CA1272906A

CA1272906A - Credit card embossing system

Info

Publication number: CA1272906A
Application number: CA000527725A
Authority: CA
Inventors: Richard J. La Manna; James L. Hinton; Edward L. Cucksey
Original assignee: National Business Systems Inc Canada
Current assignee: National Business Systems Inc Canada
Priority date: 1986-01-21
Filing date: 1987-01-20
Publication date: 1990-08-21
Also published as: JPS62231775A; NZ223564A; US4784059A; AU6781587A; US4789420A; US4686898A; NZ218995A

Abstract

ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE

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.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INV~NTION

Field of the Invention The invention relakes to machines for embossing cards with alphanumerical text of the type used for credit cards, promotional cards and the like.

Description of the Prior Art High speed card embossing systems are in wide spread use today which emboss hundreds of millions of cards per year. While prior art card embossing machines are capable of performing embossing at high speed with high reliability, these machines nevertheless su~fer from several disadvantages. Many prior art commercially available embossers are high in price, sizeable, have a relatively high energy consumption because of the mass o~ the driven components and are complex because of requirements to emboss cards with different ~ormats with multiple pitch characters.
United States Patent 4,088,338, which is typical of prior art card embossers, discloses an embossing system which uses a single embossing wheel to emboss alpha numerical text on a plurality of vertically separated horizontally extending lines on a single card. The vertically eparated horizontally extending lines ar~ embossed by the translation of a single carriage holding a card to be embossed in orthogonal directions to position on the card with respect to the . .
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embossing wheel at those positions which characters are to be embossed. To emboss each character, the card is translated to the correct embossing position between the punch and die wheels prior to the activation of an activating mechanism for the chosen punch and die. Many commercially available embossing machines use a single orthogonally movable carriage in cooperation with a single embossing wheel having characters of both a 7-pitch size (7 characters per inch) and a 10-pitch size (10 characters per inch) to emboss cards. The translation of the carriage in orthogonal directions and the activation of the single punch and die pairs of the embossing wheels require sophisticated electrical-mechanical control.
Patent 4,378,733 di~closes an embosser for credit cards which is powered ~y a horizontally disposed drive sha~t and the height of the embossed characters is controlled by adjustment of the location of interposers located between pairs of punch and die character elements and reciprocated arms which power the embossing operation.
Patent 4,519,600 discloses a credit card embossing system having a transport which picks up a single card from an input hopper, moves the card past an emhossing station and releases the card after embossing of the card is complete.
The transport has a pair of cam actuated jaws which grip the card during transport through the embossing station.

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Patent 3,820,~55 discloses an embossing system having separate embossing units for respectively embossing OCR characters and two or more lines of A/N (alphanumerical) characters. The separate embossing units each have a separate transport track which conveys the cards past the embosser. A
feeder mechanism transfers the cards between successive tracks. The transport track for conveying cards to be embossed with OCR characters is advanced at a different rate of speed than the transport track which conveys cards to be embossed with A/N characters.
Patents 3,638,563, 3,861/299 and Re 27,809 disclose a credit card embossing system having separate embossing units for embossing each line of characters on a credit card with lines of characters having at least two pitches. Different transport tracks drive the cards through the separate embossing units. The transport track for conveying cards to be embossed with OCR characters is advanced at a different rate of speed than the transport track which conveys cards to be embossed with A/N characters.
The Model 15000 embossing machine which is manufactured by Data Card Corporation uses a plurality of separate embossing units which each emboss a separate one of the vertically separated horiz~ntally extending lines found on a conventional credit card or promotional card. The individual embossing units are dedicated to embossing characters of a single pitch which may be either 7 or 10 pitch . .
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size. A separate card transporting belt is provided with each embosser to move the card past the embosser with the card being transferred between the separate belts in order to emboss all of the lines of characters on the card which deleteriously affects throughput. The individual embossiny units have a mechanism which continuously activates selected punch and dies positioned at the circumferential position of the embossing wheel where embossing takes place without intarposers of the type used in the embossing wheel of Patent 4,180,338. When a position on the horizontal line being embossed does not have a character to be embossed, the embossing wheel is rotated to a circumferential position which does not have a punch and die pair so that the mechanism which continuously activates the pairs of punch and die wheels do~s not have to be stopped. This embosser does not synchronously drive the individual embossing wheels from a common power source. The axis of the power drive for the embossers is horizontally disposed which prevents the individual embossers from being closely spaced horizontally in line with respect to each other which deleteriously affects the throughput of the system because of the time reguired to transport cards between successive embossing stations.
Commercial embosssrs for credit cards use a topper to apply a colored plastic coating to the top of the embo~sed characters for highlighting. These toppers heat fuse a layer of colored plastic borne on a foil to the embossed characters -. . ..
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by the activation of a ram which drive~ a heated platen against the back surface of the ~oil to drive the front surface bearing the plastic coating into contact with the embossed characters. While these toppers produce a commercially acceptable topping, they have deficiencies. In the first place, the heated platen can cause the grease in the lubrication points o~ a ram which drives the platen to degrade because of the proximity o~ the platen to the ram which can necessitate shutdown for service. Moreover, the dissipation of heat from the platen to other mechanical parts can cause failure of these parts. The changing of the roll of plastic bearing foil is difficult because there is no access which permits a roll of foil to be threaded on the foil driving mechanism without feeding the leading edge of the foil sequentially over the foil guides along the path that the foil no~nally travels. Typically the foil is spliced onto the existing roll to avoid the threading process which is a time consuming and somewhat involved task.

Summary of the Invention The present invention is a card embossing system which has a high throughput o~ embossed cards, is smaller in size than prior art embosser used for embo~sing cards such as credit and promotional cards that use multiple embossing units, has low energy consumptlon, high embossing accuracy and ... .

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is lower in cost than prior art card embossers used for embossing credit and promotional cards.
High throughput is achieved as a consequence of several attributes of the invention. Close spacing between multiple embossing units which each emboss a different line of characters minimizes transport time of cards between the successive embossing units. A single card transport mechanism is used to move cards between the multiple embossing units which eliminates the transferring of cards between successive belts which each move the card past a single embossing unit as in the prior art Data Card Corporation Model 15000. The card transport mechanism is synchronized with the operation of the multiple embossing units which eliminates wasted time that could be incurred from an asynchronous operation of the transport mechanism with respect to the embossing units. The movement of the transport unit from a current embossing position to the position of the closest next character to be embossed for all of the embossing units is the most time efficient manner of embossing which minimizes the time required to emboss multiple lines of characters on a card having characters of a different pitch or for multiple lines having a single pitch. The embossing of a plurality of lines of characters on a card with at least two pitches with the embossing unlts embossing different pitches being driven at different phases with respect to a common drive for the .
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The driving of the individual embossers with a vertically disposed drive shaft permits the embossing units to be closely spaced horizontally together with an in line configuration. A horizontally disposed drive shaft used for each of the individual embossing units in the prior art embossers having multiple embossing units for embossing separate lines of characters on a single card prevents multiple embossers ~rom being closely spaced horizontally together to minimize the distance that the individual cards must be transported between the units. Minimizing space between the multiple embossing units minimizes the transport time required for cards betwee~ the units which enhances throughput. Moreover, the embossing units have a mechanism that ad~usts for embossing cards o~ varying thickness to maintain the uniform height of emhossed characters while the units continue to operate.
The topper o~ the present invention is easy to maintain and produces cards with a high quality topping. The mounting of a heated platen on a parallelogram suspension, which dissipates and conducts the heat from the platen away from the mechanism for driving the platen, lessens the frequency of service on the bearings of a ram for driving the platen which occurred in the prior art from grease being dagraded by heating. The parallelogram suspension also .

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01 provides for the positioning of the platen in a plane parallel 02 with the face of the card being topped to produce a uniform 03 high quality topping. Moreover, the control of the force 04 applied by the topper as a function of the number of 05 characters on a card to be topped insures that the amount of 06 topping is uniform regardless of the number of characters on 07 the card. A vertical opening between the platen and the 08 surface at the topping station which supports the card during 0~ topping permits the changing of a roll of foil bearing plastic topping by moving the leader of a new roll through the opening 11 sidewise between the heated platen and the surface at the 12 topping station without requiring the leader of the new roll 13 of foil to be fed over the foil guides along the path that the 14 foil normally travels or requiring the new leader to be spliced to the existing roll of foil.
16 ~n embossing system in accordance with the invention 17 for embossing blank cards with a plurality of vertically 18 separated horizontally disposed lines on which characters are 19 to be embossed is comprised of card supply apparatus for ~0 feeding blank cards to be embossed, card transporting 21 apparatus for receiving blank cards to be embossed from the 22 card supply apparatus and for transporting the cards received ~3 from the card supply apparatus along a transport path to a ~4 plurality of separate embossing positions and to a position ~5 26 - 9 ~

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01 where embossing is completed, a plurality of card embossing 02 apparatus each disposed at a separate one of the embossing 03 positions disposed along the transport path, each card 04 embossing apparatus being vertically positioned with respect 05 to the transport path to emboss a different one of the 06 horizontally disposed lines of characters on each card, and 07 control apparatus coupled to the card supply apparatus, the 08 card transporting apparatus and the plurality of card n~ embossing apparatus for controlling the card supply apparatus to feed blank cards to the card transport apparatus, the 11 transporting of the cards received by the card transporting 12 apparatus to the separate embossing positions along the 13 transporting path and the position where embossing is 1~ completed and the plurality of card embossing apparatus to emboss a plurality of lines on each blank card.
16 In one embodiment the control apparatus is or 17 comparing a current longitudinal position of the cards being 18 embossed by each of the card embossing apparatus determined 19 with respect to a reference point with a longitudinal position 2d of the next character to be embossed on the cards being ~1 embossed by each of the card embossing apparatus on each of 22 the horizontally disposed lines to identify a longitudinal 23 position of one or more closest next characters to be embossed

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~1 the current longitudinal position, moving the card 02 transporting apparatus to the longitudinal position of the 03 closest one of the next characters to be embossed, and 04 activating the one or more embossers which are to emboss the 05 closest one or more next characters to emboss the one or more 06 closest next characters.
07 In another embodiment, in which at least one line is ~8 embossed with characters of a first pitch, and at least one ~9 line being embossed with characters of a second pitch, at least one of the card embossing apparatus embosses a character 11 set of a first pitch on one of the horizontally disposed lines 12 and a~ least another of the card embossing apparatus embosses 13 a character set of a second pitch on another of the 1~ horizontally disposed lines.
lS Brief Description of the Drawinqs 16 Fig. 1 illustrates a perspective view of a 17 commercial embodiment of the present invention.
18 Fig. 2 is a perspective view of the preferred 19 embodiment of the present lnvention.
~ Fig. 3 illustrates a simplified perspective view of 21 the pickup mechanism for moving indiv1dual cards from the 2~ input hopper to the transport unit.

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Fig. 4 is a side elevational view of khe pickup mechanism.

Fig. 5 i6 a rear elevational view of the pickup mechanism.

Fig. 6 is a side elevational view of the input hopper and pickup mechanism.

Fig. 7 illustrates a typical card 22 which is e~bossed by the present invention.

Fig. 8 is a top view of an individual embossing unit in accordanae with the present invention.

Fig. 9 is a side elevational view of an individual embossing unit looking toward the topper in accordance with the present invention.

Fig. 10 is a side elevational view of an embossing unit looking toward the input hopper in accordance with the present invention.

Fig. ll is a front elevational view of an individual embossing unit in accordance with the present invention.

Fig. 12 is a rear elevational view of an embossing unit in accordance with the present invention.

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Fig. 13 illustrates the mechanism for mounting an individual character element within an associated wheel of an individual embosser unit in accordance with the present invention.

Fig. 14 illustrates the common drive unit for each of the embossing units o~ the present invention.

Fig. 15 illustrates a portion of the transport unit including the card insertion and pickup positions for individual cards.

Fig. 16 illustrates the cam which is used to control the pickup of individual cards by the transport unit between the card insertion and pickup positions.

Fig. 17-illustrates a portion of the transport unit including the wait station.

Fig. 18 illustrates the cam which is used to control the releasing of cards from the transport unit at the wait station.

Fig. 19 is a top view of an individual leading edge card retainer of the transport unit.

Fig. 20 is a cross-sectional elevation of an individual leading card retainer of ths transport unit.

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Fig. 21 is a partial top view of a trailing edge caxd retainer of the transport unit.

Fig. 22 is a sectional view of the rear of an individual leading edge card retainer of the transport unitO

Fig. 23 illustrates the phase relationship between the cams for driving the individual embossing units.

Fig. 24 illustrates the mechanisms involved in the flow of data records during embossing by the embossing units.

Fig. 25 illustrates a front view of the transport unit of the topper of the present invention.

Fig. 26 is a top view of the transport unit illustrated in Fig. 25.

