Hi Glenn!
In present technology, the card is forced into "intimate contact" with the head by a spring-loaded backup roller on the other side of the card in some designs. In other designs, a simple "leaf spring" arrangement forces the card against the head.
It's sort of like running a file against a piece of metal...
Current card technology has a slicker, less abrasive, surface on the stripe. Older cards literally filed down the heads in a fairly short time, wearing the "head gap" (a space between the poles of the head) very quickly, requiring the head to be replaced.
Slicker cards and harder heads now have extended head life to way better than 50 times what it once was, but head wear is still what limits the useful life of a ccr.
The "devil in the details" of ccr head & card design is, if you make the head harder, it wears the card faster. And, if you make the card harder, to prevent wear, you wear the head faster...
I suspect, from an engineering level, that current ccr technology is about its ultimate, as far as the tradeoff between card and head hardness technology goes. Of course, the materials engineers are always working to update the materials used in the stripe (KEEPERED STRIPES!!! ;-)) and the heads...
Good luck to us all in the market!!
Ray |
