POS Equipment

[HCHTech]

I've managed to avoid working much with POS terminals & such so far in my business. The retail clients I have all used regular computers for their registers. This meant everything that attaches (cash drawers, credit card terminals, barcode scanners) used regular USB cables.

Enter actual POS terminals. One of my clients with 4 stores recently purchased another business and got a half-dozen POSx terminal units as part of the sale. They used this opportunity to switch POS companies, which adds to the fun. To to add to these, we recently purchased 3 new ELO POS terminals as well.

So, sorting through the boxes of equipment, we have Motorola STB4278 Bar Code scanners, like this. The scanners only available connection is a network port on the base. "That's strange", I thought to myself. But sure enough, some googling turned up THIS cable you need, which has a network RJ45 connector on one end and a USB-A connector on the other.

What is this foolishness? We dig around through dozens of boxes of crap, no cables like this. So we order a bunch from Amazon and continue on with the project. Stupid hardware companies intentionally making proprietary bs like this.

Next we move on to the credit card terminals. These are all new, Ingenico iPP300s. The cable that came with these things uses.....wait for it.....an HDMI connector to attach the cable to the unit. On the other end of this cable is another RJ45 connector. Where in the heck is this supposed to connect to....and what kind of connection is it? The manual very helpfully says "connect the other end of the cable to the terminal." without additional comment.

I did find the cable below which has an HDMI connector on one end and a USB-A connector on the other, so I suppose if we order a bunch of those, we can at least connect the things to the terminals via USB - as long as we order the required-but-not-included power supply.

Who designs this stuff, anyway?

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Yeah POS equipment plays by a whole 'nutter set of rules. Been a very mix matched environment so you have lots of connectors which...tried to make things work across different generations of equipment.

A great resource for POS stuff that we use...and they're close to you too.
https://www.metsales.com/MetropolitanSales/default.aspx

 

[Sky-Knight]

The upper cable is better than USB for the purpose because it has a lock tab. USB B doesn't stay in the base of the scanner worth a crap... but this is the first I've ever heard of the scanners not coming with the cable, mine always have.

I've used the IPP300 specifically, and yes it uses an HDMI into a 90 on the base of the pad, but the other end of my cables is your typical USB A, again the card terminal CAME with this cable. My only complaint about that particular device is that it's not a USB device, it's yet another USB to serial adapter, with software that controls it. So as your users move the USB around, the stupid com port number changes and breaks the POS software integration.

It sounds to me like whomever ordered this junk didn't know WTF they were doing.

 

[HCHTech]

Do either of you know if the HDMI -> RJ45 cable that came included with the cc terminals is really a network connection? Would that mean it is supposed to be POE? There are extra RJ45 connectors on the POSx terminals, but I'll have to dig up the documentation on those to see what they were intended for. Thanks for the link, YOSC, I'll definitely give them a call.

Everything but the new CC terminals and the 3 new ELO POS machines were included as part of a sale, so presumably they were setup and working at some point for the prior owners. We'll sort it all out, but of course there is a deadline - there is never any thought given to planning for this crap - just "Hey can you come and make all this stuff work by Friday?".

Edit: Ok, so the cables that have RJ45 connectors all appear to be serial. The extra RJ45 connectors on the terminals themselves are labled "COM1 - COM4" in the documentation. So I think we're good there. Phew!

 

[Sky-Knight]

It is not a network connection, it's an RS232 serial connection. You can get RS232 to modular adapters to feed it into a DB9 serial port, but it looks like you discovered that.

 

[Diggs]

some googling turned up THIS cable you need, which has a network RJ45 connector on one end and a USB-A connector on the other.

Yep - That's the only place I've seen those cables used. Our production lines used to have these on the bar code guns.

