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Patent Searching and Data


Title:
AUTOMATED CARD COUNTER AND METHOD OF AUTOMATICALLY COUNTING CARDS
Document Type and Number:
WIPO Patent Application WO2004081861
Kind Code:
A9
Abstract:
An automatic card counter (20) with a housing (22) with an open front with a card deck assembly (24) having a front opening to a card counting location and an underlying support for a stack (29) of cards (30) such as may be contained in a card box, such as plastic opaque, transparent or translucent credit cards, with an optical sensing system for detecting the edges of the cards (30) in the stack (29) to determine the number, or count, of the total number of the cards (30) in the stack (29) includes a light source (64) composed of an elongate string of a plurality of high intensity light emitting diodes directing red light rearward and downwardly away from the front card deck opening and along the entire length of the stack of cards through a window (96), a mirror (76) for simultaneous reflecting a complete image of the entire stack of cards downwardly and rearward to another mirror (100) that reflects the complete image rearward and horizontally to a lens system (108) with a relatively wide depth of field to focus the image on a photosensor (110) composed of a linear array of approximately ten thousand charge coupled devices that produce electrical signals that are converted to numbers by an A/D converter and processed by a microprocessor (116) to distinguish real cards from persons fingers, the edges of card boxes (28) and other like object that may routinely appear in the field of view of the card stack. The card deck (26) is a planer member that is supported above a support surface (47) by legs (35) and is removable mounted to enable the counting of oversized cards or cards on end by removing the card deck (26) and supporting the card counter (20) on supporting them on the support surface (47).

Inventors:
GRABER WARREN S (US)
KUESTER RYAN J (US)
Application Number:
PCT/US2004/007424
Publication Date:
November 04, 2004
Filing Date:
March 11, 2004
Export Citation:
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Assignee:
DYNETICS ENGINEERING CORP INC (US)
GRABER WARREN S (US)
KUESTER RYAN J (US)
International Classes:
G06M1/10; G06M9/00; H01J40/14; G06N; (IPC1-7): G06N/
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