I have recently purchased a msr505c Magnetic Stripe Reader/Writer and the problem is it outputs in hex.
It cannot read the exact data on the card correctly, because of non standard format, there are clocking bits.
I need to able to read and write in raw binary form.
would I be able to accomplish this with an Arduino?
just by attaching the magheads?
here are pictures of msr505c taken apart
http://hacking-library.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=274
and the problem is it outputs in hex.
It cannot read the exact data on the card correctly, because of non standard format, there are cloaking bits.
Can you be more precise?
Hex is just a convenient way of representing binary, or do you mean it outputs ASCII hex?
Do you have a protocol spec?
there are cloaking bits
That's a bit Star Trek, or do you mean clocking bits?
just by attaching the magheads?
No not just by this the signal will have to be conditioned with electronics and you need a biasing oscillator on the write side. On the read side you need some specialist amplifiers. Just look at the hardware already in the reader, manufacturers don't put that much in just for fun. A DIY reader is not something that is simple.
oh sorry, i meant "clocking bits," which consist of a string of zero-bits at the beginning of the stripe to aid in setting a reference frequency for decoding.
so is it really that hard to make one?
I would need extra parts with the Arduino?
Here is a link to an old posting where a surplus card reader was discovered and code written to read standard cards (credit cards, bank cards, etc). Based on that I bought one and tried out the code and it worked well enough. Haven't really used it in a bigger project yet, but it would make for a nice security entry project.
Anyway not sure it will help you much, other then giving you a little backround on how standard mag readers work and how to decode the data and clock lines to capture the data.
http://www.arduino.cc/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1234488745
Lefty