Magnetic Strip Reader and SLC 5/03

I'm trying to find a magnetic card reader that will interface with my AB 5/03s. Preferably on port 0 as I have a touch panel on port 1. A google search didn’t come up with much. Does anyone know of such an animal?

What I ultimately wish to do is have the operators logon to the machine with this card so that it can be determined who changes what during a shift. Any ideas?

Would it suffice to have a unique password for each operator? If so, only a code change.

I considered passwords but felt they would seem to be time consuming to put in. There are a great many of these machines in the plant and they are not networked in any fashion. New employees are hired quite often and old ones terminate from time to time as well. As a result I'd hate to go program new operators on that many machines too often. The magnetic swip cards seemed like a good idea as I could do 256 of them, prepare the machines for them and then assume that I could go quite some time as operators would have to turn them in with their ID badges when they terminate. The AutomationDirect touch panel we use doesn't allow but for a few operators in its built-in password objects so I ruled that out as well.

I googled for swipe card and found quite a few options. Most seem to hook up to a PC running some custom software. Omron does have TTL versions though:

here

Try looking into RFID. These will give you the same results and maybe even a little more. We have used some Omron ones but I am sure they all work with similar results.

I don't know what I was thinking last night. I came up with all sorts of different options today. Although the easiest option is simply a proximity card reader with a relay output. Looks very simple but has no audit trail or ability to clone readers. I have over 50 of these to do if I go this route. I think giving up the option of an audit trail is OK, but I would prefer to program one unit and then clone them if possible.

I've never done any messaging before. Is this something that I may be able to get to talk to my 5/03s?

Before you get your heart set on Magnetic stripe readers...
Take a look at
Barcode Scanners.

You can print your own barcodes.
Printing a new Mag stripe is slightly more difficult.


Connecting Bar Code Scanners to a PC is simple.
Connecting Bar Code Scanners to a PLC is ????

I've thought about bar codes too. I know there are bar code readers that can communicate with the 5/03. I don't have experience with them, but I know they are out there.

This is turning out better than I had thought possible. Today as a test, I went online with my UIC on port 1 and did and ASCII read from port 0 and watched what happened when I started Ultraware and Ultraware started scanning for connected drives. The Magtek quy was certain that if I could do that, one of his cheaper RS232 interface readers would work. For less than a hundred bucks, I'm going to run it up the flag pole and see if it flies.