Fig. 27 is a sectional view of Fig. 25.

Fig. 28 is a top view o~ the topper illustrating the heated platen.

Fig. 29 is a side elevational view of the foil drive of the topper.

Fig. 3C illustrates the topper at the tlme the heated platen is heat fusing the topping material to a card at its extended position.

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Fig. 31 illustrates the topper at the tlme the heated platen has withdrawn to its retracted position and the foil bearing the topping material is being peeled from contact with the embossed card.

Fig. 32 illustrates a top view of the stacker of the present inventionO

Fig. 33 illustrates an elevational view of the stacker of the present invention.

Fig. 34 illustrate~ an example of data records which are embossed by embossing units of the present invention.

Figs. 35(a)-(i) are oscillogram~ of various signals which are important in understanding the operation of the present invention.

Figs. 36(a)-(c) are oscillograms of signals involved in the communications between the master controller and the controllers of the embossing units, hopper and topper.

Fig. 37 is a simplified mechanical-electrical schematic of the master controller of the present invention.

Fig. 38 is a simplified mechanical-electrical schematic of an embosser controller of the present invention.

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Fig. 39 is a simplified mechanical-electrical schematic of the hopper/topper controller of the present invention.
Figs. 40A and 40B Eorm a diagram of the electrical connections between the major elec-trical components of the present invention.
Figs. 41A, 41B, 41C and 42B and 42B illustrate the preferred form of the master controller of the present invention.
Figs. 43A and 43B illustrate the preferred form of the controller for the embosser units of the present invention.
Figs. 44A and 44B illustrate the preferred form of the controller for the input hopper and topper of the present invention.
Description of the Preferred Embodiments Fig. 1 illustrates a perspective view of a commercial embodiment of an embossing system in accordance with the present invention. The housing 2 covers many of the major components of the embossing system which are discussed in detailr infra. The input hopper 12 holds a plurality of blank cards to be embossed. The operator console 6 has a keyboard and CRT. The CRT displays various messages including the identification of the data records being processed at each of the parts within the system and error messages occurring at _.

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each of the parts. The keyboard is used for the entry of commands. The operator control panel 8 controls the activation of the system inclu~ing the control of power. The magnetic tape drive for providing data records has been omitted from illustration because of its conventional nature.
The operator console 6 and the control panel 8 are not discussed in further detail because of their conventional nature. The stacker 18 stores card~ which have been embossed and topped.
Fig. 2 illustrates a perspective view of the major components of the embossing system 10 which are the input hopper 12, three in line embossing units 14, topper 16, output stacker 18 and card transport unit 20. ~he card transport unit 20 has a plurality of card grippers 148 which hold individual cards 22 to be embossed. The plurality of card grippers are attached to a belt 150 at uniformly spaced locations. Rotation of the belt 150 moves the individual cards past the embossing units 14~ The three embossing units 14 are identical except for the pitch of the characters being embossed. Two of the embossing units 14 emboss 10 pitch A/N characters and the remaining embossing unit embosses 7 pitch OCR characters. The preferred form of the major components is dascribed, infra. A pickup mechanism 38 elevates a single card at a time ~rom the input hopper 12 to a card transport 20. The detailed construction o~ the input hopper 12 and pickup mechanism 38 is discussed with reference ` ` ; ~ ~ . ., ~, ,: , - ;

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to Figs. 2-6, infra. The detailed construction of the card transport 2Q is discusse~ with reference to Figs. 15-2~.
The card transport moves the cards past the individual embossing units 14 which each emboss a separate line of characters on each card. The preferred form of the individual embossing units 14 is described, infra, in conjunction with Figs. 8 14. A transport unit 26 moves the individual cards from a wait station located to the left of the left-hand embossing unit 14 to topper 16 having a topping position where a heated platen 28 applies a heat fusible plastic material to the surface of the embossed characters to apply highlighting.
The topper 16 has a foil drive unit 30 which advances foil (not illustrated) each time a card 22 is topped to position fresh topping in front of the heated platen 28. The detailed construction of the topper 16 is discussed with reference to Figs. 25-31. The stacker 18 is located to the left of the topper 16 which stores the cards in an error free bin located in front of a movable gate and in a reject bin located to the rear of the movable gate which holds cards that contain errors. Error detection is discussed, infra.
The preferred embodiment of the embosser 10 embosses three lines of characters r which may be alphanumerical characters, including punctuation on a plastic card which may be a conventional credit card, promotional card or the like.
The format of the individual lines of data is disaussed, inira, in conjunction with Fig. 7. The preferred form of the .

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individual embossing unit 14 ~or embossing OCR Charact~rs has 10 selectable charac~ers and the embossing units for embossing the A~N characters has 39 selectable characters. A single line on a card is embossed with characters of a single pitch.
The major components o~ the embosser 10 are controlled by microprocessor driven controllers. The electrical control circuitry for the major components including microprocessors is discussed, infra, in conjunction with Figs. 40-44. ThP preferred form of control program for each of the microprocessors used to control the major components will not be discussed in detail herein except to the extent necessary to understand the operation o~ the invention.
The electrical control circuitry (not illustrated) is mounted in the rear of the housing 4 of embosser 10 and consists of a master controller, three embosser controllers ànd a hopper/topper controller. The master controller is directly connected to the operator console, the magnetic tape drive and the card transport belt drive. The master controller is connected to the remaining controllers via a main communication bus (not illustrated) to supply timing signals, control information and data to be embossed. The controller for each embossing unit 14 has its own microprocessor to receive data from the master controller and to report status to the master controller. The hopper/topper controller operates a drive hoppor, a drive for the topper -' ` ` , `; ' ~ 7~ 9 ~ ~

transport 26, a drive for a kopper 12 ram, and a drive for the output stacker 18. The master controller manages khe communication tasks for all of the embosser controllers and the hopper/topper controller. Data is transferred between the master controller and the operator console via a full duplex serial interface operating at 9600 baud. Buffers are provided for both the data received and the data to be transmitted.
The actual transfer of data takes place on an asynchronous basis controlled by interrupt logic.
Data trans~er from the magnetic tape drive to the master controller is conducted by a parallel interface and control logic which is part of the master controller. The transfer occurs on a demand basis without the use of interrupts, Data transfer betwePn the master controller and the embosser and hopper/topper controllers is accomplished by a nalf duplex, serial, multi-drop system. The various processors are selected by combining a master timing signal with one of four communication channel signals. The relationship of the ma ter control signal with these communication channel signals is discussed, infra, in conjun~tion with Fig. 35.
An overview of the embossing operation is described with reference to Fig. 2 as follows. The embossing operation begins when a card 22 is raised vertically from the input hopper 12 by a pickup mechanism 38 to a card insertion .
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position on the card transport unit 20 which is located upstream from a card pickup position where individual cards are fixedly attached to a gripper 1~8 discussed, infra, in conjunction with Figs. 19-22. The card transport 20 moves the cards horizontally to the left past the various embossing units 14. The card transport 20 is stopped at each position where any one of the plurality of embossing units 14 is to emboss a single character which is referred to hereinafter as the "closest next character(s)". The algorithm for controlling the stopping of the transport unit 20 at the various embossing positions i8 described, infra. After a card passes through the left-most embossing unit 14, the card enters a wait station which is a position where the card is dejtached from the card transport 20 to await pick up by the transport unit 26 of the topper 16. When the transport unit 26 is activated, an embossed card is transported to the left to a topping station where the card is stopped with its back surface resting against a vertically extending rigid flat surface. The heated platen 28 is moved into contact with a foil coated with a heat fusible plastic which is pushed into contact with the embossed characters of the card to heat fuse the plastic material to provide highlighting. As the heated platen 28 is withdrawn, the foil drive unit 30 is activated to advance fresh ~oil in front of the heated platen and to peel the foil, which i8 heat fused to the characters of the card, away from contact with the characters. After the topping . ~

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action is complete, the card is transpor~ed by the transport unit 26 to the stacker 18. ~he stacker 18 is controlled by the hopper/topper controller to group the cards into the error free bin or bin containing cards with errors in a manner described, infra. The force applied by the heated platen 28 is controlled by the hopper/topper controller to be directly proportional to the number of characters on the embossed card to be topped to ensure uniform topping.

Input ~opper 12 and Pickup Mechanism 38 Figs. 2~6 illustrate the preferred form of the input hopper 12 and card pickup mechanism 38. With reference to Fig. 2, the input hopper 12 has a tray 32, which has a capacity for holding 500 cards of .030 of an inch thickness, and a spring loaded plate 34 which maintains pressure on a stack of cards 36 ~Figs. 3-4) to force them toward a pickup mechanism 38 which sequentially lifts a single card 22 from the stack upward to the card insertion position of the card transport 20.
The pickup mechanism 38 consists of two racks 40 which are driven by a pair of pinion gears 42 connected ko a common drive shaft 44 of rack drive motox 46. The rack drive motor 46 has a shaft encodar that produces 100 pulses per revolution of the drive shaft 44. Two complste revolutions of the drive shaft 44 elevate a card from the rear of tlle tray 32 to the card insertion position where it is .

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picker knife 50 is attached to a mounting block 52 which is connected to right-hand cylindrical guide 54 for the spring loaded plate 34. The position of the picker knife 50 with respect to the vertical plate ~8 is adjusted by an adjustment mechanism 53 to be positioned in front of the vertical plate 48 by a distance slightly greater than the thickness of a card 22 to be embossed to provide a throat 55 to prevent more than one card at a time from being lifted from the tray 32 to the card insertion position. The adjustment mechanism 53 has a vertical member 53' which is fixedly attached to the base 53 " . The mounting block 52, which carries the picker knife, is slidably mounted on rod 54.
Shaft 56 threadably engages a nut 56' attached to vertical member 56 " and is slidably mounted within a smooth bore extending through vertical member 53'. Rotation of the knurled wheel 57 causes the mounting block 52 to slide on rod 54 to adjust the size of throat 55. Spring 57' is in a compre~sed state which causes ths end 57 " of knurled wheel 57 to be biased against the vertical member 53'. The picker knife 50 contains a plurality of ball bearings 58 which are ,:....
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mounted within its body to minimize friction with a card during elevation to the card insertion position. The ball bearings 58 are retained by lea~ springs 58'. Each of the racks 40 has a horizontal forward projecting edye 59 mounted on the front surface to engage the bottom edge of a card at the end of the stack of cards 36 which is to be elevated to the card insertion position. As a card held by the horizontal forward proj~cting edge 59 moves upward, the picker kni~e 50 prevents more than one card from being pushed through the throat 55 between the picker knife and the vertical plate 48.
A sensor 60 is mounted on a bracket mounted on the vertical plate 48 for sensing when a card 22 has been elevated to the card insertion position. The activation of the rack drive motor 46 is controlled by the hopper/topper controller, described infra, so that the card is elevated when the card transport 20 is located at a predetermined position which preferably is the twentieth increment of the transport path with individual increments being defined ~n increments of 1/280th of the spacing between individual embossing units 14 and the circumference of the pulley 170 driving the belt 150 of the card transport 20. The control of the card transport 20 as a function of position increments is discussed, infra.
Fig. 7 illustrates a typical card 22 which may be embossed with an embosser 10 of the present invention. As illustrated, the card has a format o~ a conventional bank card . ~ .

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having a single line 62 having OCR characters which are 7 pitch with a center-to-centPr spacing of 1/7 of an inch and two lines of A/N characters 64 of 10 pitch with a center-to-center spacing of 1/10 of an inch. Each line 62 and 64 is embossed by a separate one of the embossing units 14.
The vertical position of the lines is controlled by the vertical adjustment of the mounting asse~bly of the individual embossing units as describ~d, infra, in conjunction with Fig. 10. The information for embossing each card 22 is stored sequentially on the magnetic tape unit as data records prior to loading into the memory of the master controller.
During operation, the individual characters of the records are read by the controllers ~or the embos~lng unit 14 from the memory of the master controller as they are embossed. For the card 22 as illustrated, each stored data record has four fields with the first field being a six digit card identification number and the remaining fields containing the characters for the lines 62 and 64. Each possible character position is encoded as an ackual character or a blank space character. The end of a line is encoded as an end of line command.

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...3.. P'~ ~ 3 Embossin~ Units 14 Figs. 8-14 illustrate the preferred construction of each of the embossing units 14~ The embossing units 1~ are of an identical construction except for embossing different pitch characters. ~owever, it should be understood that the present invention may be used to emboss multiple lines with a single pitch.
Each line 62 or 64 of a card 22 is embossed by one of the three embossing units 14. An embossing unit 14 has a punch wheel 66 carrying male character elements 68, which are movable from a retracted position to an embossing position, and a die wheel 70 carrying female character elements 72, which are movable from a retracted position to an embossing position, that are both mounted on a common shaft 74. The punch wheel 66 and die wheel 70 are ganged together by a flange 71 which rotates on the common shaft 74. A motor and shaft encoder 76 is attached to the shaft 74 to drive the pair of wheels 66 and 70 to a plurality of different circumferential positions at which characters are embossed or a blank is left. While each embossing unit 14 may have character sets for OCR characters or A/N characters, all of the wheels have a space 77 at a separate circumferential position from the characters which is the circumferential position of the wheel when a space is to be left on a blank card. With reference to Fig. 13, each male character element 68 and female character element 7Z is mounted in an ~ .

