JPH0792822B2 - IC card reader - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION (a) Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to an IC card reader such as a card type vending machine for processing transaction information of IC cards such as bank cards, telephone cards and credit cards. Regarding

(B) Conventional technology In general, the reading structure of an IC card reader is, for example,
As shown in FIG. 4, a slider 42 is provided which allows the IC card 41 to slide in and out.
When the card 41 is inserted, by pushing it against the slider return spring 43, as shown in FIG. 5, the slider 42 is pushed in until the tip end contacts the stopper 45 of the case 44, and the insertion is stopped. At the insertion regulation position where it abuts this stopper 45,
A rear end side inclined portion 46 of the slider 42 is a fixed hanging piece of the case 44.
The tilt lever 48 is tilted against the free end side inclined portion 49 of the tilt lever 48 having one end pivotally attached to the tilt pivot 47 as a tilt fulcrum, and the tilt lever 48 is tilted toward the card surface side against the lever return spring 50. At the same time, a leaf spring-shaped contactor 51 protruding from the lower surface of the lever 48 is used.
Is brought into contact with the IC contact portion of the IC card 41 to perform required data processing.

However, in conjunction with the operation of inserting the IC card 41, the slider
In order to enable the interlocking structure in which 42 is slid and the tilt lever 48 is tilted, a spring that operates according to insertion / removal of the inserted IC card 41 is usually used, but each of these corresponds. Slider return spring 43 and lever return spring 50
Therefore, the number of parts is large, and the number of man-hours for mounting these springs 43, 50 is large, which causes a high cost.

(C) Problem to be Solved by the Invention Even if the interlocking structure in which the contactor and the IC contact are brought into contact with each other by interlocking with the insertion operation of the IC card, these interlocking structural members are provided as one spring. The purpose of the present invention is to provide an IC card reader that can be operated at low cost to reduce costs.

(D) Means for Solving the Problems The present invention is directed to a slide block that abuts an inserted IC card and slides to a position corresponding to an IC contact, and one end of the slide block is pivotally attached to a fulcrum and the other end is attached to the slide block. Allows tilting in the direction of the card surface, and at the other end of the tilting lever, a contact lever that connects to and separates from the IC contact of the IC card is connected. A fixed cam that tilts and abuts a tilting lever to contact the IC contact, and tilts the lever toward the card surface side; and a lever that biases the other end side of the tilting lever toward the card surface separating direction, The IC card reader is characterized by being provided with a spring connecting between the case and the case.

(E) Action of the Invention According to the present invention, based on the insertion of the IC card, the slide block pushed by this slides to the predetermined IC contact corresponding position against the return force of the spring via the tilting lever. , The position of which is regulated by the fixed cam at the contact-corresponding position, the tilting lever tilts against the restoring force of the spring, and the contactor that tilts with it also comes into contact with the IC contact on the IC card surface.
Card processing.

(F) Effect of the Invention According to the present invention, a tilting lever having a contact is pivotally attached to a slide block that slides to a position corresponding to an IC contact, and the slide block is provided between the tilting lever and the case. Since the spring is connected by a single spring that is commonly set and biased in the direction in which the tilt lever is returned in the direction of withdrawal and the tilt lever is returned in the direction of separating the card surface,
The book spring can perform the returning operation by combining the returning operation of the slide block and the returning operation of the tilting lever.

Therefore, it is possible to reduce the number of springs and the man-hours for attaching the springs at the same time, and it is possible to surely reduce the cost.

In addition, the contactor has no contact wear and can perform the data processing suitable for the IC card under the contact structure with high contact reliability, especially the slide block and the tilting pivotally attached to this. The fixed cam that regulates the tilting of the lever
By interlocking with the card insertion operation, a contact structure with high positioning accuracy can be obtained in which the contact is restricted in position only at the IC contact corresponding position.

(G) Embodiment of the Invention One embodiment of the present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings.

The drawings show an IC card reader. In FIGS. 1 to 3, the IC card 12 used in the IC card reader 11 is
An IC contact 13 as a storage element for storing transaction data is embedded on one side of the upper surface of the card 12, and a magnetic stripe 14 for recording data such as value information is formed on the other side.

Then, the IC card 12 is taken into the IC card reader 11 and the transaction data of the card is processed.

The above-mentioned IC card reader 11 has a card insertion port 15 for inserting the IC card 12 on the front surface, and the IC insertion path 16 inside the IC insertion port 15 has an IC
A slide block 17 as a horizontally movable member that interlocks with the insertion operation of the card 12 and a fixed cam 18 as a tilt restricting member corresponding thereto are internally provided.

The slide block 17 described above has slide shafts 19, 19 on both sides.
The IC card 12 is axially supported, is allowed to slide in the insertion / removal direction of the IC card 12, and is normally urged and moved to the card insertion port 15 side by a spring 20 via a tilting lever described later.

Then, the tip of the IC card 12 when the card is inserted comes into contact with the card contact surface 21 that is vertically provided on the front side of the slide block 17, so that the slide block 17 is moved to the spring 20.
Slide it to the front stopper 22 position against the biasing force of. A tilt lever 23 for handling IC contacts, which will be described later, is pivotally attached to the slide block 17 slid to the stopper position, and data processing of the IC card 12 is performed via the lever 23.

