Evolis magnetic card printer and encoder

[ABC]

I recently concluded a successful search for a product that would be Mac compatible and allow me to print and encode a magnetic card that can "swipe" information into a POS system. More professional and sophisticated ID system than a bar code card system (and more expensive), I've been pleased with the result. Since my research uncovered the fact that not many Mac (or Windows) people out there are encoding magnetic cards for data entry, I thought I would post my findings.

Printer is called a Pebble3 by Evolis; magnetic encoding is a separate add-on option.

Feel free to post a further inquiry if anyone is interested in more information.

[stanley]

ABC:

I (and others) would definitely be interested in hearing more. Although there has been considerable work done with FMP and barcoding, there's not much information out there on magstripe solutions, and it is something that quite a lot of clients (and developers) ask about.

If you could post a more detailed review/report, it would be greatly appreciated.

-Stanley

[ABC]

I'd be happy to. This forum has been a tremendous resource for me on many occasions, so I am pleased to have something of value to offer back.

My program is a POS system for a specialized auto spa— they offer hand wash, detailing and other high-end cleaning services. Very tightly branded operation looking to begin franchising their solution soon. This technology will tie together their process and system into a single package.

Two needs pushed us to look for magnetic encoding rather than barcoding:

1. gift cards (rather than paper gift certificates)

2. monthly "CLUB" program member ID

CLUB program members pay a reasonably hefty fee for regular access to keep their cars spotless all the time. Currently their system for tracking and billing these members is manual, paper-based. My solution automates everything with FileMaker Pro.

To identify CLUB members, a magnetic hard card will now be provided with their unique customer ID encoded on the card. Each visit, they swipe their card and the visit is recorded.

Likewise, gift cards can now be encoded with whatever amount a customer wants, and a unique ID encoded on the card. That ID then corresponds to an amount on account that can be spent down on future visits until exhausted. More value can be added as well, like a Starbucks card, if desired.

The product used to do this is from Evolis:

http://www.evolis.com

The printer is called PEB3LE. It is Mac compatible and, with some tweaking, prints on plastic cards wonderfully. A separate encoder option is attached to the printer to allow encoding for the cards.

TWO NOTES!

1. on the MAC, cards can only be encoded one at a time, not in batches; also, the ENCODING must be done with a separate program by Evolis...I have not found an integration directly to FM yet.

2. I seriously think I'm the first one to do this on a Mac in all of the US; I literally had people AT EVOLIS telling me this isn't possible, while another tech support person said it was. We went out on a limb and bought the equipment and it does indeed work!

We got the 3-track encoder...the magetic stripe has three tracks of info it can record; something like 128 characters per track. We actually only encode a 5 digit number on them, nothing else. After encoding, the data swipes back in with control characters at the beginning and end of the data, so FM needs to be programmed accordingly to recognize and account for these extra characters.

Any USB swipe device will read into the Mac, but we purchased all the other POS equipment from POS Direct. They too were sure the magnectic encoding wasn't possible on a Mac, but otherwise, they were quite helpful.

I would be happy to talk anyone through this individually if you would benefit from it. I'm pleased with the level of professionalism and confidence a magnetic card system offers over bar coding. I would expect in due time the batch capability will arrive for Mac also, but it is not that time consuming overall, if the quantities are done reasonably.

Hope this additional info helps; again, if there's more I can offer, please let me know.

Ciao.

[eagles1]

Hi ABC,

Your report is great as I am about to look for similar setup and solution.

I visited the evolis website. In the drivers & software section, it only mentioned Window XP Driver. No Mac driver. How do you get the driver for Mac ? Does it run on Mac_Intel?

Does the encoding software comes with the printer ?

Thank you

[ABC]

Wow, a year later and Evolis still doesn't realize they made their product Mac compatible huh? My client has been using it for a long time on their Macs so rest assured it does indeed work.

If you call Evolis and ask for tech support, the guy I talked to there was Jean Claude or Jean Paul or something...been awhile and I can't find my notes. But he's the one who hooked me up.

You need two things: the driver for the Pebble3 to enable printing on cards; and the encoding application to put information on the magnetic strip (which btw, I have not been able to integrate into a FM Pro so it has to be manually done as a separate task).

Let me know if you succeed with Evolis in getting these Mac apps. Otherwise, I might be able to call them again myself or send these to you otherwise. Just post back here.

[eagles1]

Hi ABC,

I re-visited Evolis website today. Now it display a big banner annoucing the support for MacOS.

I have a 2 more questions:-

1. Which card reader do you use ?

2. Since there are 3 tracks on the card, when you swipe the card in FM, which track of the information does it capture?

Thank you

[ABC]

LOL. So they finally admit supporting the MacOS. I should check back to see if their tools are more tightly integrated now. Been a year since I last looked into it.

Re: Card reader...really irrelevant. All you need is a USB card swiper and you can buy those anywhere for about $60 or so.

Re: Tracks... as you can fit quite a few characters on one track, we only use one of the three. For us, all we really want the card to do is deliver the unique ID that triggers a record in a database to retrieve the pertinent information, rather than storing it all on a card.

I would plan to burn a good handful of cards playing around with the printer and encoding in trial and error testing though...takes a bit to get used to the nuances.

Lastly, do note that the Pebble3 printer is just that...a printer. If you want to also encode cards, you need to purchase another option (which does fit in the printer). Again, it's not cheap but it is very slick.

Hope that helps!

[Aiden]

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[Aiden]

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