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Magnetic Stripe Test Cards
Magnetic test cards are paper or plastic cards with an attached magnetic stripe. The magnetic stripe has either special magnetic characteristics and/or special magnetic patterns are encoded onto the stripe. These cards can be used for testing, calibration, or debugging of magnetic card readers or encoders. Magnetic test cards can also be used to ensure compliance to worldwide ISO card standards, your own internal company standards, or your external client's standards. Q-Card offers test cards individually or in convenient packages for various applications.
Q-Card Test Cards
- Each card is permanently serialized
- Cards are encoded on a precision transport
- Track alignment is closely controlled
- Jitter is checked per the ISO/IEC7811-2 and/or ISO/IEC7811-6 standard
- Custom jitter graph is produced for each card
- Each card is produced using ISO 2.125-inch x 3.375-inch (54mm x 85.7mm) ID1 PVC base (other sizes and materials optionally available)
- Cards are encoded using 75/210 BPI (3/8.3 BPMM standard), 3 track locations (other densities are available)
- For testing readers and encoders to ISO/IEC7811-2 and ISO/IEC7811-6
- Data encoded is a sequence of the digits 0-9 repeated for the length of the track (custom data can be used upon request)
High Coercivity or Low Coercivity test cards can be provided with specific:
- Jitter
- Amplitude
- Density
- Track Location
- Parity Errors
- LRC Errors
- Special Data Formats
About Jitter
Bit-to-bit jitter is a change in bit length from one bit to the next on a magnetic stripe. Ideal cards would have no jitter, but real cards do! Cards with high jitter are generally unreadable, because the decoder electronics in the card reader cannot tell a binary "1" bit from a "0" bit. Precision jitter test cards are ideal for testing readers and encoders. They are also good as standards of comparison when checked against production samples.
Our Test Cards
The jitter test card is encoded on our SE1 Super Encoder with the desired jitter pattern. A serial number is printed on each card. The accuracy of the pattern is then read and verified on our Mag3:Read-Write magstripe analyzer. The SE1 transport can accommodate virtually any size of card up to airline ticket size, 3.25-inch x 8-inch (83mm x 203mm). Unique types of test cards can be produced on special order.
High or low coercivity magnetic test cards can be programmed with specific jitter, amplitude, density, parity errors, LRC errors, etc.
Information Necessary to Process Your Order
- Card size: Normal ISO ID1 (CR80), thin ID1, ATB (airline ticket) etc.
- Card material: Normal ISO plastic PVC or paper.
- Track location: Normal ISO track 1, 2, 3 or other nonstandard track location.
- Stripe coercivity: Normal ISO 300 or 2750 Oersted, or other nonstandard coercivity such as 3600 Oe. etc.
- Signal amplitude: Normal ISO amplitude (generally 0.6-1.2 Ur) or other nonstandard amplitude.
- Jitter: Bit-to-bit jitter and subinterval jitter (can be specified as minimum jitter or up to about 23-25%).
- Data format: Normal ISO IATA, ABA, THRIFT format, or other nonstandard format.
- Data content: Normally a "0123456789" repeating pattern is encoded; other patterns can be provided.
- Data errors: ISO parity and LRC errors can be provided.
- Density: Standard ISO 75/210 BPI (3/8.3 BPMM) other nonstandard densities can be provided.
- Start/Stop sentinel location
Test cards are valuable for:
- verifying your readers meet ISO specifications
- testing magnetic card readers
- testing POS terminals
- testing ticket dispensing equipment
- testing ATM's
- providing a standard of comparison for testing
- service bureau card-processing equipment
- swipe-based and motorized card encoders
- engineering development of card readers/writers
- checking power supplies, read circuitry, heads, mounts, and card transport mechanisms
- checking for catastrophic failure and gradual degradation of readers in the field
