It's a hand reader for access control. Let's take a look at what's inside and how it might work. Wanna help support this electronics fool? / thatelectronicsfool www.paypal.me/... ko-fi.com/that...
I installed these in my distribution center when payroll modernized from old punch cards for the hourly laborers. Our versions were fully loaded with Ethernet and a rechargeable backup battery pack for power outages. Neat to see the guts after all these years later.
I worked in a factory paid by the hour. I would go out for lunch at 12:00 and punch out using this device. I would sometimes punch back in at 12:31 and they would take 15 minutes off my pay. Companies probably saved a lot of money with these devices.
I find it interesting that I was under the impression, mostly due to the installation manual, that they would be used for doors and for entry into facilities and stuff, yet everyone that has commented so far about seeing or using these mentions that it was used to clock in/out of work.
I worked in a datacenter, we used those all over the building for door access. Someone accidentally dumped a cup of coffee into one in the office area and took out access for most of the building
Yeah I had to install these at the company I used to work for. They were used as timeclocks, I don't remember if we were using ADP or Paychex for payroll at the time. We just connected them to ethernet and hosted an app on one of our servers that handled communication between the unit and the payroll service. They had an optional NiCad battery pack and power board that went in the back as a battery backup. We had to RMA them on a fairly regular basis as they would just stop reading peoples hands correctly.
I would really like to know what's inside, but I don't want to damage it in the process. If I can find some that are identical online, I'll look into making a follow up.
@@ThatElectronicsFool it's a ball on a spring in a can. It measures tilt angle. When the reader is mounted to a wall the ball doesn't touch the can. When you unlock the reader and tilt it forward the ball hits the side of the can and you get a tamper. When you have the reader sitting on a desk it is already angled down which is why you're getting the tamper.
My bank used these for accessing the room containing the safe deposit boxes. Until they went broke and got themselves bought out. That blown fuse may have been intentional, when it was decommissioned by hitting it with 120VAC?
I didn't think about that, but yeah, I guess it's possible they were trying to damage it intentionally. I don't know any of the actual history of this device, or where it came from.
@@ThatElectronicsFool I don't get it either. If you cared that much about security, you'd physically destroy the thing. (or at minimum, reset it the same way you did.) I'd bet it was hit by lightning, or some nut patched the wrong voltage into it.
I used to work at a doctor's office that used one of these as a time clock. That doctor didn't trust anyone. His office had a full-fledged apartment with garage and everything in one wing too, kind of weird. Why would you live in a doctor's office?
Hadn't considered that they could be used for clocking in and out, but it makes sense. As for that doctor, I guess at least he had no excuse to be late, lol
This was very interesting, enjoyed the video and the Hula Hoop demonstration. How did you acquire this peace of inventory? Did this unit send a message to another box to unlock a door?
It's one of those things that was given to me several years ago that I've had in my inventory collection. These can be connected together with other units, according to the manual, where one is master. They also work together with other devices such as card readers, or anything that uses compatible protocols. Usually this would be to unlock doors, as that's the main thing talked about in the manual, but it can control anything really.
While on the "internship" for the studies in my university, they just gave me this device and asked to search on the web for some various info about it, and that's how I got here :p. Any idea if you can extract the image of the hand or some measurments from it?
I think it may be possible to see what sort of data is being saved for each hand and where in RAM by using a logic analyzer with enough inputs to monitor the address bus, read/write lines, and the data bus at the same time. Unfortunately, I don't have such a tool to actually try it.
I installed these in my distribution center when payroll modernized from old punch cards for the hourly laborers. Our versions were fully loaded with Ethernet and a rechargeable backup battery pack for power outages. Neat to see the guts after all these years later.
This was how we clocked in and out for our shifts at my first job. I still find the process of clocking in and out an insult to our dignity.
I worked in a factory paid by the hour. I would go out for lunch at 12:00 and punch out using this device. I would sometimes punch back in at 12:31 and they would take 15 minutes off my pay. Companies probably saved a lot of money with these devices.
Dang, I could understand that happening for maybe like 5 minutes, but 15 minutes off for one minute, sounds kinda harsh, IMO.
My warehouse job in 2015 used this as a time clock.
I find it interesting that I was under the impression, mostly due to the installation manual, that they would be used for doors and for entry into facilities and stuff, yet everyone that has commented so far about seeing or using these mentions that it was used to clock in/out of work.
I worked in a datacenter, we used those all over the building for door access. Someone accidentally dumped a cup of coffee into one in the office area and took out access for most of the building
I'm guessing it must've been a "master" unit that got coffee spilled on it.
Yeah I had to install these at the company I used to work for. They were used as timeclocks, I don't remember if we were using ADP or Paychex for payroll at the time. We just connected them to ethernet and hosted an app on one of our servers that handled communication between the unit and the payroll service. They had an optional NiCad battery pack and power board that went in the back as a battery backup. We had to RMA them on a fairly regular basis as they would just stop reading peoples hands correctly.
I guess they're not as cool as I had thought. :(
That anti-temper can is quite interesting, never seen those before !
The anti-temper mechanisms I saw were mostly either light or magnet based
I would really like to know what's inside, but I don't want to damage it in the process. If I can find some that are identical online, I'll look into making a follow up.
@@ThatElectronicsFool it's a ball on a spring in a can. It measures tilt angle. When the reader is mounted to a wall the ball doesn't touch the can. When you unlock the reader and tilt it forward the ball hits the side of the can and you get a tamper. When you have the reader sitting on a desk it is already angled down which is why you're getting the tamper.
Thanks!
Pretty funky to see a DC barrel jack mounted this way pointing "inside" the machine :)
I can only guess that maybe the same board was used for some other device that had the board in a different orientation.
My bank used these for accessing the room containing the safe deposit boxes. Until they went broke and got themselves bought out.
That blown fuse may have been intentional, when it was decommissioned by hitting it with 120VAC?
I didn't think about that, but yeah, I guess it's possible they were trying to damage it intentionally. I don't know any of the actual history of this device, or where it came from.
@@ThatElectronicsFool I don't get it either. If you cared that much about security, you'd physically destroy the thing. (or at minimum, reset it the same way you did.)
I'd bet it was hit by lightning, or some nut patched the wrong voltage into it.
I used to work at a doctor's office that used one of these as a time clock. That doctor didn't trust anyone. His office had a full-fledged apartment with garage and everything in one wing too, kind of weird. Why would you live in a doctor's office?
Hadn't considered that they could be used for clocking in and out, but it makes sense.
As for that doctor, I guess at least he had no excuse to be late, lol
This was very interesting, enjoyed the video and the Hula Hoop demonstration. How did you acquire this peace of inventory? Did this unit send a message to another box to unlock a door?
It's one of those things that was given to me several years ago that I've had in my inventory collection. These can be connected together with other units, according to the manual, where one is master. They also work together with other devices such as card readers, or anything that uses compatible protocols. Usually this would be to unlock doors, as that's the main thing talked about in the manual, but it can control anything really.
Oh, I've seen one of those in a datacenter a decade ago. AFAIK its recognition failed a lot.
Interesting to hear. I was actually wondering how reliable these were/are as I have no previous experience with them.
While on the "internship" for the studies in my university, they just gave me this device and asked to search on the web for some various info about it, and that's how I got here :p. Any idea if you can extract the image of the hand or some measurments from it?
I think it may be possible to see what sort of data is being saved for each hand and where in RAM by using a logic analyzer with enough inputs to monitor the address bus, read/write lines, and the data bus at the same time. Unfortunately, I don't have such a tool to actually try it.