Hi check out what I scored in the dumpster. I've had this for a little while and those who follow me on Twitter probably would recognize the thing I tweeted a photo of this like a month ago or something. It's a credit card imprint our programmer embosser machine that banks and other financial institutions or other companies that might have loyalty cards or something like that. It's designed to for programming your credit card so if you're wondering where your credit card comes from it, how they embossed those numbers on there, how they program them and stuff like that will.

It likely came from a machine like this. although this is not one of the big like industrial high volumes ones, this is what like a desktop unit but just looking at the size of it here that banks can just issue a card straight away like within a minute they can give you a replacement card without having to like go back to the factory and have one printed and then ship to you. They can just give you one right on the spot. So basically you feed in your pre-printed cards.

Of course you know you'll just buy them with your company like you know the logo on all the fancy imagery on there, but it'll be blank like this. It might have a magnetic stripe and or a smart card. Contact this machine optionally supports our programming magnetic Stripe cards and also the newfangled smart cards with the chippy in them and you load them inside the Machine and it goes in there and goes around inside all the mechanicals and it embosses it it can put our foil on top of the thing and a minute later Bingo! It shoots it in this output tray and you've got they programmed and embossed card you can give to the customer straight away. Beauty! So let's take a look at it.

I'm Vera Was very surprised to find something like this in the dumpster and when I saw it I went what on earth is that? I knew it's the data card 150 I I knew it was some sort of like card thing but I didn't think it would be ones that are used by like banks and financial institutions. So this is pretty cool and as you can see it's a little bit worse for where it's cracked around here. All this and that's not shaped like that, that's actually all cracked off and it's designed to have a interface but also electronically. You got to put in a code here and then as electro magnet solenoid release in there that then you can lift Tada.

well spoiler alert we're inside, you can lift it up and this is where you put your cards in and like there's output like reject trays inside and stuff like that. So this is designed for like the operators to actually get in to the mechanicals and have a little bit of a fiddle with it anyway and as you can see it's something. oops happened with this IC input they just pushed it all the way in and it still works. But yeah, that's so.

this thing's had a bit of a whack. Anyway, this is massively heavy. It weighs like 40-plus kilos or something. and it's got a huge diecast base on it.

Massive because it's got like lots of motors and drives and all that sort of stuff inside that you know if you're into 3d printers and stuff you'll probably be familiar with. So it's made in the United States of America 6.3 amps. This is 250 volt Joby and then it's got. There's a development port on it, which is who blanked off.

Anyway, there are two ports on it. One is a Rs-232 communications interface, another one is a service interface. if you want to like I don't think it's service codes out of it or something like that. You can really see the solid base on this thing.

Unbelievable. You can even bolt it down. That's how good it is. This thing is a beast.

Yeah, it's gotta weigh like 45 50 kilos so it boots up and it looks fine. Rev: F firmware and uh, is that the number of our cards? so it's printed? perhaps? Anyway, card supply empty and I've got some blank American Express cards thanks to Axel Foley I Need some help? What I Need some more credit cards? What? I need a lot this time. How many? American Express blank credit cards only 2000? It's time. Get tough.

Got it? You can't I'm sorry I thought I guess I'll take my bag of money. Somebody who can help you got the money I got I said I got a bag of money right? I'll back it back. not this big this way. Full to the brim with money.

When do you need to close I need the cause of three out. get out three hours. Give me some time Yes ma'am I'm a businessman. Okay I gotta make move that movie Yeah I'm moving Three hours, 3 hours, 3 hours, 3 hours, 3 hours.

And as it turns out, I've got a copy of the demo software here I had to crack the password but being the boss level hacker that I am, that was no problem. Com1 9,600 I assume it's 9600 that's what the default is. So I'm gonna go connect got a cable? Let's see if it doesn't anything waiting for a response. Do I have a crossover cable? haven't even checked.

shouldn't take that long. Nah wah Oki RTFM Did find the manual and apparently this now makes sense. This is an output. This is the output hopper or where your card your printed card pops out.

