PRODUCTION SUPERVISION

OF ENCODING QUALITY AT FULL FABRICATION SPEED

A highly integrated and intelligent system for the decoding and evaluation of encoded information on magnetic and other data carriers. The ISS enables card verification and analysis of all tracks simultaneously at production speeds up to 1.2 m/s, which is equivalent to approx. 18,000 cph - one module per track.

Evaluation criteria can be individually defined such that the result is a 100% check against these requirements. Working in this manner enables the quality of the card’s encoding to be adjusted to suit their proposed use.

Unique “Inline Supervision System” for card personalization

The ISS module can be used as a replacement for existing F2F encoding units, and possesses additional functionality for the evaluation of, for example, amplitude, jitter and start character positioning - all extracted from the read-head signal information.

Two output signals, data and strobe, enable bit evaluation, whereas an additional identification parameter delivers the good/bad card status with respect to jitter and amplitude.

Because card information and the measured values for amplitude and jitter can be saved for each card, yet more possibilities are opened up in the supervision of the personalization process – particularly where statistical predictions pertaining to magnetic stripe quality and head wear are extensively used.

The magnetic head signal waveforms are available in a graphical format, similar to those of a desktop card analyser system, which greatly simplifies read-error trouble shooting or for a detailed summary of the encoding quality.

A “teach-in” calibration utility enables the user to compensate for head wear or after head replacement, which has the added positive effect that the effective operational life of the read head is further enhanced.