JPH01298488A - Contact unit construction for card reader writer - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To compact a contact unit by securing the contact pressure of a contact with a spring supporting body having a high flexural rigidity. CONSTITUTION:A contact 4 has a contact member 6 gold-plated to a wire spring composed of, for example, a phosphor bronze material and has a arc- shaped contact part 11 to contact to a contact 17 of a card 2, which is at the information giving receiving position, at an idle edge part. The base part of the contact member 6 is integrally resin-molded with a body 5 and to a conducting part 9 from the contacting part 11 to the base part, for example, a plate-shaped supporting body 12 of a stainless or spring steel is attached. Thus, the conducting part can be thinner, the length can be shortened, the sufficient contact pressure can be secured for the contact of the card and the compacting can be executed for the unit.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Object of the Invention] <Industrial Application Field> The present invention relates to a contact unit of a card reader/writer for reading from or writing to a card as an information storage medium! 'Relating to Pi construction.

<Prior Art> In a conventional card reader/writer for an information storage card, such as an IC card, information is sent and received to and from the card via contacts that contact external contacts of the card. There are various ways to bring the contacts into contact with the contacts on the card. For example, there is a device in which the contact is made of conductive and flexible phosphor bronze material, plated with gold, and its base end is resin-molded integrally with the body that serves as the contact holding means. . By operating the body using some kind of drive means, the contact portion provided at the free end of the contact can be elastically brought into contact with the contact point of the card.

By the way, in order to ensure sufficient contact pressure of the contact element with respect to the contact point of the card, it is necessary to obtain sufficient contact pressure while ensuring a certain amount of displacement of the contact portion.

Therefore, since the bending rigidity of phosphor bronze material is extremely low,
When using a wire spring-shaped contact, it is necessary to increase the wire diameter, and when using a leaf spring-shaped contact, it is necessary to increase the plate thickness and use a contact whose arm length is increased to a certain extent. There are also devices in which the contactor is formed into a coil spring shape to ensure a large contact pressure.

However, in either case, there is a problem in that the space occupied by the contact becomes large and the contact unit becomes large.

<Problems to be Solved by the Invention> In view of the problems of the prior art, the main purpose of the present invention is to provide a card that can secure sufficient contact pressure to the contact points of the card and that can be converted into a single card. An object of the present invention is to provide a contact unit structure for a reader/writer.

[Structure of the Invention] <Means for Solving the Problems> According to the present invention, such an object is to provide a contact point that contacts a contact point of a card as an information storage medium in order to send and receive information to and from the card. A contactor unit structure for a card reader/writer, comprising a contactor and a contactor holding means for holding a base end of the contactor, the contactor being provided at a free end so as to come into contact with the contact. A contact portion, a conductive portion extending from the contact portion to the proximal end portion, and a spring support having higher bending rigidity than the conductive L portion and attached to the conductive portion to increase the bending rigidity. This is achieved by providing a contact unit structure for a card reader/writer characterized by having the following features.

In this way, the conductive part from the contact part of the contact to its base end is made of a material with good conductivity, such as phosphor bronze plated with gold, and the conductive part of the contact is made of gold-plated material. By adding a spring support with high bending rigidity, the conductive part can be made thinner and its length can be made shorter, and sufficient contact pressure can be ensured with respect to the contacts of the card.

<Embodiments> Hereinafter, preferred embodiments of the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a contact unit structure of an information storage card reader/writer based on the present invention applied to an IC card reader/writer, and FIG. 2 is a side view thereof.

A contact unit 3 for reading/writing information to/from a card 2 is provided in a casing 1 of the card reader/writer. The contactor unit 3 has a contactor 4 and a body 5 as a contactor holding means, and is pivotably supported via a support bracket 8 fixed on the bottom surface 7 of the casing 1 so as to be freely tiltable. There is.

The contactor 4 has a contact member 6, which may be, for example, a wire spring made of phosphor bronze and plated with gold, and has an arc-shaped contact member 6 at its free end that contacts a contact point 17 of the card 2 at the information exchange position. It has a contact part 11 of. Contact 1~
The base end of the member 6 is resin-molded integrally with the body 5, and the conductive part 9 from the contact part 11 to the base end includes:
A plate-shaped spring support 12 is provided, which may be made of stainless steel or spring steel, for example. As shown in FIG. 2, the base end of the contactor 4 protrudes from the end surface of the body 5 opposite to the card 2 side as an external terminal section 13 that is electrically connected to a control circuit (not shown). .

An iron piece 14 is fixed to the bottom of the body 5 and extends toward the side opposite to the card 2. A pair of solenoids 18 are fixed to the ceiling surface 15 of the casing 1 via a yoke plate 16 so as to hang down toward the iron piece 14. The contacts 4 can be brought into contact with the contacts 17 of the card 2 by tilting the body 5. In addition, iron piece 1
4 is biased away from the solenoid 18 by a return spring (not shown), so that when the solenoid 18 is in the de-energized state, the contact 4 is placed above the external contact 17 as shown in FIG. Yes, the contact portion 11 and the external contact 17 are not in contact with each other.