That makes sense. That's why it doesn't have any ability to suck the card through, but it can push it out like that and that's why that. That's why there's a sensor in there that the card pushes from this side, pushes up and then it knows that there's a card there. it senses that it's in the output tray.

Now this door here and that's why this one is always accessible. This one here is a bit harder. This is actually a single card feeder or something anyway. but yeah.

I think what the deal is if you want to load the cards in and because they're protected, they're quite. You know? I guess they're valuable like you know if you've got the the actual blank like pre printer to bank credit cards with the smart chip and the you know everything like you know they looks like the real deal then you know you want those inside the locked thing and that's what the lock on. That's what the key lock on the front is here. and it's an electronic lock cuz there's actually a solenoid down here like this and this one.

I I did not cable tie that somebody's cable tied it says somebody went oh bugger screwing. having to operate the software. open the door every time somebody's hacked that bank stuff was something, is hacked it. and yeah it just made their life more convenient anyway and it does look obvious that this is the the main hopper.

So I'm gonna do what work those in there, close the case and see if our nook card supply empty. Why? I'm obviously not tripping some sort of switched. now according to the manual, there's a wait that I'd know. Okay oh no I was going to say there is also a little like a card thing on here and that might be how that card hopper goes.

Anyway, this apparently the way you do this is you put your single card in there and you somehow it feeds it. I Think you can push manually, push a card. Oh, hang on, don't ya? there's our wait. There you go.

It was in there. No wonder it didn't detect them. All right? let's put our cards in there. We go that that something moves that there we go.

there's that switch. move down there. you can see it. Oh I'm down there.

Bingo that's gone out. You can see the photo sensor down in there so that is now activated and we put our weight on top. Bob's your uncle now. it'll detect it.

Come on. Ah what? what? What? What? I did manage to get the code to open it 1 1, 2, 3, 4 Open cover. Thank you. Maybe I need to go through the process.

Yeah, we don't have it anymore. So I assume cards are now detected. Yeah, this thing's like it's been cracked. Maybe it's been dropped or or something all the the door.

By the way, all the front part of the door you can see it or it's all being cracked along here. So that's maybe been forced to open or something. So some disgruntled employee did the code need to print some cards and unfortunately, no matter what, I do I can't get this software to connect I try different data rates and stuff and I've tried the terminal program but I'm getting zippity-doo-dah So all right. I've confirmed that this doesn't actually output anything on the serial port when it boots up.

So yes, so much for that. No wonder I wasn't seeing anything on serial comms program. and of course, silly me, doesn't have a no crossover cable. Oh yeah, that explains why it doesn't work.

Damn! I should better muck. this is not null, not crossover. So I thought I'd try my isolated Rs-232 interface and unfortunately it doesn't work and the reason it doesn't work is because it's a prolific driver as in prolific chipset on there and it gives me this code 10 error. You can see that little yellow exclamation mark there.

and apparently the reason for this is because well, they use counterfeit chips or something and Prolific actually modified their drivers to render the counterfeit adapters unusable because it didn't have a proper vendor ID code or some crap. So yeah, I'm gonna have to modify download some fix or something. Yeah, right. Finally found an OL modem cable and it's a female to female so answer which is the common type with so I'm going to use a gender que gender bender I Do have a like a special male to female one somewhere but and bingo ready for data command? We're in like Flynn We have two different types of fonts.

The standard standard standard is that the things stand out Gothic or OCR 7b. So that's the difference between the name and the numbers on the card. So the name will be the Gothic one and the numbers will be the OCR. All right we're gonna make a demo card here.

Few little bugs in the software. it popped up but I managed to get let make a card for Marty McFly with some choice numbers on here and so the number font is the OCR 7b and the name is the standart Gothic standard I'm sure. Anyway so do we want enable topping topping is the the silver numbering on like that with that silver tape inside that will then like coat the the top of the numbers. You can get gold as well just to make it look fancy pantsy So yeah will enable that.

