A magnetic stripe is a mandatory attribute of a bank plastic card. It is often used on discount cards, as well as plastic IDs. In fact, this is the same information carrier, the volume of which is significantly limited and specially encoded.
Magnetic stripe on a plastic card
There are two technological processes for strip magnetization - LoCo (Low Coercitive) and HiCo (High Coercitive). With Low Coercitive or low coercivity magnetization, a magnetic field strength of 300 oersted is applied, but in the case of High Coercitive or high coercivity, this indicator grows more than 9 times - 2750 oersted. Ultimately, a plastic card with a HiCo magnetic stripe lasts much longer and is more practical, however, its manufacturing cost is much higher than that of LoCo. The bottom line is that HiCo magnetic strips are resistant to extraneous magnetic fields and thus less frequently demagnetized than LoCo.
Which magnetic stripe to choose - LoCo or HiCo?
As a rule, Low Coercitive magnetization is used for marketing purposes in the manufacture of plastic discount cards. Still, it makes no sense to additionally protect the cards that are used by clients from time to time against demagnetization - this will cost more. But in the case of plastic IDs, which employees pass through readers at least twice a day (when they come to and leave work), it is advisable to use High Coercitive magnetization.
The generally accepted standard for magnetic stripe on a plastic card is a half-inch stripe located 4 mm from the edge of the card. This option is supported by most reader models, and therefore is used everywhere.
There are 3 tracks for recording information on the magnetic stripe, but it is not necessary to use all of them. As a rule, all three lanes are involved in the case of bank plastic cards Mastercard or Visa. But for recording information on discount cards, only one middle track is most often used.
An important condition for recording information on magnetic stripes is the use of the Latin alphabet. The use of the Cyrillic alphabet will lead to errors both at the stage of writing and reading information.
Magnetic stripe on a plastic card
There are two technological processes for strip magnetization - LoCo (Low Coercitive) and HiCo (High Coercitive). With Low Coercitive or low coercivity magnetization, a magnetic field strength of 300 oersted is applied, but in the case of High Coercitive or high coercivity, this indicator grows more than 9 times - 2750 oersted. Ultimately, a plastic card with a HiCo magnetic stripe lasts much longer and is more practical, however, its manufacturing cost is much higher than that of LoCo. The bottom line is that HiCo magnetic strips are resistant to extraneous magnetic fields and thus less frequently demagnetized than LoCo.
Which magnetic stripe to choose - LoCo or HiCo?
As a rule, Low Coercitive magnetization is used for marketing purposes in the manufacture of plastic discount cards. Still, it makes no sense to additionally protect the cards that are used by clients from time to time against demagnetization - this will cost more. But in the case of plastic IDs, which employees pass through readers at least twice a day (when they come to and leave work), it is advisable to use High Coercitive magnetization.
The generally accepted standard for magnetic stripe on a plastic card is a half-inch stripe located 4 mm from the edge of the card. This option is supported by most reader models, and therefore is used everywhere.
There are 3 tracks for recording information on the magnetic stripe, but it is not necessary to use all of them. As a rule, all three lanes are involved in the case of bank plastic cards Mastercard or Visa. But for recording information on discount cards, only one middle track is most often used.
An important condition for recording information on magnetic stripes is the use of the Latin alphabet. The use of the Cyrillic alphabet will lead to errors both at the stage of writing and reading information.