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aperture 82 which extends through khe pair of circular plates 83 which define wheel 66 or 70 to permit reciprocation from a retracted position to an embossing position and a spring 84 biases each of the male elements 68 and female elements 72 to their retracted position by engaging surface 86 of one of the circular plates 83 and a plastic block 87 which is attached to the male or female character element with the spr.ing being in a compressed condition to force the element to its retracted position. A ram 8~ is provided in a~sociation with each wheel which is movable from a first position which does not cause the character elements of the wheels to emboss a character to a second position which contacts one of the character elements to cause the embossing of a character if the circumferential position having the space for leaving a blank on the card is not aligned therewith. A retractor 89 is pivotably attached to each arm 90. The function o~ each retractor 89 is to withdraw the character elements 68 and 72 which can stick to the card 22. Each ram 88 is pushed by the vertically extending arm 90. Each ram 88 has a vertically projecting stud 91 which engages the retractor 89 to insure that it i5 withdrawn when the ram is moved back to its first position. The arms 90 are pivoted through separate parts of the common shaft 74. The arm 90, which is associated with the die wheel 70, has a fixed pivot shaft 92 and the arm 90 associated with the punch wheel 66 has a pivot shaft 93 which is axially movable along the common shaft 74 in a slot 96 . .-~

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contained therein. One end of compressed spring g8 contacts a sliding sleeve 97 which con~acts the pivot shaft 93 to urge it to the first end of the slot 93 closest to the embossing wheel 66. Typically the slot 93 is 1/32 of an inch long~r than the diameter of pivot shaft 93. The other end of compressed spring 98 contacts a nut 100 which is locked in a fixed axial position by nut 102 on a threaded portion (not illustrated) shaft 74. The end of the common shaft 74 over which the spring 98 is engaged is threaded to permit the adjustment of the degree of compression by adjustment of the nuts 100 and 102. The combination of the ~lot 96, which receives the pivot shaft of the punch wheel, the compressed spring 98, the nuts 100 and 102, and the thread~ed portion of the common shaft 74 functions as a mechanism for embossing blank cards of varying thickness with characters of uniform height during continued operation of the embo~ser. The shaft encoder 76 drives the ganged pair of the punch wheel 66 and die wheel 70 by a transmission 104 having three gears which couple the output shaft of the encoder 76 to the punch wheel 66. A sensor 106 is provided to detect if a card is associated with each of the individual embossers.
~ he mechanism for producing embossed characters of uniform height ~or cards of varying thickness is adjusted by adjusting the degree of compression of the spring 98 by locking of th~ nut 100 in a fixed pOBition by locking nut 102. This adjustment sets the height of the embossed .
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character independent of the thickness of the card by determining the maximum force to be applied during embossing.
If a card 22 of a thickness greaker than the thickness of a standard card thickness is to be embossed, without the mechanism for embossing cards of varying thickness with characters of uniform height, the thicker card would cause a character of a greater height to be produced as a consequence of greater penetration of the punch and die element of the character to be embossed into the card. With the mechanism for producing characters of uniform height for cards of variable thickness, any reaction force above that which is sufficient to produce a character of the uniform desired height, is relieved by the displacement of the pivot shaft 93 within the slot 96 away from the punch wheel 66. Thus, the appropriate set up of the spacing between the punch and die wheels 66 and 70 in combination with the choice of the right degree of compression of the compressed spring 9~ ensures that cards of any thickness will be embossed with characters of the same height. This mechanism eliminates the necessity for manual set up of the embossing system each time cards are to be run of differing thickness and further produces uniform height embossed characters within a single run of cards which have varying thickness.
Each of the individual embos~ing units 14 i~
connected to a base by a front and a rear ~haft 120 with height adjustment being made by a threaded jack 122. The ".

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threaded jack 122 is located adjacent to the front shaft 120 to permit the vertical adjus~ment o~ the individual embossing units 14 to adjust the vertical locatiorl of the lines of characters 62 and 64 on thF~ individual cards ~2 by positioniny the vertical position o~ the embossing wheels 56 and 70 with respect to the cards held in the reference position by the card transport 20~ The extended boss stud 124 joins the embossing unit 14 to the base 123 through the jack 122. The jack 122 adjusts the vertical height of the individual embossing units 14 by rotation of the knurled wheel 124 fixedly connected to threaded shaft 125 and a knurled locking wheel 126 with respect to the shaft to cause rotation of the threaded sha~t within threads (not illustrated) of block 128.
The rotation of wheel 126 into contact with the top surface of blocl~ 128 locks the vertical position of the embossing unit 14. The threaded shaft 129 is locked to the underside of the embossiny unit 14 by nut 1297. Follower 129'l is retained on the end of shaft 129 and engages the top surface of knurled whael 124.
Fig. 14 illustrates the common drive unit 107 for each of the embossing units 14. Each embosser has a vertically extending drive shaft 108 to which is connected a gèar wheel 110 of a width which is substantially greater than the width of a common belt 112 used for synchronously driving each of the embossing units. The belt 112 is driven through a transmission 113 by a motor 114. The width of the gear :
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~ J ~3~j wheel 110 being sub~tantially greater than the width o~ the belt 112 permits the vertical position of the individual embossing units 14 to be adjusted without requiring vertical adjustment of the common drive for each o~ the embossing units. The vertical adjustment mechanism i8 discussed, infra. The gear wheel 110 is provided with sufficient mass so that its inertia carries the embossing wheels throuyh the embossing operation without requiring the motor 114 to have a higher power output.
The spacing between the individual embossing units 14 is minimized as a consequence of the vertical axis of the drive shaft 10~ of the individual embossing units 14. The vertically extending axis of rotation permits the gear wheels 110 to be driven in line with a single drive wheel mounted below the mechanism for activating the individual embossing units 14 which permits a close in line spacing that minimizes transport time of cards 22 between embossing units 14. A horizontally extending drive wheel for the individual embossing units 14 would prevent the units from being closely spaced together. A close in line spacing permits higher throughput rates without using a higher powered drive for the aard transport unit 20 to achieve higher tr,ansport velocity.
With reference to Figs. 9 and 10, each drive shaft 108 has a cam 130 attached thereto which has a pair of lobes (elements 132 of Fig. 23) which activate the embossing :

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mechanism twice for each rotation of the drive shafk. A pair of pivotably mounted horizontally extending arms 134 are mounted in blocks 136 which are attached to the base 138 of the embossing unit. A pair of rotatable wheels 140 are mounted on the respective arms 1~4 at a point intermediate the pivot point 142. A pin 144 projects orthogonally ~rom the end of each arm 134 opposite the pivot point 142 which engages the ends of the arms 90 which are opposite the point of engagement of the arms 90 with the rams 88. The wheels 140 are in rolling contact with the peripheral surface of cam 130. As the cam 130 rotates to a posikion where the lobes 132 engage the wheels 140, the arms 134 are forced outward which causes the vertically projecting cylindrical pins 144 to force the ends of the arms 90 outward to cause the rams 88 to be forced from their first withdrawn position to thelr second embossing position to cause the embossing of a character on a card located between the punch wheel 66 and die wheel 70.
The movement of the point of contact 144' between the second end of arm 30 and the vertically projecting cylindrical pin 144 preferably is equally centered about the centerline extending through the pivot point 142, center of wheel 140 and pin 144 when the centerline is orthogonal to the shaft 74. This orientation minimizes sliding contact at point 144 by minimizing the heighk of the arc swung by the point of aontact.

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The synchronoua drive of the drive shafts 108 by the common belt drive 112 powered by motor 114 illustrated in Fig. 14 causes the embossing mechanism to be continually activated in a cyclical manner when khe lobes 132 of cam 130 engage the wheels 140 to produce two embossing cycles for each rotation of the drive shaft. The continuous activation of the embossing elements is produced without interposers as disclosed in Patent 4,180,338 and necessitates that the movement of the card transport 20 holding the individual cards 22 must be accomplishe~ during the period the lobes 132 are not engaging the wheels 140. A disk is attached to one of the cams 130, which is described, infra, in conjunction with Fig. 23, to produce timing signals which synchronize the operation of the embossing units 14 and transport unit 20.
The synchronous operation of the embossing units 14 and card transport 20 minimizes the time required for embossing which enhances the throughput of the system which would not be present in a system using an asynchronous timing.

Card Transport Unit_20 Figs. 15~18 illustrate the detailed construction of the card transport 20. The card transport 20 has 12 pairs of card grippers 148 which are attached at uniformly spaced locations to a belt 150 having teeth. The centers of the adjacent card grippers 148 are offset by the spaaing between adjaaent embossing units 14 which is equal to the : : -.. -:- ,, ~ . :
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~ 7f 1' 9 ~3 '~i circumference of the pulley 170 driving belt 150. The circumference of the belt 150 is e~ual to an integer multiple of the circumference of the pulley 170. Each card gripper 1~8 is comprised of a leading edge card gripper 152 and a trailing edge card gripper 154. The leading edge card gripper 152 and trailing edge card gripper 154 are of identical construckion except that the trailing edge card gripper has a cylindrical pin 156 which is mounted within a bore of the trailing edge 158 to push a card 22 to a horizontal reference position at the card insertion position. The purpose of the pin is to establish the horizontal reference position with the belt 150 for each card 22 as the cards are transported through the in line embossing units 14. The vertical position of each card 22 in the card grippers 148 is established by a slot (illustrated in Figs. 18-21) having an opening for receiving the upper edge of a card 22 lifted by the pickup mechanism 38 previously described. The slot is formed by two spaced apart sides which are connected by a horizontally disposed surface at the bottom of the slot which joins the side6 together. A
horizontally disposed flat reference surface 168 is located above the individual card grippers 148 when they have rotated to a position of the lowest radius o~ drive pulley 170 and idler wheel 172 of the belt 150.
The drive pulley 170 is driven by drive motor 174 which has a shaft encoder attached thereto which provides 2~0 index pulses per revolution with a full revolution of the :
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drive pulley 170 causing the belt to move 280 increments equal to 4 inches. Each increment of movement of belt 150 is, as a consequence of the 280 index pulses per revolution of the drive pulley 170, 1/70th of an inch (.0143). The unit increment of distance (l/70th of an inch) moved by the pulley 170, idler wheel 172 and transport belt 150 is chosen to be equal to one divided by the product of the spacing per inch of each of the pitches. Encoding the movement of belt 150 in the increment unit of distance (1/70th of an inch) permits movement of the belt from its current position to the position of the closest next character(s) to always be measured for both the 7 pitch and 10 pitch embossing units 14 by counting in integer increment of the unit distance.
Figs. 19-22 illustrate the detailed construction of an individual leading edge card retainer 152 and a trailing edge card retainer 154. As stated supra, the leading edge card retainer is identical to the trailing edge card retainer with the exception of the pin 156 which establishes the horlzontal reference position for the individual cards~
Each of the card grippers 152 and 154 has a plastic body 176 which has an underside 178 which spans the width of belt 150. A front side 180 projects vertically upward from the underside 178 of body 176 to the front of belt 150. The front side 180 contains slot 150 which is comprised of spaced apart sides 162 and 16g and horizontally disposed sur~ace 166 as previously described. The rear side 182 projects ::
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~f~ ~3~3o vertically upward from the underside 178 to the rear of belt 150. Each leading edye card gripper 152 and trailing edge card gripper 154 is attached to the belt 150 by an attachment mechanism 155 which is joined to the underside 178 and extends up through the belt. A front idler wheel 186 is joined to a front portion 187 of the underside 178 and a rear idler wheel 188 is joined to the rear portion 189 of the underside to provide a low friction rolling support on horizontally disposed surface 190 for the transport of cards 22 from the card pickup position through the embossing positions of the plurality of embossing units 14. A front idler wheel 192 is journalled in the top part 193 of the front side 180 above the belt 150 and a rear idler wheel 194 is journalled in the top part 195 of rear side 182 above the belt. The function of the idler wheels 192 and 194 is to provide a vertical reference established by horizontal reference surface 168 for a card contacting horizontally disposed surface 166 of a pair of a leading edge card gripper 152 and a trailing edge card gripper 154 which is movable with low friction over the horizontal reference surface while the pickup mechanism 38 is in its raised position. Each of the leading edge card grippers 152 and trailing edge card grippers 154 has a retaining pin 196 which is received within a pair of bores 197 within the underside 178 located respectively in the front side 180 and rear side 182. The retaining pin 196 is slidably mounted , ~ .