Why not? And well we should just be able to well save it and print. Hopefully that's the plan All right. let's see if we can print this thing. I Got my cards in I should be able to do it with the lid open I Can't see any I won't wear, bypass the analog or whatever.

So I think it. I think it should be good. So I'm gonna go ahead and print the button here we go. It's our first test and print preview card.

Quantity One Yeah, lifts it up, shoves it in Yeah yep yeah, it lifted the card. up, and shoved it. I Can see it in the back. There hasn't done anything else.

Oh What? What was this why they tossed it? Yeah, there we go. Card Feed error: Great. Doesn't pop up on the screen to tell us what the problem is, but it's obviously stuck all right. I'll try that again.

I Got the jam card out of there. put it back in and print preview. Go now. Exactly the same thing as before.

Damnit No. I get the exact same error whether or not I have the the weight on here. whether or not I have the cover on or off and you can see that the cards actually jammed down in there so something is not feeding right. Bummer.

Feed this and then switch it on. It should do a whole reset, so maybe there's something wrong with the mechanism that comes out and picks it up. I Don't know to find out there we go. it's gonna reset itself.

Yep. Sweet. All right. Give another bill.

No, it's jammed again. Bugger? Yes. and no matter how many times I fiddle around with this, it just doesn't work. Watch this.

I'll try it again. I Can I don't have to reset anything I can just print it and well lift so that pushes the card out and it just doesn't go any further. It jams so oh, it indicates that it's jammed and it actually requires quite a bit of physical force to pull that out and then it goes thump down like that. So yeah, I don't know.

I've done a lot of fiddling around with it, so short of like trying to get in there and debug the senses and stuff like that. There's a little photo trainee down there, so that's a detector that the card's been pushed through, but it doesn't even attempt to extend the platform out here, which is the whole point. It's got to capture the card so I can bring it across here and then do the various things and and emboss it and then foil it and top it. whatever it's called and it's just.

ah, bugger. Maybe that's why they tossed it so I'd love to show you this working, but unfortunately I can't So let's try and go through a walkthrough of what it does here. it's It's fairly simple ultimately, so all your cars are stacked in here. you've got to wait and when it starts it, it lifts this up so that gets lifted up like that.

It comes through like that. The this sled for want of a better word is supposed to come forward and there is sort of like a little holder in there for the card, but I'm not sure then what would hold the front into that. Anyway, the card is supposed to delete it, may there's got. Maybe there's something missing from here? I'm not sure what the deal is, so anyway, it's got.

this obviously. So it's got the card holding on to here somehow. and then of course this sled can move back and forth. and then the card comes across here.

So the card comes over here like this and then it's supposed to. This is the section when it shows in the manual where you can install the optional Magnetic Stripe reader slash programmer and also a smart chip. a smart card. You know, smart credit card contact things.

So it would be a module with contacts and this one doesn't look to have it. So there's this roller down here. so the car to come across like this. Then it would go forward like this.

and then it's got a pinch roller here that can then force it into the output tray. but then we haven't done anything right. So it comes here. and then there's a roller on here.

So this has a motor and that pulls it through and you can see the magnetic head under that roller. Of course you need the roller on top to keep pressure down and the magnetic head. It's just a couple of wires buggering off that. So we've got the Magnetic Stripe reader encoder.

But yeah, the smart card is an optional module which isn't here and then that's gonna. I Can't get the star slid all the way with LBJ Anyway I Wish this thing worked. It would be really neat to see it anyway. You can see that this sled can potentially come all the way to here, so the card would be pushed out to here like this and then it can go in this pinch roller.

It could actually feed it through here into the output tray. So I'm kind of like can reject the card or whatever back to the output tray if you don't want to do anything to it or you just want a pro. you don't want to emboss it, but you just want to program it. And as I said, this is the location in the menu where it says that the Smart Card programmer module would be.

