Magnetic Card swipe reader for PLC's?

Hello, I am wondering if anyone has used Magnetic card swipe readers to send data to a PLC either via modbus or rs232. We are basically needing to transfer the data off of 45 different mag strip cards into holding registers in an Idec Microsmart Pentra for a waste water disposal application. But I have not ever integrated card readers within any of our applications. If anyone has done this and could point me to some reliable friendly to configure systems I would appreciate it very much.

Have a look at these results:
http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/search.php?searchid=2570757

Yes I would love to do RF instead but here is the situation. We work for the Oil and Gas industry and one of our customers swears up and down in south TX he has systems like the one Im bout to describe up and running. He has 45 trucks with a unique gas card associated with that truck, and a pin number for the person to enter. So I am needing a Magstrip swipe reader that will read their current gas card info then they will have to put their pin on our touchscreen and it will compare if they match to allow them to proceed. That is the application in a nutshell although their is much more to the total project then that...that is the only part we dont know how to implement.

Basically the guy is wanting his water hauler trucks to use their existing gas cards and pin number associated with that truck to allow his water haulers to dispose of their truck load at a disposal station. If we can get the PLC to receive the info from the card and put it in a holding register we can do a compare with their pin they enter and if it matches they can proceed then i will move the data to a spreadsheet via a webserver.

I thought some of those results would have some mag. card reader details.

Since you're reading existing cards with data already formatted a certain way, your research may be more involved. My experience with card readers is ancient, but they did work very well even in terrible environments. I don't remember the brand we used. All I had to do was "burn" a new card when a tech would bring his old one in (sometimes they would work for years with scotch tape holding them together.)

Several forum members have mentioned having experience with them. It may take a few days before they see this thread though, so keep checking.

Paul

Have you looked into the use RFID prox tags for what you want to do?

Have you thought about using a pre-engineered solution from the fuel dispensing industry? Preferrably the one that these guys use their cards with when they get gas? There are several setups that will do all that you want them to for fueling stations, etc. Seems like your app is perfect for them.

engineering project using PLC

is there any one can send me the list of project that can be made by using PLC for engineering students

That is exactly how a system that I have worked on functions.
Read the card, compare the PIN to an account, and bill accordingly.

(Any number of steps and sequences can be programmed in between the read step and the decision phase.

Generally, a standard RS-232 card reader is used, and is interfaced into the SLC via the serial port. (Reading ASCII)
(My particular example uses a Basic module)

These devices are all over the place, so do a simple search in Google to find a local supplier.

If you need more direction, just ask.