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within the bores 197 to permit reciprocal motion into and out of the slot 160 respectively grip and release a card from grip. The end 198 of the retaining pin 196 has a small point which is driven into a plastic card to positively grip it in a fixed position when the individual retaining pins 196 are driven into the slot 160 by spring 200 in a manner described, infra. Each retaining pin 196 has a section 199 having a first diameter over which the coil spring 200 passes and a second section 201 having a second diameter which is larger in diameter than the coil spring that stops the coil spring. The coil spring 200 rides against the rear side 182 and the larger diameter section 201 of retaining pin 196 in a comprassed condition to cause at least the point 198 of the retaining pin 196 to be biased into the slot 160.
The gripping of cards firmly by each pair of a leading edge card gripper 152 and a trailing edge card gripper 154 occurs at the card pickup position which is located downstream from the aard insertion position. With reference to Figs. 15 and 16, cam 202 is located at the card insertion po ition which causes a leading edge aard gripper actuator 204 and a trailing edge card gripper actuator 206 to withdraw the respective retaining pins 196 from their first position, which projects at least the point 198 of each individual retaining pin 196 into the slot 160, to their second position in which the retaining pins are totally withdrawn from the slot. The actuators 204 and ~06 are o~

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identical construction with the exception that the arm 208 of the leading edge card gripper actuator 206 projects backward with respect to the direction of travel of the belt 150 while the arm 210 of the trailing edge card gripper actuator projects forward with respect to the direction of travel of the belt. Each o~ the arms 208 and 210 is pivotably attached to the underside 178. ~n idler wheel 212 is joined to the first end of arm 208 and an idler wheel 214 is joined to the first end of arm 210. The second end of arm 208 is joined to the retaining pin 196 of the leading edge card gripper 152 and the second end of arm 210 is joined to the retaining pin 196 of the trailing edge card gripper 154. As a consequence o~
the idler wheels 212 and 214 resting on cam 202, the top edge of a card 22 may be inserted within th~ slot 160 into engagement with the horizontally disposed sur~ace 166 to achieve a vertical reference position with respect to the belt 150. In this position, the point 198 is withdrawn from the position as illustrated in Fig. 20. This vertical reference position is maintained by the pickup mechanism 38 being activated in its raised position at which motor 46 is stalled until the card 22 i5 moved to the pickup position by the card transport 20. The pickup mechanism 38 is lowered when the card transport 20 reaches the ninetieth belt position as described, in~ra. As the belt 150 moves, the cylindrical pin 156 engages the rear edge of the individual card to establish a horizontal re~erence position with respect to ~he . :

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belt. The card insertion position is illustrated in Fig. 15.
At the card pickup position, which is downstream (to the left) from the card insertion position illustratPd in Fig. 15, each o~ the idler wheels 212 and 214 no longer engages the cam 202 ~hich permits the springs 200 associaked wikh the individual retaining pins 196 to ~orce the retaining pins to their first position, as illustrated in Fig. 20, in which at least the point 198 on the retaining pin 196 projects into the slot 160 to firmly grip an individual card 22 in a fixed horizontal and vertical position with respect to the belt 150.
As illustrated in Fig. 17, the individual cards 22 held by a pair of the leading edge card gripper 152 and a trailing edge card gripper 154, are transported past the ambossing units 14 (not illustrated) to the wait station 24.
Wait station 24 has a cam 216 which causes the individual retainers 196 of a pair of a leading edge card gripper 152 and a trailing edge card gripper 154 to release a card 22 from engagement when surface 217 is engaged by the idler wheels 212 and 214. Each card 22 which has been released from the card transport 20 at the wait station 24 awaits pickup by the transport unit 26 to transport the card to the topper 16 in a manner to be described, infra. However, it should be understood that preferably the pickup of the individual cards 22 at the wait station 24 is accomplished in a synchronous manner with the activation of the individual embossers and transport unit 20.

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, Synchronous Operation of Embossin~ Units 14 The activation of the individual embos~ing units 14 and card transport 20 is ~ynchronized to the rotation of motor 114 which is the common drive for the embossing units as illustrated in Fig. 14.
As discussed, supra, each line of characters 62 and ~4 of a card 22 is embossed by a separate one of the embossing units 14r The individuàl embossing units 14 are each continuou~ly activated to cyclically emboss characters or to leave a space in timed relation with the rotation of the associated cam 130. The rotation of one of the cams 130 is used to generate the system timing signal RSHUT and the initial ESHUT timing signal with subsequent ESHUT ~ignals being generated by the master controller. The RSHUT and ESHUT
timing signals illustrated in Fig. 35(c) and (d), respectively, define timed intervals during which thP belt 150 is moved from its current position to the position where the next closest character(s) are to be embossed which may be either a 7 or a 10 pitch character~ Figs. 35(a)-(d) illustrate the preferred timing relationship between the cams 130 for embossing a card 22 having one line 62 of a 7 pitch OCR size and two line 64 of a 10 pitch A/N size with respect to the RSHUT and ESHU~ signals in which the cam 130 for activating the embossing unit 14 for embossing the line 62 of OCR format has a phase 90 before the phase of the .. ~ .

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cams 130 for embossing ~he lines 64 of A/N format. ~ig. 23 illustrates ~he timing between ~he rotation of the cams 130 for driving 7 pitch and 10 pitch embossing units 14. With reference to Fig. 23, a timing disk 218 is attached to one o~
the cams 130 for generating the RSHUT and ESHUT signals. One revolution of the timing disk 218 produces two cycles of the RSHUT signal and four cycles of the ES~UT signal. The inner ring 220 of timing disk 218 generates the RSHUT signal and the outer ring 222 generates the ESHUT signal. A pair o~
photosensors, not illustrated, respectively generate the RSHUT
and ESHUT signal.
The function of the RSHUT and ESHUT signals is described as follows. As illustrated in Fig. 23, the timing disk 218 is attached to one of the cams 130 with a position which will cause a transition of the RSHUT signal illustrated in Fig. 35(c) from a high level to a low level immediately after the lobe 132 of cam 130 ha~ passed the wheel 140 mounted in arm 134. The RSHUT signal is square wave having a period of 110 milliseconds divided into a high period of 55 milliseconds and a low period of 55 milliseconds. As illustrated in Fig. 35(c~, the ESHUT signal divides each o~
the 55 millisecond periods o~ the R5HUT signal into a high and a low period. The ESHU~ signal is low for approximately 25 milliseconds immediately ~ollowing a transition of the RSHUT signal and then high ~or the remaining 30 milliseconds.
The RSHUT signal and ESHUT signal are used by the master .~ .,: ' ' ". ' :'`. ' :. ..

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controller described, in~ra, in the control o~ the emhossing process. Transitions of the RSHUT signal generate an interrupt and synchxonize an internal timer in the master controller. The internal timer i~ used to measure the 25 and 30 millisecond intervals and generate simulated versions of the RS~T and ESHUT signals that are passed by the input hopper/topper controller, and embossing unit controllers. The ESHUT signal from the disk is only used when starting the system to prevent movement of the wheels 66 and 70 or the card transport 20 when the arms 90 are pressing the rams 88 against the characters in the punch wheel 66 and die wheel 70.
When the motor 114 illustrated in Fig. 14 ~or driving the embossing units 14 is running, the RSHUT and ESHUT
signals will be synchronized to the cam 130 with the kiming disk 218 attached thereto. The common belt drive 112 insures that the other cams 130 and associated embossing units 14 are also synchronized. When the motor 114 is not running, the internal timer o~ the master controller simulates ~he signals to allow operation of the system without embossing. The RSHUT
signal is used to maintain synchronism between the various processors and the cams 130. As illustrated in Fig. 35(a) and (b), during the high period o~ the RSHUT signal, only the 10 pitch A/N embossers will be embossed and during the low period, only the 7 pitch OCR embosser will be emboesed. As illustrat~d in Fig. 35(e), the ESHUT ~ignal de~ines the .

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25 millisecond period when the arms 9o are in th~ position which does not cause ~he rams 88 to contack the individual characters of the punch wheel 66 and die wheel 70. The 25 millisecond period o~ the ES~JT 8ignal iS referred to as the "MOVE" interval hereafter. As illustrated in ~ig. 34(e), the ESHUT signal also defines the 30 millisecond period when communications occur between the master controller and the hopper/topper and embosser unit controllers. The 30 millisecond period when communications occur is referred to as the EMBOSS interval hereafter. During the MOVE period, the belt 150 i~ moved to position the card at the position o~
belt 150 of next closest character(s~ to be embossed on any one of the horizontally disposed lines 62 or 64. During the ~MBOSS period, the belt 150 cannot move i~ a character is being embossed at any one o~ the embossing units 14.

Initialization When the system is started from a power-off aondition or a~ter an error, it is necessary to initialize each o~ the mechanisms. The wheels 66 and 70 in each embossing unit 14 are rotated until the position without embossing elements is at the embossing position. The belt 150 is moved to position 0. As illustrated in Fig. 7 at the position 0, a card that i8 properly attached to the belt 150 would be positioned at an embosser unit 14 such that the vertical centerline of the ~irst emhossed charactar would be :. ., .:: : :.

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.401 inches from the left edge of the card as discussed, inPra. The rack motor 46 of the input hopper 12 is driven to a home po~ition that will allow the first card to be selecked from the supply in the hopper. The heated platen 28 in the topper 16 is moved to its fully retracted position and the stacker gate 302 is moved to the rearmost position.

Card Transport Control and Algorithm for Computing the Closest Next Character(s~

The embosser control algorithm functions to compare data records for the three cards being embossed by the in line embossing units 14 to determine the next closest character(s) to be embossed for all of the embosser units with respect to the current position of the belt 150 as measured in increments from 0 to 180 as illustrated in Fig. 7. The algorithm determines the position of the next closest chararter(s) with respect to the current position of the belt 150 (0-280) to identify the position to which the belt should be moved for embossing the next character. As has been described, ~
with regard to the card tran~port 20, the respective embossing units 14 are separated in line by four inches which is equal to the distance covered by one revolution of the drive pulley 170 of the drive motor and encoder 174 for the belt 150 and is broken up into 280 units per revolution. By choosing increments of l/70th of an inch for moving the belt under the control of drlve motor and encoder 174, the displacement of the belt 150 to the next closest character can be achieved by ., . .
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moving an integer number of increments regardless of whether the closest next character is a 7 pitch or a lo pitch character.
The character placement on the card is determined by the number of increments moved from the current position o~
belt 150 to the position of the closest next character(s) before embossing takes place. Fig. 7 illustrates the embossing field on a card running from the 0 position of the belt to the 180 position of the card 22. The cylindrical pin 156 of the trailing edge card retainer 154 insures that each card 22 is gripped at the same position on the belt 150 for each of the card grippers 148. The first character of each line, which has a 0 reference position on the belt 150, is chosen to have its vertical centerline located at a distance of 0.401 inches from the left-hand edge of the card 22. The right-hand margin, spanning the position 180 and the right-hand edge of the card 150, is of width similar to the left-hand margin. Characters on a 10 pitch line will be embossed at positions 0, 7, 14, 21...168 and 175. These positions are separated by seven increments of the belt 150 equal to 0.1 inches. The characters on a 7 pitch line will be located at positions 0, 10, 20...170 and 180. These positions are separated by 10 increments of the belt 150 equal to 0.143 inches. Thus, the length of the ~ield on which characters may be embossed on the individual cards 22 is 180 units long out ., . . .. - :

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of the total of 280 units moved per revolution o~ tha drive pulley 170.
Movement o~ the belt 150 must be accomplished during the MOVE periods of the rotation of cam 130 when the arms 90 are not causing the rams 88 to contact the character elements within tha punch wheel 6~ and die wheel 70. The motor 174, which drives the belt 150, is capable o~ advanclng the belt 10 increments in the normal 25 millisecond ~OVE
period. If the master controller has determined that there is no embossing activity at any embosser during the next E~BOSS
period, it is possible to move the belt 150 a distance o~
110 increments. This capability is due to the ~act that even though the rams 88 are always cycliaally pushed towards the character elements by the rams 88 during the EMBOSS period, the punch wheel 66 and die wheel 70 will be positioned under the control of the master controller to the circumferential position 77 described, ~YB~3~ which contains no characters.
The card will therefore be ~ree to move and the MOVE period may be extended to include a MOVE, EMBOSS, and a MOVE period ~or a total o~ 80 milliseconds. When the MOVE period is entered, the motor 174 ~or the belt 150 is commanded to move the belt to a position number that has been computed during the previous RSHUT period as described, in~ra. This value may initiate a MOVE ~rom O to 110 increments.