But anyway, if you want to emboss your card, then it wouldn't get it out the output here. and here's a little photo sensor down here. so then it'll pull it this way and once again, it's probably still holding it so to drag it across like this and then it'll come over into the Daisy wheel embossing part. You can see it's actually a wedge between the two points like that and once again it still be the sled carrying this thing over.

but I still don't know what holds the bottom end of it. I Still don't know what the deal is there. Anyway, it comes into the embossing machine and that's where the magic happens. so you can see like just like the old Daisy wheel printers hands up if you remember Daisy wheel printers before those newfangled dot-matrix ones came along and this has like each individual die a punch so to speak on there and each individual letter.

of course you will be able to get a like different font versions of this war. This particular days will all have the two different fonts that we saw in the software. so this is actually the raised number and the other one at the top is the concave version. So they come together and in Basha card so you can see hopefully that the top part of that that's the front of the card that is the concave version.

so they will slam together and emboss a card. so they've got basically the negative and the positive of that and of course that will raise the numbers out the front of the card. So this is the embossing part of that and you can see that there's a massive amount of force on here because it's got this big I do sorry I don't have the correct term for it but this big wheel here which then of course it rolls up on top and then forces that down with a absolute ton of force. I could literally be a ton of pressure.

You know this is like the juicy row of credit card in printers so yeah it's really nice. Of course driven by this big belt stepper motor here and that just yeah, it's not particularly quick. this thing I think it prints a card in like a minute, so it's not very quick at all because it's got to roll over and then press. you know, won't go boo boo boo boo boo boo boom boom like that.

it won't be that quick. it'll actually be significantly slower that. so I don't know where character per second or something like that. So probably if you've watched it - probably go clunk and then back and then it is.

This step the card. one part forward, clunk and then back and that's it. Then of course we have this stepper motor down here which turns the entire thing so it selects once again. this won't be quick, you won't.

Yeah, it'll probably go like that quickly. So yeah, I'm sure if we watch that wouldn't be quick at all. You can see that there are some missing characters here, so I've did you know they've got a maximum there? but I guess they don't need them. You could of course buy these are separately with different fonts and different dyes and things like that.

There you go. There's the different font, so this would have the two fonts on it that we saw installed in the software. now. I'm not entirely sure what this bit here does, but there's a little sense of wheel down.

There's a little spindle down here and it's got a little photo sensor on it. It's a little encoder wheel and this thing just like spins around and like just Springs back and this moves out and it's got some like it's got a guide roller down the bottom here thing and there's going roller here and here which is really curious. and there's two guide rollers. there's one here and one at an angle down here.

so sure what the deal is. Anyway, you'll see this little hack repair on this wire down here. Look at that. they haven't even they're just joined it together.

They haven't even bothered to heat shrink that or anything and it's all a bit. how are you doing I mean this is moving like this I'm not sure how often that moves but yeah, there's not a lot of strain relief on the on the wires. My guess is that once the car gets through the embosser here then this moves at an angle. like it pulls it out an angle and the sled must slide back a bit because it can't just keep going in here and it hit like that.

so it's got a like pull it and it's got to slide it back out. Yeah so that must. That must be what it is. It slides the card out of the way I Don't know why they couldn't just make this part shorter and it just came straight through.

Why it has to come then come back at an angle. Anyway, it gets to here and this is actually this part here is a is a reject thing so if the car does somehow its detected that it's reject. it actually just puts it inside this internal tray here. so like you have to enter in the code to open the case to actually get access to this like failed card thing and obviously can hold like yeah yeah there is a sensor on there.

okay when he gets up there like that boom the next one just slides through and then it'll tell you why that sensor there that's full Anyway, this card guider I guess mechanism. Our call is driven by this stepper motor and this pulley down here. still don't know what that does Beulah Beulah and then of course the final optional step. your card comes in to your foil or topper as it's called a topping function that puts a like a silver or optional gold I Don't know if it's real gold, it's just gold color like the numbers on the top of your credit cards so it must just I don't know how it does it heat it up and and put them on there.

