Card conveyance unit

A card conveyance unit comprising:

• in a case that three directions perpendicular to each other are defined as an “X” direction, a “Y” direction and a “Z” direction,
• a plurality of card cassettes which are arranged in the “Y” direction;
• a carriage;
• a carriage conveyance passage which is extended in the “Y” direction on one side of the “X” direction with respect to the plurality of the card cassettes;
• a carriage moving mechanism which moves the carriage along the carriage conveyance passage;
• a card send-out mechanism which sends out cards laminated and stored in each of the card cassettes one by one to the one side in the “X” direction toward the carriage conveyance passage;
• a conveying mechanism which is provided in the carriage to take in and hold the card sent out from the card cassette on the carriage and send out the card in the “X” direction from the carriage;
• a code reader which optically reads a code indicated on a surface of the card and is not disposed at a location which is in alignment with the plurality of card cassettes and the carriage conveyance passage along the X direction and is disposed at the location displaced from the alignment toward the Y or the Z direction;
• and
• a control part which drives and controls the card send-out mechanism, the carriage moving mechanism, the conveying mechanism and the code reader;
• wherein
• the carriage conveyance passage is set with:
• a plurality of taking-in positions on the one side in the “X” direction with respect to the card cassettes where the card sent out from each of the card cassettes is taken into the carriage;
• a reading position where the code of the card held by the carriage is optically read;
• and
• a sending-out position where the card is sent out from the carriage to the one side in the “X” direction;
• one of the plurality of the taking-in positions, the reading position and the sending-out position are previously set at a same position as each other;
• the code reader is fixed to a frame physically separated from the carriage so as to face the card which is held by the carriage in the “Z” direction at the reading position;
• the control part is configured so that:
• in a case that the taking-in position and the reading position are different from each other, the control part drives and controls the carriage moving mechanism to arrange the carriage at one of the plurality of the taking-in positions and then, the control part drives and controls the card send-out mechanism and the conveying mechanism to take the card into the carriage from the card cassette disposed on an other side in the “X” direction with respect to the carriage;
• next, the control part drives and controls the carriage moving mechanism to move the carriage to the reading position, and the control part drives and controls the code reader to perform a reading operation for reading the code;
• on the other hand, in a case that the taking-in position and the reading position are the same position as each other, the control part drives and controls the card send-out mechanism and the conveying mechanism at the reading position to take the card into the carriage from the card cassette disposed on an other side in the “X” direction with respect to the carriage, and the control part drives and controls the code reader to perform a reading operation for reading the code;
• and
• after that, the control part drives and controls the conveying mechanism to send out the card from the reading position to the one side in the “X” direction.