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The World's First Thermal Transfer Franking Machine |
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The prototype casework for the T1000, the world's first thermal transfer franking machine. |
When this innovation occurred, all envelope franking machines used a mechanical rotating drum to print onto the envelope. Complex mechanisms were required to select and position the postage charge digits and date characters within this rotating drum. The client knew that there was a market for a low cost franking machine but was not able to devise a printing mechanism that could meet the price contraints. During an initial creative study, hundreds of methods of printing onto envelopes were devised. Three of these were selected for further study, one of which was thermal transfer printing. An experimental phase demonstrated that thermal transfer printing was able to print successfully onto rough uneven envelopes. A complete prototype thermal transfer franking machine was then designed, built and tested to demonstrate the potential of the product. The design was further refined and five more protypes built, tested and demonstated to the postal authorities in Germany and the USA. Following this successful multi-discipinary development, the client took the design to the production phase. When the product was finally approved by the postal authorities and launched at Cebit, the clients competitors congratulated them on the innovation. Shortly afterwards, the US postal authorities announced that they would no longer approve any new franking machines that used mechanical printing. Patents: |
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