Not sure what the deal is I don't have to take it apart to find out anyway what it does. this is basically a big electromagnet speaker and it can pull this up like this. you can see that plate down in there and it just pulls it up and then forces it down like that it'll just go thump and I don't know if it like it's got a little heating element under there. There's nothing big and beefy in terms of our wiring going under there so you know if it is heating up it wouldn't be huge power.

but yeah, does it just push down? So I don't know how this this sort of foil type stuff actually works. Anyway, it once it's done that getting the for the optional topper foil, then it doesn't shoot out the front like this. it actually it comes out the back and then goes all the way back all the way back all the way back and then it'll put through these guide rollers here. So this looks like a photosensor here.

so once again this pusher platform will push this forward. It knows it's their nose, it's cocaine. It's coming in here. Start up the rollers.

so these rod this bottom role is actually driven from a belt down there and that will pull the card through. You'll notice that there's a little flap here and a photo sensor so that comes up there and just interrupts that photo sensor like that so it knows it's in like Flynn and bingo it's in the output tray. and of course you could do up to like you know like fifty credit cards or something however high it cannot stack those in I Don't think it has an output tray full sensor. so yeah anyway then the user just opens the tray like this and they can get access to your finish card.

As I said, it takes about a minute per card to emboss them, foil them, and program them. So if you're just programming them it would be quicker and it just go in here like this. go over the programmer and then shoot it straight out. It doesn't have to go through the embossing or the foil in top in process.

So there you have it. That's the data card. 1:50 I Credit card processor Emboss our programmer II type device. Really cool I Can't believe I found something as obscure as this in the dumpster.

but I kind of sort of know what company it might have that comes from. Although this could have been one of any number of companies, it doesn't have to be a bank or a credit union or something like that. It could be someone who just wants you know, loyalty cards or something like that. They have you know, pre-programmed like a magnetic stripe or smart card loyalty cards or something like that.

You get them custom printed with your company logo. You can buy those for a dime a dozen and then you use one of these machines. Pretty heavy-duty construction. Everything is sized so that be I Guess Fairly reliable apart from the wiring that's got to go around it.

So one of the things I didn't see. and here is your more traditional like cable snake in trunk things which sort of like all your wires are inside a track and they're all just sort of like just like everything's just sort of like Explore. the wiring is just sort of exposed and pinin kind of, you know. But I guess it does the job and this is I think one of you know one of the industries sort of more standard type units I'm sure it is quite reliable in the scheme of things, but yeah, I just Weis a bit.

how are you doing just hanging around the place? But anyway, fascinating devices and that's what of course they'd if you're getting your credit card. If they're processing them by the tens of thousands and sending them out when you get a replacement card probably wouldn't be done on a smaller scale machine like this. There are much larger ones, big floor-standing ones that sit in on a factory floor and can you know, churn them out at a much quicker rate than these ones. This is just a personal credit card programmer for, you know, like countertop service.

If you need to get a card replaced like straightaway or something like that, they can use the Machine and do it there right in front of you and they can emboss it, foil it, program it, magnetic stripe and smoker. Pretty cool, but yeah, archaic old a serial interface. It's all a throwback from the very early machines. they've got to keep backward compatibility and stuff like.

that's probably why you find a 9600 board Serial interface. on it. Not terribly surprising, that's it. I'm pretty common for this type of gear in these sorts of industries.

so though maybe if I got time I can try and troubleshoot why it's jamming in there. but I I Really like Lis, that's the reason that they tossed it out I Don't know of the target companies this would have come from in our industrial office complex here. I don't know any of them that have shut down. that would have one of these, but it could be any company really who you know some or loyalty card or something like that.

I don't know, but it was likely tossed out because well, yeah, looks like a dense, it's just jammed. Anyway, that's a fascinating be the kit you wouldn't ordinary ordinarily get to see. so if you liked it, please give it a big thumbs up. And if you have experience with these type of things, I'm sure there's a viewer out there are yeah I've worked on these data card 150 eyes and day if you got this wrong and it does this and that and yeah I'm sure.

Anyway, let us know in the comments down below catch next time you.