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. , ", In the preferred embodiment illustrated in Fig. 2, where a total of three embossers are used to embo~s three vertically separated horizontally disposed lines o~
characters, flow of card records within the system is illustrated as in ~ig. 24. As illustrated in Fig. 24, individual cards 22 are moved by the card transport 20 which is illustrated as an arrow between the successively positioned eMbossers 14 to the wait station 24. The individual cards are moved to the topper mechanism 16 by the transport unit 26 which is also illustrated as a labeled arrow. A queue of data buffers 229, which is comprised o~ a main data buffer 231, first embosser buffer 233, second e~bosser buffer 235, third embosser buffer 237, wait buffer 239 and topper bu~fer 241 sequentially stores the individual records. The plurality of buffers are implemented in main memory by pointer~ which point to successive blocks of memory to produce the shifting operation of data which is indicated by the arrows pointing to the right from each of the buffers 231-241. Since a queue of buffers implemented in main memory is w211 known, the implementation will not be discussed in detail herein. The main memory is contained in the ma~ter controller discussed, supra. The wai~ bu~fer 239 is not involved in any control function.
The data is received ~rom the tape in E~CDIC code and is translated in ASCII as it i8 placed into the main buffer 231 by a program implemented by the master controller.

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When the master controller is read to accept a data record for embossing a card, it will transfer the contents of the main buffer sequentially into the embossing unit buffers 233-237, wait buffer 239 and topper buffer 241 by the time an end of line code has been detected in all of the bu~fers. The data for line 1 associated with the data record stored in embosser buffer 233 is coupled to embosser no. 1, the data record for line 2 associated with the data record stored in embosser 235 is coupled to embosser no. 2 and the data record for line 3 associated with the data record stored in embosser 237 is coupled to embosssr no. 3. By the time an end of line command has been detected in the processing of khe data records by each of the embosser buffers Z33-237, the pointers of the embossers 1-3 are shifted to point to the area in main memory where the next data record to be embossed by the associated embossers is located. The shifting of the pointers effectively produces a shifting of the data records within the buffers which is synchronized with the physical passage of the card to be embossed between the successive embossing units 14 to produce the sequential embossing of the three lines of data on the card 62 and 64 of Fig. 7. The section of the main memory in the master controller which implements the queue of buffers 229 is updated with data records from the magnetic tape unit as oards are embossed.

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The movement of the belt 150 is controlled by sending the belt position of the closest next character(s) to the encoder logic of the drive motor 174. The encoder logic of the motor 174 computes the number of steps to be moved to reach the position of the closest next character(s) and controls the movement of the belt to that position.
The closest next character(s)1 belt position is defined as the closest position to the present position of belt 150 at which a character is to be embossed by any of the three embossing units 14. This position is determined by a search algorithm contained in the belt control section. This algorithm is invoked during the MOVE portion of the RSHUT
signal of Fig. 35(e).
The search algorithm uses several registers and flags in a belt control work space, as well as values contained in the control blocks for each of the embosser buffers, which are described, infra. The values of interest in the belt control work space are:
NUPOS Last position passed to encoder logic.
NXTPOS Next desired belt position.
NXTCOM Next position for communication.

.

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. . .

., . .
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~ 7'~3 The flags assigned are:

SLVRDY This flag iB true when data has been received from the magnetic tape unit into the main buf~er 231 and attached to the embossing gueue.
SLVACT This flag is true if a card is being embossed and i8 false when no data is ready for embossing and the belt is idle.
SKPFLG This ~lag is true if the last MOVE passed to the encoder logic of the drive motor 174 requires more than one MOVE
cycle to complete (i.e. if a MOVE was greater than 10 steps of the motor).
COMFLG This flag is true if an em~ossable character was communicated during the last communication cycle.
The control block of each of the buffers 231-241 described, supra, in Fig. 24 has an 8 register task control block (TCB) which contains the necessary parameters and pointers required for control of the embossing function. The definitions of the reglsters are:

TCFLG This register contains two eight bit characters. One character holds the status byte received from the device byte during each communication cycle. The other contains ~lags that are set by the user or the ~elt control program to facili ate control of the data transfer to this device. De~initions of these flags are:
FLG10 This flag signifies that a device i8 associated with a 10 pitch RSHUT signal.
FLG7 This flag signifies that a device is associated with a 7 pitah RSHUT signal.

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EOBF~G This flag siynifies that an end of line code has been ~ound in the embosser buffer or that no bu~fer was assigned.
CHRFLG This flag signi~ies that a character is avaîlable in the embosser bu~er 233-237 but has not yet been communicated to the embossing unit 14.
Communications between the master controller and the controllers for each of the embossing units 14 are described, infra, in conjunction with the Fig. 35(e)~
TCCHR This register stores the next character to be transmittPd to the embossing unit 14.
TCBUF This register contains the address in the main memory assigned to the particular embossing unit.
TCPTR This register contains the index to the next byte in the bu~fer to be outputted to its as30ciated embossing unit 14. This value i~ an offset ~rom the beginning o~
the buf~er which ranges from 0 to 127 depending upon the address o~ the aharacter to be outputted.
TCPOS This register contains the number of the belt position where the contents of the TCCHR which ranges from O to 280. This range represents the number o~ 1/70 inch increments to be moved by the drive motor 174 in the four inch spacing between embossing units 14.
TCCNT Thi~ register contains the count of characters embos~ed on this card. This value is used to compute the ~opper pressure value.
TCAFLG This register contains the inclusive OR
condition o~ all o~ the statu~ bytes received from the embossing unit 14 during the proce~sing o~ one line of data 62 or 64 on the card 22 a~ illustrated in ~ . .

.

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TCPARM This register contains the character entered by the operator into the devic~
status table to define the operation of embossing unit 14 as either a 7 pitch or 10 pitch unit.
The belt control program is entered at each transition of the RSHUT signal. The internal timer, re~erred to, supra, is set to measure the lnterval of 25 milliseconds that is defined by the MOVE cycle. Tha contents of the belt ~ork space will now be examined to determine if a ne~ position number of the belt 150 (0-2~0) should be sent to the encoder logic. If the values of the flags SLVACT and SLVRDY are both false, no further action takes place during the MOVE cycle.
If the value SLVRDY i8 true, all values and flags will be initialized within the belt work space and the TCB's will be set to the starting conditions for a new line and the flag SLVACT will be set true. The flags SKPFLS and COMFLG will be set false~ The values NUPOS, NXTPOS, NXTCOM will all be set to zero and the belt work space and the TCPOS register of each TCB will be set equal to zero. If an offset was entered in the embossing unit 14 status tab1e by the operator, this value will be placed in the TCPOS registsr to adjust the line starting position. The control program will then execute the search algorithm to prepare for the communication cycle that follows.
If the SLVACT flag is trua, the program will determine if a new position code should be sent to the encoder logic of ~he drlve motor 174. If the value of the SKPFLG is .. .. . .. ..
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false, and the contents of the NUPOS and NXTPOS are nok equal, tha contents of NXTPOS are sent to the encoder loyic for motor 174 and transferred to the memory location NUPOS. If the SKPFLG flag is true, it will be set false and no transfer to the encoder logic of the motor 174 will occur.
The length of the move to be made is computed and if it i~ greater than lo belt spaces, the SKPFLG flag will be set true. If the length is less than or equal to 10 steps, the contents of NXTCOM will be transferred to NXTPOS to prepare for the next move of the belt.
A maximum for the search range is compuked by adding a value to the next belt position held in NUPOS. This value will be selected under the control o~ the COMFLG flag. IF the COMFLG flag is true indicating that communication occurred in the previous cycle, the value to be added is limited to 10 since a full stop will be requixed to emboss the closest next character that was transmitted to one or more of the embossing units 14. If the value of the COMFLG flag is false, the value added will be 110 since two move cycles are possible. This value is then established as the NXTCOM value to be uæed during the communication cycle.
The search algorithm is now invoked to test each embosser TCB to determine the next position of khe belt 150 ak which the closest next charaater(~) i5 to be embos~ed by one or more of the embossing units 14. The characker located at the buffer location stored in the register TCPTR is tested to , , ,,, .-.
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determine if it is a space character, an embossable character, or an end-of-line character. A space character causes the ganged punch whPel 66 and die wheel 70 to be rotated by the shaft encoder 76 to a position where no character is located and an embossable character causes the punch wheel 66 and die wheel to be rotated to a position by the shaft coder and motor 76 where a selected character will be embossed.
If a space character is found, the TCPTR register will be incremented by one to select the next character in the buf*er and the TCPOS value will be incremented by 7 if the FLG10 flag is true or 10 if the FLG7 flag is true. The test will be repeated until either an embossable character or an end-of-lina character is found. If an end-o~-line character is found, the EOBFLG flag will be set and the value of TCPOS
will be set to 280 representing the start of the next line.
Thus, each time an end-of-line character is found, the position of the shaft encoder and motor 76 is reset to zero to start the processing cycle over.
If the character which i~ detected is embossable, the CHRFLG flag will be set true and the program will proceed to test the TCB associated with the next embossing unit 14.
After each TCB is searched, the TCPOS value in its TCB is compared to the NXTCOM value computed at the beginning of the search phase. If the TCPOS i~ less than the NXTCOM, than the TCPOS will be set as the new maximum.

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Wh~n all the TCB's have been searched, the program will wait for the end of the MOVE period and the beginning of the communication cycle. A~ the end of the 25 millisecond MOVE interval, the timer interrupt will cause the belt control logic to become active again. As illustrated in Fig. 35(e), five communication intervals are allowed during the EMBOSS
interval of each ESHUT signal cycle for a total of 15 milliseconds in which to complete communications between the master controller and the hopper/topper processor or the embossing unit processors. The timer will be set to measure a communication interval of 3 milliseconds. This period is the time allotted for communication to each of the controllers of the embossing units 14 and the controllers controlling the hopper 12 and topper 16 which is illustrated in Fig. 35(e) by the reference numeral "¦3¦". As illustrated in Fig. 36(a), the communication interval "CTSn", which represents any one of the controllers controlling the hopper 12 and topper 16 and embossing units 14 is 3 milliseconds. As illustrated in Figs. 36(b)-(c), duri~g the 3 millisecond interval for each processor, a communication must occur between the master controller and the addressed controller and an acknowladgment from the addressed controller to the mas~er must occur to prevent an error flag from being set.
At the beginning of the 15 millisecond communication phase within the EMBOSS interval of Fig. 35(e), a sequential list containing the belt positions where action i~ required by ` ~:

.

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the input hopper 12 or the topper 16 is examined to determine if the belt has reached a position for transmission o~ the command. In some cases, the NXTCOM value, supra, will be replaced by a new VAlUe if a response is re~uired from the hopper/topper controller before the belt 150 can move past a certain point. This provides the mechanism for causing the system to wait for a card to be received from the input hopper 12 or the topper 16 to be clear.
The TCBIs are examined during the communication phase in the order of the oscillograms of Flgs. 34(f)-(i) labeled "CTS4", "CTS3", "CTS2", and "CTSl". If the embossing unit 14 is embossing during this phase of the RSHUT signal, and the value o~ the TCPOS entry in the TCB associated with the embossing unit is less than or equal to the value in the NXTCOM register, the contents of the TCCHR register will be transmitted and the COMFLG flag will be set in the belt work space and the CHRFLG flag in the TCB will be reset. If the value in the TCPO5 register is greater than the value in the NXTCOM register, a value of zero or a space code will be transmittad. The embossing unit 14 for which the character is intended is selected by setting the appropriate one of the CTS
signals 1-3 to the active condition. If the embossing unit 14 is not embossing during this phase of RSHUT, no communication is initiated and no adjustment of the flags occur.
The master controller will now wait for the end of the 3 millisecond communication interval and then examine ...
..
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. .
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the active TCB associated with the embossing unit 14 to which the communication should have taken place to determine if in fact the communication took place. If a character was sent, the CTSn signal associated with that embossing unit 14 is reset to an inactive state and the communication hardware is tested to see if a character was received. If no character was received, a flag is set in the TCB to indicate that a device timeout has occurred. The character received is placed in the TCFLG flag portions of the TCB associated with the embossing unit 14 to which communication is occurring to indicate the device status. After the last TCB has been processed, the system will wait ~or the next change of the RSHUT signal which restarts the complete procedure.

