Reliability is the smart option

Edited by the Engineeringtalk editorial team Sep 24, 2003

Reliability is everything to Datum Automation, and this is particularly true of the electromagnetic clutches and brakes used in its range of machines used worldwide for manufacturing smart cards.

These days, if it is true, there seems to be a card for just about everything.

So it equally applies that there has to be a machine for finishing, testing and handling the many different types of cards on the world market.

Datum, a leading designer and manufacturer of card machinery, say that in the current climate "reliability is everything".

And whether a card machine has been sold to Australia, China or South America, a breakdown in the field is always going to be costly for a UK exporter.

Datum will never say there will "never be problems".

What it will say is that it prides itself on devising a simple design technique to ensure there is less chance of a breakdown occurring and the need for an engineer to book a flight to one of its worldwide installations.

And to back up its philosophy that "reliability is everything", it selects components - British-made wherever possible - that will not let it down in whatever country buys a machine.

One of the company's oldest component suppliers is Stephenson Gobin, which has been making its electromagnetic clutches and brakes for almost as long as Datum has been established.

(The history of both UK manufacturers goes back to 1979, with several thousand Stephenson Gobin products purchased).

The Datum manufacturing range of 14 standard machines - besides its many bespoke designs - all contain several of Stephenson Gobin's range of clutches and brakes that perform a variety of duties on the equipment.

Andy Staves, Technical Engineer at Datum Automation of Waterlooville, Hampshire, which manufactures and sells card machines all over the world, says that as many as seven different sized clutches and brakes are installed on its WR2 wrapping machine.

Described as the manufacturer's "most popular workhorse", the WR2 - with the help of Stephenson Gobin's electromagnetic clutches and brakes - will engage and disengage as many as 15,000 cycles per hour.

An 04 sized clutch and brake indexes and feeds cards through the system.

A clutch and brake accurately controls the length of the seal into which individual cards fit.

A clutch and brake operates the perforation mechanism for the pack, and two clutches and a brake are used to stop the shaft.

"The range of duties of the Stephenson Gobin clutches and brakes are to accurately control length, positioning and start and stop positions", says Staves, who points to Datum's WR4 wrapping machine having a size 13 electromagnetic clutch to engage and disengage the cam.

A total of eight Stephenson Gobin clutches and brakes perform a range of duties on this very fast machine which will wrap up to 10,000 cards an hour.

The WR4 has clutches and brakes to control the length of the sealed pack and the cam-actuated guillotine.

Cards are fed along the machine between two rolls of plastic film and then thermally heat-sealed in the pack.

A clutch and brake accurately positions the sealing of each card.

In the Datum Automation plant at Waterlooville, an HG2F machine is under construction to personalise and place a bonded scratch panel to a card for the telephone card industry.

The system also couples the application of a hologram and a signature stripe to a card.

For this machine, Stephenson Gobin's clutches and brakes are used on the card feeder, transport mechanism and foil indexing.

The PP3 machine in the Datum range is a smart card punch and place system using four clutches and brakes for accurately starting and stopping shafts and maintaining positional accuracy of the card transportation.

Finally on the shop floor, Staves says Stephenson Gobin's products are also being used on its GSM skeletal punch - the machine punches out the GSM profile for the mobile phone industry.

Datum has a global client base in over 60 countries, producing credit cards, smart cards and phone cards.

One customer, in Athens, is currently producing 12 million cards a month on Datum machines fitted with Stephenson Gobin electromagnetic clutches and brakes.

"Although they keep a stock of spares, we rarely get a call from them", he adds.