The tilting lever 23 described above pivots the rear end portion of the lever 23 to the slide block 17 via a fulcrum pin 24, and with the fulcrum pin 24 as a fulcrum, the front end side of the lever 23 is moved downward in the card surface direction. Is allowed to tilt, and normally, between the spring locking projection 25 on the rear end side of the lever and the spring locking projection 27 on the rear end side of the case 26,
The lever 20 is connected by a spring 20, and the front end side of the lever 23 is in an inclined state in which it is biased upward to separate from the insertion passage 16.

Then, on the front end side of the tilt lever 23, the IC card 12
A plurality of pairs of leaf spring-shaped contacts 28 ... Which come in contact with and separate from the IC contacts 13 are provided side by side, and the front end side of the tilting lever 23 is integrally biased with the contacts 28. It is in a moving state.

In this case, the above-mentioned one spring 20 is provided for both the slide block returning and the tilting lever returning, so that the one spring 20 enables the returning operation for both members. To reduce the number of parts.

A fixed cam 18 for contacting the contact 28 with the IC contact 13 is fixed to the case 26 inside the insertion passage 16 at a position corresponding to the IC contact when the card is inserted. An inclined cam surface 29 that obliquely abuts the front end of the tilt lever 23 is formed on the lower surface on the end side, and a slide block is formed on the inclined cam surface 29.
When the tip of the tilting lever 23 that slides integrally with 17 abuts, the front end side of the lever 23 is gradually pushed down to the lower card surface side about the fulcrum pin 24 as a fulcrum and tilted. The contact 28, which is integrated with, is set so as to naturally contact the IC contact 13 on the upper surface of the IC card.

The contact 28 for IC contact described above is formed of a conductive material, the base end of which is attached to the tilting lever 23, and the free end side serves as a contact-corresponding part, and the tip shape is formed in a downward arc shape. , The contact stability with the IC contact 13 is improved.

Further, in association with the operation of removing the IC card 12, the tilting regulation by the fixed cam 18 is released, the front end side of the tilting lever 23 is returned to the upward movement, and accordingly, the contactors 28 are also moved up. Interlock with the IC contact 13 in conjunction with the card removal operation.

In the figure, 30 is a card detection switch, and 31 and 32 are card pressing springs, which stably support the inserted card.

As shown in FIG. 1, when the IC card 12 is inserted through the card insertion slot 15 of the IC card reader 11 configured as described above, the tip of the IC card 12 slides inside the insertion passage 16. Abut the card contact surface 21 of the block 17,
This slide block 17 is pushed against the biasing force of the spring 20 to the IC contact corresponding position. At this time, as shown in FIGS. 2 and 3, the tilting lever corresponding to the fixed cam 18 is provided.
The front end side of the tilting lever 23 moves downward against the biasing force of the spring 20 due to the tilting restricting action of the cam 18.

As a result, the contact 28 attached to the lever 23 moves downward, and the IC contact of the IC card 12 inserted to the position of the stopper 22.
It comes into pressure contact with 13 to read and write transaction data.

Then, when the reading and writing processing of data to the IC card 12 is completed, the IC card 12 is pulled out, and the slide block 17 and the tilt lever 23 are returned to their original positions by the return action of the spring 20, respectively. Tilt lever 23
The contact 28, which is integral with, also moves upward, separates from the card surface, and returns to the original position.

As described above, the tilting lever provided with the contact is pivotally attached to the slide block that is slid to the IC contact corresponding position, and the slide block is returned in the card removing direction between the tilting lever and the case, In addition, since the tilt lever is connected by a single spring that is commonly set in the direction of returning to the card surface separating direction, this single spring serves both as the return function of the slide block and the return function of the tilt lever. Then, the return operation can be performed.

Therefore, the number of springs can be reduced and the number of spring mounting steps can be reduced, and the cost can be surely reduced.

In the correspondence between the configuration of the present invention and the one embodiment described above, the IC card reader of the present invention is the IC card reader of the embodiment.
In the same way, the IC card corresponds to the IC card 12, the IC contact corresponds to the IC contact 13, the slide block corresponds to the slide block 17, and the fixed cam corresponds to the fixed cam 18. The spring corresponds to the spring 20, the tilting lever corresponds to the tilting lever 23, the case corresponds to the case 26, the contactor corresponds to the contactor 28. It is not limited to the configuration of the above embodiment.

[Brief description of drawings]

The drawings show one embodiment of the present invention. FIGS. 1 and 2 are longitudinal sectional views showing the operating state of the IC card reader, FIG. 3 is a plan view of the IC card reader, and FIGS. It is an operation explanatory view showing a conventional IC card reader. 11 …… IC card reader, 12 …… IC card 13 …… IC contact, 17 …… Slide block 18 …… Fixed cam, 20 …… Spring 23 …… Tilt lever, 26 …… Case 28 …… Contact

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A slide block that abuts on an inserted IC card and slides to a position corresponding to an IC contact, and one end of this slide block is pivotally attached to a fulcrum and the other end is allowed to tilt in the card surface direction. IC card IC on the other end
Based on the tilting lever in which a contactor that contacts and separates from the contact is connected, and based on the insertion operation of the IC card, the contactor is tilted and abutted with the tilting lever to contact the IC contact at the IC contact corresponding position, An IC card reader comprising a fixed cam for tilting the lever toward the card surface side, and a spring connecting the lever and the case to urge the other end side of the tilting lever in the card surface separating direction.