Topper 16 The topper 16 functions to apply a plastic topping material to the top of the embossed characters which have been embossed by each of the embossiny units 14 to provide highlighting. The topper 16 is operated synchronously with the operation of the card transport 20 and is preferably activated when the belt has reached position 160.
Figs. 25-27 illustrate the transport unit 26 of the topper 16. The transport unit 26 of the topper consists of a DC motor 232, which activates helt driven rollers 234 and an additional belt driven roller 242. The periphery of the belt driven rollers 234 engages the uppar edge of a card 22 to . .
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drive the card from the wait station to a topping position.
The lower end of the card 22 engages a metal track 236 which guides the card from the wait station to the topping station.
Each o~ the belt driven rollers 234 is mounted on a suspension consisting of a pivoted arm 238 which carries the individual rollers 234. The pivoted arm 238 is biased into a downward position, as illustrated, by spring 240 when a card is travelling along the metal track 236 of a conventional width, such as a credit card. The peripheral surface of the individual wheels 234 engages the upper edge of the card without substantial upward deflection. However, cards of a greater width than the standard width will cause the arm 238 to be pivoted upward against the action o~ spring 240 to permit movemenk o~ cards of a larger width without adjustment. The driven roller 242 located upstream from the rollers 234 cooperates with idler roller 244 to move the card from the wait station to the point of engagement o~ its upper edge with the rollers 234. Each of the driven rollers 234 and 242 is driven by a pulley 246 driven by belt 248 that is driven by DC motor 232. A spring retainer 249 maintains the cards in a vertical position against a vertical support surface 251.
The motor 232 operates at two speeds during the transport of the card 22 from the wait station 24 to the topping station. The motor 232 is stopped from the time interval that the card is located at the topping ~tation . ~

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until the belt 150 has reached the 160th increment.
Position 160 is the point at which the belt 150 will be limited if the topper transport unit 26 is not clear and a card is presently in the wait station ready to enter the topper 16. If the transport unit 26 i8 clear, a control message will be sent to the hopper/topper controller indicating that a card presently in the wait station and the motor 232 should be activated. When the metal track 236 is empty, the motor 232 is operated at a higher speed.
Sensor ~50, which is located downstream from the upstream driven roller 242 and idler roller 244, detects the presence of the right-hand edge of a card 22 to signal the master controller that the speed of rotation of the DC motor 232 should be slowed down to the slower drive speed. A second sensor (not illustrated) senses when the le~t-hand edge of the card has reached the topping position in front of the topper at which topping will be performed. When the second sensor detects the left-hand edge of a card, the master controller commands the DC motor 232 to stop the card at the topping position.
Figs. 28-31 illustrate the construction of the portion of the topper which performs the topping. The electrically heated platen 28 is supported by a parallelogram suspension 251 which permits the platen to be moved from a first position remote from the surface of a card which has the embossed characters to be topped to a second positlon at which . .:. ,:

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a surface 252 of the platen forces a topping beariny foil 254 which is aluminum coated with a layer of h~at fusible plastic on the surface facing the characters to be embossed. The movement of the heated platen 2~ from its first position to its second position causes the active surface 252 to engage the back surface of the topping bearing foil 254 to cause the plastic bearing front surface of the foil to contact the embossed characters to heat fu~e the topping material to the characters.
The parallelogram 251 suspension has a pair of thin, flat metallic flexor springs 256 which are mounted parallel to each other. The flexor springs 256 have first ends 258 which are joined to a fixed base 258 and second ends 260 which are joined to the heated platen 28. The springs 250 have an elongated cross section extending across the width of the platen parallel to the direction of motion of a card by the transport unit 26 of the topper. The spacing between the first ends of the flexor springs 256 at the point of connection to the base 258 is equal to the spacing of the point of connection of the second ends to a mounting block 262. The front surface of the mounting block 262 is connected to a plastic plate 264 whi~h is connected to the heated platen 28. Because of the uniform spacing between the first ends and the second ends o~ the flexor springs 256 as respectively joined to the base 258 and the mounting block 260, movement of the heated platen 28 from the first , ~, ....... .. . . . .

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position to the second posi~ion is accomplished with the active surface 252 ~eing maintained parallel to the vertical support sur~ace 26~ which ensures that pressure will be uniformly applied by the drive 268 to all of the charact~rs to be topped. The drive unit 268 has an eccentric drive 270 which is driven by an electric motor 272 which is controlled to produce a torque during topping which is a linear ~unction of the number of characters which are embossed on the card.
Ths control information of the amount of force to be applied by the motor 272 is obtained from the TCCNT register of the control block 241. The eccentric drive 270 has an eccentrically driven link 273 that drives the heated platen 28 from its first withdrawn position to its second position illustrated in Fig. 30 where the toppiny is applied to the embossed characters as a result of the motor 272 being stalled by a torque proportional to the number of characters which are embossed on the card. After the card is topped, the motor 272 is commanded to be rever~ed to withdraw the heated platen 28 from its second position back to its first position as illustrated in Fig. 31.
The topper motor 272 is controlled with two modes of operation. In the first mode of operation, the motor 272 drives the assembly towards the card to be topped until it passes sensor 274 at which point the second mode o~ operation is entered at which the command ~or the motor 272 is to drive : ,. .

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, ~ ~ 7~3 the motor with a torque proportional to the number o~
characters embossed on the card to be topped.
The foil transport mechanism functions 30 to supply foil from a roll of foil 278 over a fixed foil yuide 280 mounted below the heated platen 28, between the active surface 252 and the vertical support surface 266, over a deflectable foil guide 282 mounted above the heate~ platen and to a take up roll 284. The deflectable foil guide is spring biased into a first position by spring 286. The motor 272 stalls the heated platen 28 in contact with the backside of the foil for a time sufficient to heat fuse the plastic coating on the front onto the embossed characters of the card. Thereafter~ when the motor 272 is commanded to be reversed by the master controller, an acute angle "a", as illustrated in Figs~ 30 and 31, is formed between the vertical support surface 266 and the foil located between a card and the deflectable foil guide 282. A motor powering the take up roll 284 is commanded to wind up the length of the foil which was heat fused to the card. The ~orce exerted by the motor is sufficient to rotate the deflectable foil guide 282 from its first position to a second position to increase the acute angle "a" between the vertical support surface 266 and the foil loaated between the card and the deflectable foil guide to cause the foil 254 to be peeled away ~rom contact with the embossed characters. A support surface 290, having a first end 290' a second end 290 " and an intermediate . :
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section ~92 connecting the first and second ends provides arigid support ~or the vertical support surface 2~6 joined thereto and the eccentric crank 270. The intermediate section 290' is located on the side of the platen 28 opposite a vertical slot 294 used ~or guiding a leader of a new roll 284 o~ film 254 over the foil drive unit 30 and is preferably narrower than the first end 290' and the second end 290 " . The rigidity of the support surface 290 ensures that substantial parallelism will be maintained between the active sur~ace 252 of a heated platen 28 and the vertical support surface 266 during the heat fusing of the topping material to the embossed characters on the card. Rigidity ensures that each of the characters is uniformly topped. The intermediate section 292 of the support surface 290 is located opposite a vertical slot 294 running between the active surface 252 of the heated platen 250 and the vertical support surface 266. The vertical slot 294 permits a new roll of topping bearing ~oil 254 to be threaded over the foil drive unit 30 without requiring splicing as in the prior art described, supra.
The plastic plate 264 and the fl~xor springs 256 isolate the drive mechanism 268 for the platen from the substantial heat generatad by the heated platen 28 which lessens the likelihood of failure caused in the drive mechanism by heat such as with the heat degradation of grease in the prior art topping mechanisms. ~he ~lexor springs '"' ,;

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conduct and radiate substantial heat away from the drive mechanism. The parallelogram suspension 251 maintains the active surface 252 parallel with surface 266 to produce a uniform topping on all characters.
Two types of in~ormation are transmitted ~rom the control block to the topper controller which are a flag that indicates whether the card has been processed without error and the count of embossed characters that appear on the card. I~ the error flag indicates that an error is present, the card is passed through the topper 16 without the motor 272 being activated which prevents it from being topped.

tacker 18 Figs. 32 and 33 illustrate the preferred construction of the stacker 18~ The stacker 18 contains a tray 296 which is divided into a front section 298 for receiving cards which have been embossed without an error and a rear section 300 which receives cards which have been embossed during an error condition. Error detection is conducted by the master controller to detect in the embosser units 14 data errors, transmission errors and functional errors. Data errors are found by checking that the data received from the magnetic tape source is within the range of characters that may be embossed. This test is accomplished by a translation table in the master controller that converts the EBCDIC format of the tape to the ASCII format used within the . . .

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~ ~ 7~3~j system. If a character is received from the tape that cannot be translated into ASCII, it will cause the system to halt with a message displayed on the operator console indicating the error. Checking for data errors occurs when the characters are transmitted to the various embossing units 14.
Each embossing unit 14 will check the characters against a table that contains all legal characters contained on its punch wheel 66 and die wheel 70. If the received character is not found in the table, it will be translated into a space and an error signal will be transmitted to the master controller that an illegal character was received. Embossing will then continue until the belt 150 has arrived at position 0 prior to starting the next card and the system will then stop. The cause of error will be displayed on the operator aonsole 6 in association with the unit in the system that detected it.
Transmission o~ data between the master controller and the other controllers follows the standards for serial, asynchronous transmission. Each character is transmitted as a 10 bit group wherein the first and last bits represent a start and a stop framing bit. The other 3 bits form the character that is to be transmittedO The receiving circuits become active upon the detection of the start bit, accept the next 8 bits as a character and then check to ensure that there is a valid stop bit. If an error is detected, it will be reported to the master controller and embossing will continue until the card is complete as described, supra.

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Another type of error that may occur during transmission is the case where a character is transmitted from the master controller to one of the other controllers and that controller requires that the system be restarted since it is assumed that a controller requires repair or replacement.
Functional errors in the hopper/topper controllers are detected by measuring the interval of time required for a specific device to perform a function. These time intervals are measured by counting cycles of a repetitive program loop that monitors the activity of all devices. Whenever the controller initiates a function by starting a motor, a counter is set to a value that represents the number of cycles that are allowed for the motor to successfully complete the operation. This counter is decremented by the controller at the end of each cycle if it is found to be non-zero. I~ the counter goes to zero during the decrementing process, it will indicate that the function was not completed in the allowed interval. If the function were to complete before the interval expires, the counter would b0 set to zero by the control logic for khe function.
Functional errors of the above type are reported to the master controller and will cause an immediate stop and reset of the system to prevent damage to the mechanism. The cause of error is reported on the CRT in the area associated with the hopper or the topper depending on which device caused the failure.

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The embosser controllers and the section of the master controller for the drive of belt 190 use the signals from the timing disk 218 to detect functional ~aults in the drive motors. The embossers receive charackers to be embossed during tha RSHUT interval assigned to them by the pitch at which they will emboss. When the RSHUT signal changes state, the embosser module will start to drive ~he type wheel to the selected position. This motion must be completely accomplished before the ESHUT high state of the next RSHUT
interval that selects this embosser occurs. A failure to complete is defined as a selection error and reported to the master controller. The master controller will begin to drive the belt 150 to the next selected posikion as the RSHUT signal changes state. All motion must be accompliFhed before an ESHUT high state occurs at an active embosser. Failure to accomplish this will cause an error condition that will require a complete restart to properly initialize the belt and embosser encoders.
The master controller will also initiate a time counter when embossing of a line beginE,. The embossing of the line must be completed by the end of th~ interval allowed or it is assumed that the belt has become jammed and the systsm is shut down.
As described, supra, sensors are provided at the throat 55 of the input hopper 12 and at each of the embosser units 14 to detect the presence of a card. If a card is not .

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present at the throat sensor 60 after the rack 40 has moved to the top of its stroke, ~he feed cycle will be automatically repeated. If a card fails to appear on the second cycle, an error message will be sent to the master controller indicating the condition. ~he system will then stop and wait for the operator to reinitiate embossing after correcting the fault.
If a card fails to appear at one of the embossing units 14 when it should, the fact will be detected by the sensor 106. This test is made as the belt arrives at position 0 and the system will stop at this point until the operator restarts it.
Detection of errors which cannot be corrected without restarting operation of the system causes a stacker gate 302 to be moved by the activation of motor 304 to align the exit slot 306 from the topper 16 with the rear section 300 of the tray 296 to receive cards which are erroneous. During the normal mode of operation, the ~.tacker gate 302 is positioned to couple the exit slot 306 to the front section 298 of tray 296. A spring loaded plate 308 pushes the re;ected cards 308 against the back side of gate 302. A
spring loaded plate 310, which is guided by rod 312, pushes the properly embossed cards against the front side of the gate 302. The error flag stored in the control block of the hopper/topper buffer controls the motor 304 to position gate 302.

.
~, ' .. ....

Siqnificant Control Positions of the Belt 150 The operation of many of the parts of the embossing system o~ the present invention is synchronized with the movement of the belt 150 through re~erence positions.
Significant belt positions are stored in a table which are pointed to sequentially by a pointer. The significant belt positions are 20, 50, 90, 160 and 180. Belt positions 50, 160 and 180 establish stops for the belt 150 that may not be passed until certain conditions are met. Position 20 is the point at which the pin 156 has moved clear of the input hopper 12 and a command may be sent to start the feed cycle of the rack drive motor 46. When it is determined that the next MOVE period wi]l advance the belt past position 20, the command for starting the rack drive motor 46 will be transmitted to the hopper/topper processor. The transmission of this command will occur only during the low RSHUT period when the embos~ing unit for 7 pitch characters is active as illustrated in Fig. 34(d). Position 50 is the position when a pair of a leading edge card gripper 152 and a trailing edge card gripper 154 are positioned in the card insertion position directly above the input hopper 12 as described, supra. The belt 150 will not advance past this point until status information from the hopper/topper processor indicates that a card has been placed into the slot 160 into engagement with the horizontally disposed surface 166. This condition is determined by the master controller checking if the rack drive . .~ .

