Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture – Methods – Surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
Reexamination Certificate
2001-07-27
2003-11-25
Crispino, Richard (Department: 1734)
Adhesive bonding and miscellaneous chemical manufacture
Methods
Surface bonding and/or assembly therefor
C156S269000, C156S277000, C156S510000, C198S469100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06652698
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to an installation for manufacturing personalized coupons, the installation comprising a set of work stations comprising at least a station for supplying blank coupons, a station for personalizing blank coupons, and a station for cutting out personalized coupons, together with a system for transporting coupons between the various work stations.
The invention also provides a method of manufacturing a run of personalized coupons comprising at least a step of supplying blank coupons to a first work station, a step of personalizing blank coupons in a second work station, and a step of cutting out personalized coupons in a third work station, the coupons being transported successively from one work station to another.
PRIOR ART
Various types of method and installation have already been proposed for manufacturing personalized documents such as identity cards, in particular secure identity cards, such as national identity cards, driving licenses, bank cards, social security cards, and badges. Such identity cards comprise a blank coupon or medium, e.g. made of paper or of plastics material, onto which various items of personalization information are transferred, such as information making use of alphanumeric characters or information making use of photographic images. Personalization information differs from one card to another. Security elements can also be included in the blank coupons or in additional sheets that are combined with the blank coupons, e.g. with the help of chemical inks, UV varnish, luminophores, stamping. Finally, secure and personalized coupons are often laminated in plastic.
In general, existing installations are very complex, particularly because of problems of synchronizing the various successive operations that lead to the finished cards. It is necessary to avoid any slippage between successive operations, in particular between those operations involving printing on or cutting out the various cards that are manufactured in succession on the same installation.
Known methods of manufacturing identity cards also give rise to large losses of consumables (strips of paper or plastics material for receiving the personalized information, strips of plastics material for laminating), in particular because of the leader lengths that are necessary for adjusting the installations. As a result, such known installations are not suitable for manufacturing short runs of cards, since they give rise to significant losses of material and to relatively long processing time for each manufacturing run.
Existing installations do not lend themselves easily to modifying their characteristics because they are not modular in character.
OBJECT AND BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION
The invention seeks to remedy the above-specified drawbacks and to enable personalized coupons to be manufactured with excellent quality, such as identity cards, and in particular secure cards, at a cost that is low and with great flexibility in adapting to different manufacturing methods.
The invention seeks in particular to guarantee that a card manufacturing installation operates without slippage or faults occurring during production.
The invention also seeks to make it possible to engage in the manufacture of short runs of secure and personalized identity cards quickly and without loss of raw materials.
According to the invention, these objects are achieved by an installation for manufacturing personalized coupons such as identity cards, the installation comprising a set of work stations with at least a feed station for supplying blank coupons, a personalization station for personalizing blank coupons, and a cutting-out station for cutting out personalized coupons, with a system for transporting coupons between the various work stations, the installation being characterized in that the system for transporting coupons comprises a carousel having at least one chain driven in indexed manner by motor-driven sprocket wheels, and a set of clamps mounted at a constant pitch on links of the chain and co-operating with opening/closing means placed in fixed positions, so that each clamp takes hold of an individual blank coupon, transports said coupon between the various work stations, and releases the coupon in a station for collecting the finished or semi-finished product as a personalized identity card, each clamp having a pair of jaws for clamping a marginal zone of a blank coupon in at least two regions thereof which are spaced apart from each other in the travel direction of the chain, and having external abutments secured to one or other of the jaws for laterally positioning the blank coupon held between said jaws.
The clamps can be actuated mechanically, electromechanically, magnetically, or pneumatically.
In a particular embodiment, each clamp has lateral fastenings fastening it to the chain, the fastenings being located below the plane in which a coupon is held by the jaws.
Each clamp has a central spring disposed between the bottom face of the bottom jaw and a bottom plate secured to the top jaw.
Advantageously, each clamp has vertical external abutments extending upwards and secured to the bottom jaw.
Preferably, the width of engagement between the jaws of each clamp lies in the range 3 mm to 5 mm.
In a particular embodiment, the clamp opening/closing means comprises a mechanical pusher secured to a mechanism of the crank and connecting rod type.
In another particular embodiment, the clamp opening/closing means comprise an outline of a rotating cylinder.
According to a particular feature of the present invention, the feeder station for supplying blank coupons comprises a transfer and cutting station for transferring to a clamp a segment of a strip disposed transversely relative to the chain, the strip having a succession of segments constituting blank coupons.
More particularly, the feeder station has support means for supporting a storage reel of said strip, a pair of superposed cylinders between which the strip coming from the reel is pinched and which constitute a motor-driven pulling unit, a motor-driven guillotine disposed between the motor-driven puller unit and the path of the clamps, and an optical cell for monitoring the arrival of clamps in register with blank coupons to be cut off by the guillotine from segments of strip and to be held by the clamp actuated by clamp opening/closing means disposed in the vicinity of the feeder station and synchronized with the indexed advance of the chain.
The feeder station can alternatively comprise a charger of pre-cut-out blank coupons and handling means, e.g. of the suction cup type, for feeding a clamp situated at the feeder station with a blank coupon during each pause period in the cyclic operating cycle of the installation.
Advantageously, the installation of the invention has code marks on each of the clamps.
At least one coupon personalizing station can be constituted by a printer station for individualized printing on at least one of the faces of the coupons transported by the clamps.
In a particular embodiment, the card manufacturing installation comprises a pre-cutting-out station for personalized coupons, a suction cup mechanism for individually transferring pre-cut-out personalized coupons to a laminating station fed with top and bottom strips of plastics material inserted parallel to the travel direction of the pre-cut-out personalized coupons, and a station for cutting out and recovering finished personalized cards with the residual skeleton of strips of plastic material that remains after finished personalized cards have been cut out therefrom being removed and wound in a reel-forming station.
Under such circumstances, the laminating station can comprise a pair of heating shoes located where a pre-cut-out personalized coupon is inserted between said top and bottom strips of plastics material, two pairs of motor-driven cylinders that are pressed together to laminate and heat-seal a pre-cut-out personalized coupon with the top and bottom strips of plastics material, and cooling fans.
In another
Tisserand Georges
Tisserand Jacques
Crispino Richard
Identis
Po Chan Sing
Weingarten Schurgin, Gagnebin & Lebovici LLP
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