AUBURN – Two weeks ago, a Minot Avenue company launched a new waffle card that cleans the optical lenses on bill acceptors in vending machines so lenses can keep telling the difference between a $1 bill and a $100.

This week, KICTeam introduced a waffle card that cleans airline printers and could reduce bad bag tags and lost luggage gripes.

And soon, it will reveal the third new product in 30 days.

It’s been a busy month.

In the first case, KICTeam was approached by JCM Global, which bills itself as the worldwide leader in “currency management,” looking to fill a cleaning niche, KICTeam spokesman Jimmy Timmins said.

For the second product, Timmins said, the company broached the idea with VidTroniX, which, according to its Web site, has 48,000 printers installed in airports around the world. Timmins was looking at VidTroniX’s client list Tuesday, getting ready to start sending out feelers.

“It reads like a who’s who in the airline industry,” he said.

He’d already gotten a request from the United Kingdom for a sample.

KICTeam has specialized in waffle – textured – cleaning cards since 2004, something it calls Waffletechnology. It shares manufacturing headquarters on Minot Avenue with parent company Enefco USA. (The name KICTeam merges the names of the companies Keep it Clean Products and Clean Team.)

Both new cards get at hard-to-reach dirt and dust, Timmins said.

Vending machines in the snack, lottery and amusement industries are accepting larger denominations, making accurate readings more important.

“The problem is money is dirty, there’s oils from people’s hands, dirt from the environment,” Timmins said. “Your mother ever told you, ‘Don’t put money in your mouth?’ There’s a reason for it. The waffle goes down inside and cleans the recessed lenses that nothing else can hit.”

For airlines, it’s not dirty hands as much as dirt in the air and dust coming off the rolls of paper, he said. Airlines use thermal printers for paper boarding passes and adhesive bag tags.

“A thermal printer gets extremely hot,” Timmins said. “The heat makes the image on the label. It’s not spitting out ink at all.”

The hot heads also burn up the dust, he said, and that can leave streaks on the crisp bar codes, which can interfere with scanning and send luggage far afield.

For that third product, Timmins said, stay tuned.

“It’ll be another waffle card,” he said “It’s linked with (some of) the biggest players in the (point of sale) industry.”