In the contact uni-node 3 configured in this way, when the body 5 is tilted and the contact portion 11 of the contact 4 is brought into contact with the external contact 17 of the card 2, as shown in FIG. As shown, since the spring support 12 integral with the conductive part 9 is bent, the contact pressure of the contact part 11 against the external contact 17 can be obtained mainly by the bending rigidity of the spring support 12.

By the way, in the case of only the conductive part 9 made of relatively flexible phosphor bronze material, for example, in order to obtain sufficient contact pressure against the external contact 17, the wire diameter is made thicker and the arm length is made longer. There is a problem that 3 becomes larger. In this embodiment, as described above, by attaching the spring support 12 made of flexible and relatively high bending rigidity, such as stainless steel or spring steel, to the conductive part 9, the contact part 11 can be fixed. Since sufficient contact pressure against the external contact 17 can be obtained, the wire diameter of the contact member 6 made of phosphor bronze material can be made thinner, and its arm length can be shortened.

FIG. 4 is a partially cutaway side view showing another embodiment of a contact unit applied to an IC card reader/writer based on the present invention. In the following explanation, the same reference numerals are given to the parts corresponding to the above embodiments, and detailed explanation thereof will be omitted.

A contact unit 3 is provided above the card 2 in the read/write position. The contactor unit 3 has a flat rectangular parallelepiped-shaped body, a 21, and a contactor 22, and a guide pin 23 (not shown) provided on the side of the casing 1 is inserted through a guide pin 23 provided on the side wall thereof. It is guided by a guide member so that it can move up and down as shown by the arrow in the figure, and is selectively driven by a drive means (not shown).

The body 21 is provided with contacts 22 in the conveying direction of the card 2, which is the left-right direction in the figure, so as to correspond to the contacts 17 of the card 2.
A pair is provided. For example, when the contacts 17 are provided in multiple rows, the same number of rows of corresponding pairs of contacts 22 may be provided.

The contactor 22 is made up of a contact member 24 made of phosphor bronze plated with gold as described above, and a spring support 25 made of stainless steel, spring steel, or the like. Both proximal ends are fixed to the body 21, and both free ends are received in slots 26 provided in the body 21. A V-shaped contact portion 28 is formed at the free end of the contact member 24 so as to protrude from the lower surface of the body 21, and on the upper surface of the conductive portion 27 extending from the contact portion 28 to the base end. A plate-shaped spring support 25 is attached. The spring support 25 is also integrally attached to an engaging portion 29 provided on the free end side of the contact portion 28, and elastically biases the contact portion 28 downward. Note that when there is no contact, the engaging portion 29 resiliently contacts the shoulder portion 30 formed in the slot 26.

Even in this second embodiment, when the contact part 28 comes into contact with the contact 17 of the card 2, the external contact 17 of the contact part 28
Since the contact pressure against the contact member 2 can be obtained by the rigidity 6 of the spring support 25, the contact pressure against the contact member 2
The wire diameter of the wire 4 can be made thinner, and the arm length thereof can be made shorter.

In the example, the contact member made of phosphor bronze material was formed into a round bar shape, but the contact member is not limited to a circular cross section, and may have various cross-sectional shapes. For example, it may be plate-shaped. It's okay. Furthermore, instead of just attaching a single spring support to the conductive part, the contact member may be arranged horizontally in a sandwich using a plurality of spring supports.

[Effects of the Invention] As described above, according to the present invention, the contact pressure of the contact with respect to the contact of the card can be ensured by the spring support having high bending rigidity. It is possible to use phosphor bronze material, which has low rigidity but relatively good conductivity, and is plated with gold. Therefore, compared to those using only phosphor bronze material, for example, the wire diameter can be made thinner and the length shorter, so the contact unit can be easily made more compact. It is extremely large.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a perspective view showing a contact unit structure of a card reader/writer based on the present invention applied to an IC card reader/writer. FIG. 2 is a side view showing a contactor unit structure based on the present invention. FIG. 3 is a diagram corresponding to FIG. 2 showing the operating state of the contactor unit. FIG. 4 is a partially cutaway side view of the second embodiment.

Claims (1)

[Scope of Claims] A contactor that contacts a contact point of the card in order to send and receive information to and from the card as an information storage medium, and a contactor holding means that holds the base end of the contactor. A contact unit structure of a card reader/writer, wherein the contact includes a contact portion provided at a free end portion to contact the contact point, a conductive portion extending from the contact portion to the base end portion, and the conductive portion. 1. A contact unit structure for a card reader/writer, characterized in that the conductive part has a higher bending rigidity than the conductive part, and a spring support is attached to the conductive part to increase the bending rigidity.