Ethernet/IP Card Readers?

I've been spoiled by Ethernet/IP. Recently started using some Vision Cameras and Barcode readers that communicate via Ethernet/IP with a CompactLogix. Was very fast and easy.

But it came up recently that they wanted people to log into machines using their employee badges. Each employee carries a badge that has a magnetic strip they use to punch in/out for work. Certain employees would have more access to machine settings, etc, than others. Passwords are used currently, but people share passwords very often, and before we know it, everyone and their mothers know the password.

I've been looking around a bit to see if anyone made a card reader that was Ethernet/IP, since that feature would make things so much easier to use. I want to avoid RS232 because not all of my PLCs have that option. Has anyone used something like that in the past?

Hmm... taking a look around, The only Ethernet ready devices seem to be TCP/IP and not Ethernet/IP. At least with the cursory amount of Google-fu.

That being said I've had really good luck with RTA's 435NBX units with serial devices. Easy to set up and use.

Something like that does seem to be the best bet. Thanks.

Additional Goog-fu:

https://www.rfideas.com/support/product-support/pcprox-plus-eip-poe

Tharon said:

I've been spoiled by Ethernet/IP. Recently started using some Vision Cameras and Barcode readers that communicate via Ethernet/IP with a CompactLogix. Was very fast and easy.

But it came up recently that they wanted people to log into machines using their employee badges. Each employee carries a badge that has a magnetic strip they use to punch in/out for work. Certain employees would have more access to machine settings, etc, than others. Passwords are used currently, but people share passwords very often, and before we know it, everyone and their mothers know the password.

I've been looking around a bit to see if anyone made a card reader that was Ethernet/IP, since that feature would make things so much easier to use. I want to avoid RS232 because not all of my PLCs have that option. Has anyone used something like that in the past?

Click to expand...

All of the latest from Banner has Ethernet/IP communications:
https://www.bannerengineering.com/us/en/products/machine-vision/smart-cameras.html#all

https://www.bannerengineering.com/us/en/products/machine-vision/bar-code-readers.html#all

Tharon is looking for a mag stripe reader.

Tharon said:

I've been spoiled by Ethernet/IP. Recently started using some Vision Cameras and Barcode readers that communicate via Ethernet/IP with a CompactLogix. Was very fast and easy.

But it came up recently that they wanted people to log into machines using their employee badges. Each employee carries a badge that has a magnetic strip they use to punch in/out for work. Certain employees would have more access to machine settings, etc, than others. Passwords are used currently, but people share passwords very often, and before we know it, everyone and their mothers know the password.

I've been looking around a bit to see if anyone made a card reader that was Ethernet/IP, since that feature would make things so much easier to use. I want to avoid RS232 because not all of my PLCs have that option. Has anyone used something like that in the past?

Click to expand...

ODVA lists "pcProx Plus EtherNet/IP RF Card Reader"
https://www.rfideas.com/industry/rockwell

Hate to quote myself... even though I write some very profound stuff...

JordanCClark said:

Tharon is looking for a mag stripe reader.

Click to expand...

Because this keeps getting overlooked.

Tharon said:

... Each employee carries a badge that has a magnetic strip they use to punch in/out for work...

Click to expand...

The pcProx is an RFID unit. RFIdeas does, in fact carry a mag stripe reader. Unfortunately, it's a serial device.

I'll look into those card readers. And what exactly we have for our employees.

I guess I mistakenly assumed it was a stripe reader because the operators all swip their card through a serial reader at the clock in/out computers. But today I looked at one of the operator's badges, and it did not have the visible strip on the back. Maybe it's embedded in the card itself and not visible? But they do swipe it. I don't have one personally, since I don't clock in/out like that.

I'll figure out what it is that they actually are (the people asking me didn't know anything other than they swipe the cards). And then use the suggestions here to figure out what I need.

I ended up going with a serial device, and then using an Ethernet/IP adapter. Turns out half the badges are Barcode, and the other are a combination Barcode and RFID. And the readers they had currently are an Omni Barcode/Strip scanner from IDTech.

Initial tests have been successful.

Added bonus of being able to use the same style reader they currently use (to a PC) and then I can implement it on my older machines that don't have Ethernet, just serial, using the same device without the Comm Adapter.

So looks like I'm one step closer to life without the headache of passwords and being forced the change them constantly due to sharing and smart operators watching them get typed in by authorized users.

Going to have to learn a bit more about these Allen Bradley ASCII Read commands, and what I can do to make them execute automatically when ever data is send to the PLC, instead of executing the instruction then waiting for the data. Also variable character length input. But my testing has been very limited so far, so it may be something simple I haven't looked into yet.

A lot of the ascii/ethernet i/p devices will expose a sort of 'event' or 'new data' flag. You can use that to trigger the ascii read probably.

Dravik said:

A lot of the ascii/ethernet i/p devices will expose a sort of 'event' or 'new data' flag. You can use that to trigger the ascii read probably.

Click to expand...

Sounds good. Any possible advice on situations without the Ethernet/IP adapter?

I read a thread here with a post from Bernie about how he had a variable length application, and checked the channel buffer for the data and the termination character, to get the length that way. http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showpost.php?p=209271&postcount=10

I think I will try playing with that for a bit. Planning on have an operator be able to scan their badge and automatically log in authorized users without having to activate anything from an HMI. I think Bernie's plan there may be usable for that.

The ARL command is your friend. Fire one up and wait for the DN. Rinse & repeat.
Just make sure you send a termination character and specify it in the port config.

The serial commands are async and buffered.

The ARL did the trick. Set it up with the proper terminating character, it reads up til that termination and feeds the results to the string. Then I just search for the Terminating character in the results and extract everything from 1 til the terminating character location minus one. And I'm left with the employee ID number from the badge. Though I guess my terminating character will always be my last character, when using the ARL. So I could just extract string length minus one.

The whole setup is a lot easier than I thought it'd be. Probably should have started this years ago.

Now to implement this on all my machines and make all the operators that share passwords angry...