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motor 46 has stalled which signifies that the top edye of a card has contacted the horizontally disposed surface 166. The rack motor 46 is maintained in the stalled condition until the belt 150 has moved to position 90 and then a command is issued to drive the rack 40 to iks lower position. Position 160 is the position at which the belt 150 will be stopped if the sensor 274 does not detect the right edge of a card which signifies that a card is presently in the wait station 24.
If the sensor 274 is clear/ a control message is sent to the hopper/topper controller to activate the motor 232 to transport a card from the wait station. Position 180 is a point at which the belt 150 will wait for one cycle of the cam 130 to allow time for the motor 232 to move a card fully from disengagement with the pair of a leading edge card gripper 152 and a trailing edge card gripper 154 by front idler wheel 186 and rear idler wheel 188 engaging cam 216.
This action is initiated by the card entering the engagement with driven roller 242 and.idler roller 244 between positions 160 and 180.

Example of Embossing of 7 and 10 Pitch Characters on a Card Fig. 33 illustrates an example of the embossing of a single line of 7 pitch OCR numbers from a data record from a second card and of a single llne of A/N characters from a data record for a first card as they are processed by an embossing system having two in line embossers instead of the three .. . .
,. ' ' ' ' ' ' ' : ' ' ~ ~ 7;~

emboss~rs illustrated in the preferred embodiment of Fiy. 2 of the present invention. The example demonstrates the operation of the algorithm to identify the closest next character for eI.~ossing single lines on two cards. However, it should be understood that the preferred embodiment operates in the same manner as the example described below except that one additional embosser unit 14 and embosser buffer are involved.
The data racord which is being processed to produce OCR
numhers is "5237" and the data record which is being processed to produce A/N characters is "JOHN DOE". By the time embossing of these lines is complete, the data records are changed such that the data reaord for card number two is discarded because its A/N characters "SAM SMITHIl would have been previously e~bossed before the embossing of the "JOHN
DOE" record described with the example, the data record for card 1 becomes the data record for card 2 and another previously unprosessed data record would become the data record for card number 1. This transfer i6 accomplished by shifting the pointers to the embosser buffers to the correct locations in the main memory where the new records are stored. The reference to "buffer number 1, buffer number 2"
refers to the corresponding buffers illustrated in Fig. 24.
The legend "Data Record" identifies the rows of 7 pitch and 10 pitch data which are contained in the respective fields of cards 1 and 2. It should be noted that the six digit card identification number which appears in each data record has : ', :

been omitted and that further the third field which would be present in the embossment of a data record having the ~ormat of Fig. 7 has been omitted for purposes of simplifying the example. A command to leave a blank space on a card is indicated by an underscored line. The number appearing vertically below the number or character is the location on the belt 150 at which the number or character is to be embossed. An asterisk indicates an end-of-line command which signals that processing of that line is complete.
The column headed by "curren~ belt position"
identifies the current position of the belt 150 and the column labelled "belt position, closest next characters and card"
respectively identify the current po ition of the belt 150 and the position of the closest next character, the character's identification as signified by quotation marks and the data record to which the character belongs as identified by the parenthetical reference to 1 or 2 which signifies card 1 or 2.
The control of the belt 150 is as follows in the example. At current belt position zero while embossing the "J" of the card 1 and the "5i' of card 2, the closest next character's belt position is seen to be position 7 where the letter "0" ~rom the JOHN DOE record o~ card number 1 is contained. When the current position of the belt 150 is 7, the position of the clo~est next character is position 10 which corresponds to the numeral "2" of the "5237" record of card number 2. At the position 10 o~ belt 150, the closest .;, ~, ~ ,.. .
, . ~ '' ' " :
. - ''~ , " .' .
... .

next character is at belt position 14 wherein the letter "H'~
from the JOHN DOE record of card number 1 is located. A blank space is not considered to be a character which causes the pointer to the current character in the buffer to be advanced. Processing for each sequential belt position occurs in the following manner until the end-of-line command is reached in the "JOHN DOE" record at which time shiftiny oP the pointers to the memory occurs to change the contents of buffars 1 and 2 as described above. More than one character from multiple data records may be the closest next character(s) when a plurality of embossing units 14 are being used to emboss characters of the same pitch as is the case with the data record illustrated in Fig. 1.
Fig. 37 illustrates a simplified schematic of the master controller 310 used by the present invention. The actual circuitry for implementing the master controller 310 is illustrated in Figs. 41-42. The function o~ the master controller 310 is to control communications throughout the system. Identical reference numbers are used herein to identify the same parts identified by the same reference numerals in the previous figures. Input communications are received from the operakor console 6, magnetic tape drive 312 and control panel 8. The master controller 310 performs the functions of managing input commun1cations by a tape controller section 314 and a command proce~sor and status reporting section 316. The belt position control section 318 .~

- ' ~ ,':

~ 3~3~

controls the operation of the drive motor 174 in the manner described, supra. The master time control section 320 responds to the RSHUT and ESHUT signals generated by the timing disk 218 attached to the cam 216 o~ the third embossing unit 14. Transitions of the disk generated RSHUT signal generate an interrupt and synchronize the internal timer for generating the ESHUT signal which is generated internally by the master time control ~ection. ~s described, supra, the disk generated ESHUT signal is only used when starting the system to prevent movement of the punch wheel 66 and die wheel 70 or card transport belt 150 when the rams 88 are pressing the punch and dies against a card. The communication control section 322 communicates the labelled output signals to the communication bus 324 which is coupled to three identical embosser controllers 326 and a hopper/topper controller 328. A read-write memory 323 stores information generated dynamically during operation. The prefPrred electrical circuitry for implementing the individual embosser controllers 326 is described, infra, in conjunction with Fig 43. The preferred circuitry for implementing the hopper/topper controller 328 is described, infra, in conjunction with Fig. 44. The master controller 310 also controls the embosser drive motor 114 which, through belt 112, provides powex for each of the in line embossing units 14.

, - ,. . .
. ; , . . ...
- . , ;.. ~ . .;
;, .
:. .
~,.'' .

~ ~ 7O~

Fig. 38 illustrates a simplified schematic of the embosser controller 326 o~ Fig. 37. Fig. 38 illustrate~ the embosser controller 326 used in conjunction with e~bosser number 3 from which the RSXUT and ESHUT signals are generated by timing disks 218. Identical re~erence numbers are used herein to identify the same parts identified by the same reference numerals in the previous figures. Each embosser controller 326 has a type wheel position control logic 330 which controls the positioning of the punch wheel 66 and die wheel 70 to ensure that appropriate characters are embossed as described, supra. The error detection logic 332 controls the detection of card position errors sensed by sensor 106 and position errors of the punch wheel 66 and die wheel 70 which must be rotated to the desired position at which a character is to be embossed or a space is left before the next ESHUT
high state of the next RSHUT interval. A failure to complete the positioning within this time interval is reported as an error to the embosser controller 326. The communication control 334 controls the communications to and from the embosser controller 326. A device selection switch 336 is provided to program the individual embosser processors 326 to function to receive one of'the timing signals CTS 1 3 which the individual embosser controller 326 is programmed to respond to assume the function of the control processor for any one of the embossing units 14. A section of EPROM 337 stores a control program for the embosser controller 326.

. ~

, ,. ,:
.

~ 3~

Fig. 39 illustrates a simplified schematic view of the hopper/topper controller 328. Identical reference numerals are used herein to identify the same parts identified by same reference numerals in the previous ~igures. The hopper/topper controller 328 has a topper ram control section 338 which is used to control the driving of the heated platen 28 between its first position to its second position at which an embossed card is topped~ ~ card transport control section 340 controls the movement of the card by the transport unit 26 from the wait skation ~4 to the topping stakion o~ the topper 16 by controlling the activation of the transport unit 26 of the topper 16. A foil control section 342 controls the advancement of the foil in the topper. A stacker control 344 controls the movement of the stacker gate 302 in response to the error flag from the control block of the hopper/topper buffer 240 so that cards which axe improperly embossed or which have been embossed with erroneous in~ormation are stored in the rear section 300 of the tray 296. The rack motor control section 346 controls the activation of the rack motor 46 to move cards from the input hopper 12 to the card insertion position. The error detection section 348 monitors the performance of the input hopper 12 and the topper 16 to detect error conditions. The communication control section 350 controls communications between the input hopper 12, topper 16 and the master : ~ : ... ....
. . . .: . .,.. ::.. ... :

....
. :: .... :
: . .:
.-. -. - , controller 310. A section of EPROM 351 stores a control program for the hopper/topper controller 328.
Fig. 40 illustrates the preferred ~orm of electrical interconnections of the circuit boards implemanting the major components of the present invention. Identical parts are identified herPin with the same reference numerals in the preceding figures.
Figs. 41 and 42 illu~trate an electrical schematic of the preferred form of the master controller 310.
Integrated circuits are identified by their conventional part number.
Fig. 43 illustrates an electrical sshematic of the preferred form of the embosser controller 326. Integrated circuits are identified by their conventional part numbers.
Fig. 44 illustrates an electrical schematic of the preferred form of the hopper/topper controller 328.
Integrated circuits are identified by their conventional part numbers.
While the invention has been described in terms o~
its preferred embodiments, it should be understood that numerous modifications may be made ko ~he invention without departing from its spirit and scope. The system may be used to emboss card~ with a plurality of lines with any number o~
pitches. Furthermore, the sy~tem may be used to emboss a plurality of lines with the same pitch in which case the timing for driving the individual embossing units 14 would be ..... ..
- : ~ , .

~ f~9 ~j produced by cams 130 having the same phase relationship with respect to each other ins~ead of the 90 phase displacement of the cams described, supra, in embossing characters of two different pitches. It should be further understood that the invention may be used for embossing cards other than credit cards and promotional cards such as, but not limited to, metallic identification plates. The invention is not limited to the choice of any particular number of characters to be carried by the punch wheel 66 and die wheels 70. While the timing of tha major components of the preferred embodiment described is synchronous with the activation of the embossing units 14, other timing sequences may be used. It is intended that all suah modi~ication and other numerous modifications fall within the scope of the appended claims.

:

Claims

The embodiments of the invention in which an exclusive property or privilege is claimed are defined as follows:

1. An embossing system for embossing blank cards with a plurality of vertically separated horizontally disposed lines on which characters are to be embossed with at least one line being embossed with characters of a first pitch and at least one line being embossed with characters of a second pitch comprising:
(a) card supply means for feeding blank cards to be embossed;
(b) card transporting means for receiving blank cards to be embossed from the card supply means and for transporting the cards received from the card supply means along a transport path to a plurality of separate embossing positions and to a position where embossing is completed:
(c) a plurality of card embossing means each disposed at a separate one of the embossing positions disposed along the transport path, each card embossing means being vertically positioned with respect to the transport path to emboss a different one of the horizontally disposed lines of characters on each card, at least one of the card embossing means embossing a character set of a first pitch on one of the horizontally disposed lines and at least another of the card embossing means embossing a character set of a second pitch on another of the horizontally disposed lines; and (d) control means coupled to the card supply means, the card transporting means and the plurality of card embossing means for controlling the card supply means to feed blank cards to the card transporting means, the transporting of the cards received by the card transporting means to the separate embossing positions along the transporting path and the position where embossing is completed and the plurality of card embossing means to emboss the plurality of lines on each blank card.

2. An embossing system in accordance with claim 1 wherein the control means compares a current longitudinal position of the cards being embossed by each of the card embossing means determined with respect to a datum point of the card transporting means with a longitudinal position of a next character to be embossed on the cards being embossed by each of the card embossing means on each of the horizontally disposed lines to identify a longitudinal position of one or more closest next characters to be embossed on any of the horizontally disposed lines which are closest to the current longitudinal position, causes the card transporting means to move to the longitudinal position of the closest one or more next characters to be embossed, and activates the one or more embossing means which are to emboss the closest one or more next character to emboss the one or more closest next characters.

3. An embossing system in accordance with claim 2 comprising:
(a) a queue of buffers comprising a plurality of embosser buffers with each embosser buffer being associated with a separate card embossing means, each embosser buffer having storage locations for storing a data record comprised of all of the characters of the vertically disposed lines to be embossed for a single card, each data record including a field of characters for each line of characters to be embossed on the card with each field to be embossed by a single associated card embossing means;
(b) means for shifting the data records sequentially from an input, through the queue of embosser buffers in the order in which the embossers are located along the transport path, to an output; and (c) means coupled to each of the embossing buffers for sending a command to emboss the closest next character to its associated card embossing means, each card embossing means receiving commands to emboss only characters in the field of characters associated with that card embossing means.

