Swipe card access

[chrisbramall 1]

We've all seen the swipe card access systems used in hotels. Well i've got a customer who has a tanker delivery system for waste products on his site. The tanker delivery system is offloaded to a treatment system which is controlled by an SLC5/03 PLC.  In order to restrict access and record data about who, when & howmuch is offloaded he wants to put a swipe card onto the PLC. Has anybody seen this done or better still know where I can get a compatible swipe card reader ?

[chrisbramall 1]

Well it looks like this topic went down like a lead ballon ! Has anybody seen anything like this done befoer or am I just over complicating things.

[93lt1 0]

I like the idea, but I have never seen anything like this. I was kinda waiting to see some replies

[Chris Elston 78]

It seems like it could be very simple. No different that using a bar code reader. I have seen swipe card readers that are RS-232. So you can just read the ASCII strings that come from the swipe card. Never done it before, but seems possible. If you can find an RS-232 swipe reader, I don't see any problems. Patch that baby in the front port of the 5/03 and give those ASCII read commands a run for their money in your ladder.

[kkarr 0]

There are many swipe card readers available that do RS-232 and using the Comm port is probably the esiest.  However, if you want to take this application to the next level, you can also put the reader on a PC and tie it into a database.  The computer would then talk to the PLC.   You mentioned controlling access and recording who, when, and how much.  All of this could be recorded in the PC for later recall either by screen display, reports, automated email....you get the idea.  Some card reader companies even have their own developement/database tools to make application developement easier.   Although I've not used them, I was just looking at Mag-Tek (www.magtek.com) and all of their readers are RS-232.  They also have software and documentation online for review.

[chrisbramall 1]

Why is it that things which seem complex to start off with suddenly looks to be simple when the right idea is pointed out. Thanks for all your suggestions.