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Plastic cards with magnetic stripe
These cards are surely still the most-dispersed plastic-cards offering a storage-medium. Everybody has at least one such plastic-card in the wallet, whether as EC-card, creditcard or customercard. The magnetic stripe has proven itself as a medium for storage of smaller quantities of data in many application areas. At the writing/encoding procedure, iron-oxide or chrome-oxide-particles are magnetized by means of a magnet-head.
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The magnetic stripes are available in two different types:
- plastic-cards with magnetic stripe LoCo 300 Oe (Oersted)
colour: usually brown
- plastic-cards with magnetic stripe HiCo 4000 Oe (Oersted)
colour: normally black
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-Oersted - by H.C. Oersted, short symbol Oe, no general measuring unit for magnetic field-strength
LoCo and HiCo magnetic stripes differ in the energy, that is necessary, to perform write-/read-operations and the resistance against external magnetic effects. HiCo magnetic stripes having 4000 Oe are more resistant and recommend itselfs at rougher industrial environments, as for example employeee-ID-cards that are exposed strong contaminations.
The memory capacity is the same with both types. On the three possible tracks of the magnetic stripes, data can be stored and altered afterwards again. Track 1 can be coded with a combination of numbers and letters (maximum 76 alphanumeric signs), track 2 and 3, however, only with numbers (track 2 up to 37 numerical signs, track 3 up to 104 numerical signs). Altogether, 217 signs at the maximum, therof 141 numbers can be coded.
On enquiry, the magnetic stripes can be printed coloured using screenprint technology, for example with simple logos, company names, webaddresses or telephone numbers.
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