4. An embossing system in accordance with claim 2 wherein the card transporting means is movable in increments equal to a unit length divided by the product of the pitches being used for embossing.

5. An embossing system in accordance with claim 4 wherein the closest next character to be embossed is displaced from the current longitudinal position of the card transporting means by a distance equal to an integer times a unit length divided by the product of the pitches being used for embossing.

6. An embossing system in accordance with claim 3 wherein the controller further comprises:
(a) means for comparing the current longitudinal position of the blank cards being embossed with the data records stored in each embosser buffer to identify the position of the closest next character within the embosser buffer of the field of characters being embossed from each data record;
(b) each embosser buffer storing the position along the transport path of the next character to be embossed by its associated card embossing means which is determined by the means for comparing; and (c) means for comparing the current longitudinal position of the cards with the longitudinal position stored in each embosser buffer to identify the one or more closest next characters.

7. An embossing system in accordance with claim 1 wherein:
(a) each card embossing means comprises a pair of rotatable wheels mounted on a common shaft which have a space through which a blank card to be embossed is moved by the card transporting means, one of the wheels being a punch wheel carrying male embossing elements of each of the characters of the character set embossed by the punch wheel which are movable from a retracted position to an embossing position and the other wheel being a die wheel carrying female embossing elements of each of the characters of the character set embossed by the die wheel which are movable from a retracted position to an embossing position, the pair of wheels having embossing elements of each of the characters to be embossed which are disposed at different circumferential positions around the wheels and a space without embossing elements at a circumferential position which is separate from the circumferential positions of characters which is the circumferential position of the wheels when a space is to be left on a blank card;
(b) a shaft encoding means for providing a signal encoding the circumferential position of the wheels with respect to a reference position: and (c) means for rotating the wheels to any one of the circumferential positions in response to a command from the control means to position the wheels for embossing a particular character which is a closest next character to be embossed by the embossing means or to leave a space.

8. An embossing system in accordance with claim 7 wherein each of the card embossing means further comprises:
(a) first and second rams which are movable from a first position to a second position, the first position of the first and second rams not causing the embossing elements of the wheels to emboss a character, the second position of the first ram extending to a position to contact one of the male embossing elements to cause the embossing of a character if the circumferential position having the space is not aligned therewith and the second position of the second ram extending to a position to contact one of the female embossing elements to cause the embossing of a character if the circumferential position having the space is not aligned therewith, the second position of the rams causing a single male-female pair of embossing elements of a character to move toward each other to emboss a blank card disposed therebetween; and (b) means for continuously causing the rams to move from the first position to the second position and back to the first position independent of characters being embossed.

9. An embossing system in accordance with claim 8 wherein the means to cause the rams to continuously move comprises:
(a) first and second pivotably mounted arms, each arm having first and second ends and a pivot point between the first and second ends, the first end of the first arm engaging an end of the first ram remote from an end of the first ram which engages a male element of the punch wheel and the first end of the second arm engaging an end of the second ram remote from an end of the second ram which engages a female element of the die wheel;
(b) third and fourth pivotably mounted arms each having a fixed pivot point, the third and fourth arms each having a cam follower mounted at a point offset from the fixed pivot point;
(c) a rotatably driven cam having an integer number of pairs of diametrically spaced lobes which cyclically move the cam followers of the third and fourth arms, the cam having a vertical axis of rotation which is orthogonal to a direction of travel of the cards held in the card transporting means;
(d) the third arm having means for engaging the second end of the first arm when one of the diametrically spaced lobes is engaging the cam follower of the third arm to cause the first ram to move from the first position toward the second position;

(e) the fourth arm having means for engaging the second end of the second arm when one of the diametrically spaced lobes is engaging the cam followers of the fourth arm to cause the second ram to move from the first position toward the second position; and (f) means for rotating the cam.

10. An embossing system in accordance with claim 9 wherein:
(a) each cam follower is a rotatable wheel with a peripheral surface of the wheel being in rolling contact with the cam at least when the lobes are engaged; and wherein (b) the means of the third and fourth arms which respectively engages the second ends of the first and second arms is a cylindrical pin with the cylindrical surface of the pin engaging the second ends.

11. An embossing system in accordance with claim 9 wherein each embossing means further comprises:
means for adjusting the vertical position of the horizontally disposed line which is embossed on a card being transported by the card transporting means.

12. An embossing system in accordance with claim 11 wherein the means for adjusting comprises:
(a) a vertically extending post;

(b) a support base carrying the card embossing means; and (c) means for clamping the support base to the vertically extending post to establish the vertical position of embossing of a line to be embossed by the embossing means carried by the support base on cards held by the transporting means.

13. An embossing system in accordance with claim 11 further comprising:
means for rotating each of the cams synchronously with each other to maintain a constant rotational velocity and phase between each of the cams.

14. An embossing system in accordance with claim 13 wherein the means for rotating each of the cams synchronously comprises:
(a) a wheel coupled to the cam to rotate the cam when the wheel is rotated with the wheel having teeth spaced uniformly around a peripheral surface of the wheel; and (b) each of the wheels being driven by a single belt having projections which engage the teeth of the wheels, the belt being of a width which completely engages the peripheral surface of each wheel of the plurality of embossing means regardless of the vertical position of the horizontal lines being embossed.

15. An embossing system in accordance with claim 8 wherein each card embossing means further comprises:
(a) a rotatably driven activation means for causing the rams to move from the first position to the second position; and (b) means for rotating the rotatably driven activation means.

16. An embossing system in accordance with claim 15 further comprising:
(a) means for rotating each of the means for rotating synchronously with each other to maintain a constant rotational velocity and phase between each of the rotatably driven activation means: and (b) each of the activation means including a cam having an integer number of pairs of diametrically spaced lobes, first and second cam following means respectively spaced to simultaneously contact a pair of diametrically spaced lobes, the first cam following means causing the first ram to move from its first position to its second position when the first follower contacts one of the lobes of the cam and the second cam follower causing the second ram to move from its first position to its second position when the second following means contacts a second lobe.

17. An embossing system in accordance with claim 16 wherein the activation means of each card embossing means embossing characters of the first pitch is activated by a cam having lobes rotated with a first phase and the activation means of each card embossing means embossing characters of a second pitch is activated by a cam with lobes rotated at a second phase different than the phase of the rotation of the cam having lobes activating the activation means of each card embossing means embossing characters of the first pitch.

18. An embossing system in accordance with claim 17 wherein the activation means of each of the card embossing means for embossing characters of the second pitch is activated by a cam with lobes rotated 90° out of phase with the cam having lobes activating the activation means of each of the card embossing means embossing characters of the first pitch.

19. An embossing system in accordance with claim 1 wherein the transporting means comprises:
(a) a rotatably driven belt having a plurality of card gripping means each for holding a blank card to be embossed which are spaced apart by a uniform distance; and (b) the card embossing means being spaced apart along the transport path from each other by the uniform distance.

20. An embossing system in accordance with claim 19 wherein the card transport means further comprises a motor having a pulley for driving the belt, a single revolution of the belt being equal to an integer multiple of the uniform distance.

21. An embossing system in accordance with claim 20 wherein the circumference of the pulley is an integer multiple of the uniform distance.

22. An embossing system in accordance with claim 2 wherein each card embossing means comprises:
(a) a pair of rotatable wheels mounted on a common shaft which have a space through which a blank card to be embossed is moved by the card transporting means, one of the wheels being a punch wheel carrying male embossing elements of each of the characters of the character set embossed by that wheel which are movable from a retracted position to an embossing position and the other wheel being a die wheel carrying female embossing elements of each of each of the characters of the character set embossed by that wheel which are movable from a retracted position to an embossing position, the pair of wheels having embossing elements of each of the characters to be embossed which are disposed at different circumferential position around the wheels and a space without embossing elements at a separate circumferential position which is the circumferential position of the wheels when a space is to be left on a blank card;
(b) a shaft encoding means for providing a signal encoding the circumferential position of the wheels with respect to a reference position;
(c) means for rotating the wheels to any one of the circumferential positions in response to a command to position the wheels for embossing a particular character of the character set or to leave a space; and (d) wherein the control means controls the ending of commands, to emboss the one or more characters of a first pitch or to leave a space of the first pitch and to emboss the one or more characters of a second pitch or to leave a space of the second pitch, to the respective card embossing means for embossing the characters in a timed relationship with respect to a control signal having a cycle comprised of a high and a low level, commands for embossing characters of the first pitch or to leave a space of the first pitch being sent and embossed during intervals when the control signal is high and commands for embossing characters of the second pitch or to leave a space of the second pitch being sent and embossed during intervals when the control signal is low.

23. An embossing system in accordance with claim 22 wherein commands to emboss a character of either pitch or leave a space of either pitch are sent during a first cycle of the control signal and the embossing of the character which was commanded to be embossed during the first cycle is embossed during a second cycle of the control signal.

24. An embossing system in accordance with claim 23 further comprising means for generating a second control signal which is generated synchronously with each level of the first signal, the second signal being comprised of high and low levels, the card transporting means being moved from the current position toward the longitudinal position of the one or more next closest characters during the first level of the second control signal and the embossing of the next one or more next closest characters being embossed during intervals when the second control signal is at the second level.

25. An embossing system in accordance with claim 24 wherein:
(a) each card embossing means has a continuously driven activation means for causing the embossing of a character during the second level of the second control signal;
(b) each of the activation means is driven synchronously with each other by a single rotary power source;
and further comprising (c) means for generating the first and second control signals which is driven synchronously with the activation means of the card embossing means.

26. An embossing system in accordance with claim 25 wherein the means for generating the first and second control signals is a disk attached to one of the activation means having two concentric rings each having alternating light and dark sectors and a sensor means for respectively sensing a change in light reflected from the sectors.

27. An embossing system in accordance with claim 25 wherein the transporting means comprises:
(a) a belt having a plurality of card holding means each for holding a blank card to be embossed which are spaced apart by a uniform distance;
(b) the card embossing means being spaced apart along the transport path from each other by the uniform distance; and (c) the cycle of the first control signal is equal to or greater in duration than the time required for the card embossing means for each pitch to emboss a single character.

28. An embossing system for embossing blank cards with a plurality of vertically separated horizontally disposed lines on which characters are to be embossed comprising:
(a) card supply means for feeding blank cards to be embossed;
(b) card transporting means for receiving blank cards to be embossed from the card supply means and for transporting the cards received from the card supply means along a transport path to a plurality of separate embossing positions and to a position where embossing is completed:
(c) a plurality of card embossing means each disposed at a separate one of the embossing positions along the transport path, each card embossing means being vertically positioned with respect to the transport path to emboss a different one of the horizontally disposed lines of characters on each card; and (d) control means coupled to the card supply means, the card transporting means and the plurality of card embossing means for controlling the card supply means to feed blank cards to the card transporting means, the transporting of the cards received by the card transporting means to the separate embossing positions along the transporting path and the position where embossing is completed, the plurality of card embossing means to emboss the plurality of lines on each blank card, and comparing a current longitudinal position of the cards being embossed by each of the card embossing means determined with respect to a reference point with a longitudinal position of a next character to be embossed on the cards being embossed by each of the card embossing means on each of the horizontally disposed lines to identify a longitudinal position of one or more closest next characters to be embossed on any of the horizontally disposed lines which are closest to the current longitudinal position, moving the card transporting means to the longitudinal position of the closest one or more next characters to be embossed, and activating the one or more embossers which are to emboss the closest one or more next characters to emboss the one or more closest next characters.

29. An embossing system in accordance with claim 9 wherein:
(a) the means of the third and fourth arms which respectively engages the second ends of the first and second arms has a point of contact;
(b) the third arm has a centerline extending through the pivot point of the third arm, the center of the cam follower of the third arm and the means of the third arm which engages the second end of the first arm, the centerline moving through an arc and being defined by it being orthogonal to the common shaft;
(c) the fourth arm has a centerline extending through the pivot point of the fourth arm, the center of the cam follower of the fourth arm and the means of the fourth arm which engages the second end of the second arm, the centerline moving through an arc and being defined by it being orthogonal to the common shaft; and (d) the movement of the point of contact of the third arm being equally disposed about the centerline of the third arm and the movement of the point of contact of the fourth arm being equally disposed about the centerline of the fourth arm.

30, An embossing system in accordance with claim 29 wherein:
(a) each cam follower is a rotatable wheel with a peripheral surface of the wheel being in rolling contact with the cam at least when the lobes are engaged; and (b) the means of the third and fourth arms which respectively engages the second ends of the first and second arms is a cylindrical pin with the cylindrical surface of the pin engaging the second ends.