharge roller 4 thickness sensor 5 gap adjustment unit 6a / 6b / 6c timing belt 7 discharge motor 8 discharge control board 9a / 9b motor control cable 10 gap adjustment unit control board 11 gap adjustment motor 12a / 12b Discharge gear 13a / 13b One-way pulley 14 Signal cable 15a / 15b / 15c Pulley 16 Transport path

Claims (3)

[Claims] A card hopper for stacking and holding a plurality of cards, a discharge roller for discharging the lowest card among the plurality of cards stacked on the card hopper, and a discharge roller. A transport path for guiding the travel of the ejected card, a thickness sensor for detecting the thickness of the card ejected by the ejection roller, and a radius of a portion facing the transport path changes by rotation. A card adjusting device having a gap adjusting section having a conveying path facing surface, wherein a front gap adjusting section is rotated in accordance with information from the thickness sensor to adjust a gap with the conveying path. 2. The card supply device according to claim 1, further comprising a gap adjusting section having a conveyance path facing surface in which a radius of a portion facing the conveyance path changes continuously. 3. The card supply device according to claim 1, further comprising a gap adjustment unit having a conveyance path facing surface in which a radius of a portion facing the conveyance path changes stepwise.