 

[mikeroq]

RJ45 as serial ports is common in the POS world. However more and more are going to USB. Mostly using the PoweredUSB standard. These take a USB port and add 12v or 24v power on top of it. You will notice the ports are keyed so you can't plug the wrong into the wrong port. Depends on the device but lower end ones will just have a USB serial chipset in them. Others will present as actual USB HIDs, some like customer displays that are monitors might have a USB video chipset, receipt printers as USB printers, etc.

This way peripherals can be powered direct from the computer and forgo their power bricks. Some pole displays and many barcode scanners can live off the normal 5v USB. Having the 12v and 24v can power larger pole displays such as ones that are monitors, wireless barcode scanner charging cradles, receipt printers, etc.

Pretty much every barcode scanner I've sold or seen uses RJ45 on the scanner. That way they can support many different cable types. Makes more sense to have 1 scanner that can adapt to every interface vs having the cable hard wired in. Also lets you replace the cable if damaged, swap out to larger cables, etc.

The reason that card terminal uses HDMI is due to the HDMI connector having 19 pins. It's cheaper and easier to use an off the shelf part for the connector rather then to design your own. So using that HDMI connector they have enough pins that there can be a USB cable, an ethernet + power cable, possibly an ethernet + power + phone line, serial, etc. Ingenico is big on using that HDMI connector across multiple products.

 

[Slaters Kustum Machines]

You also have to watch out for scanners that have the same RJ45 port, but don't work with USB. I find it's best to just pick a PoS vendor and work directly to make sure you get exactly what you need.

 

[Sky-Knight]

Whomever you got the IPP300s from, you need to call back and order the correct cables. These things do not grow on trees, the POS world is locked behind closed doors. You can't just order this stuff, and if you don't get it from the place that supports the product as the client needs it, you're likely to have issues down the line.

 

[nerd2u]

That pin pad cable usually goes to a seperate cable with rj45 inputs and a usb output I'll see if I can dig out a picture

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[mikeroq]

is the ethernet + power cable. Power supply is seperate

There is also a USB cable that has an external power supply with it:

And of course the USB cable he mentioned above:

 

[nerd2u]

This is also a common attachment

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[HCHTech]

Wow - you never know what you don't know, you know?

Got a conference call scheduled with the POS vendor and the client for tomorrow afternoon - so we'll sort it all out then. We bought the model of ELO terminal the vendor recommended, but they failed to note that it didn't have any RJ45=Serial ports (and so, will require different cables), it has regular DB9 serial ports, The old POSx terminals they got in the business purchase do have the RJ45=serial ports, so those are going to be fine. Of course, I was too uneducated to think about that - I did tell the client to talk to the vendor and get specific model recommendations, but nothing further than that.

The NEXT TIME this comes up, I'll be ready - haha.

 

[nerd2u]

Wait till you have to start troubleshooting the pin pads or a cash drawer that doesn't open on a sale.

The receipt printers can get complex as well with cash drawer interfaces and what not

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[Markverhyden]

To be honest when I saw the thread subject the first thing that popped into my head was Piece o...... As I've had problems with that stuff recently.

 

[Sky-Knight]

@HCHTech You're better off getting the USB cables for those pads if you can get away with it. But if you want to go serial, you can always get some of these: https://www.amazon.com/Tripp-Lite-Modular-Adapter-P450-000/dp/B0029L0V48/

I used to use those to connect external modems to DB9 ports via ethernet cable in the wall... gag it's been ages.

But yes, the POS vendor should get you sorted out. And that's best for the client too, then the vendor gets what they want for support, and you get paid and someone to yell at when it breaks.

 

[VISA MC]

POS is a large part of our business, I’m happy to help if I can.

We use IPP350’s that plug directly into the network and accept transactions over the network.

As has been said before, all of our Motorola / Symbol scanners include the cable, but they are interchangeable. Some older ones snap in with a serial connector and some have USB. All you need is a paperclip to stick in the hole to swap them out.

 

[HCHTech]

Well, everything is up an running with surprisingly few hiccups. We had to futz with the receipt template for quite a while until it worked on both kinds of printers they had. As @VISA MC notes, the IPP350s are network connected using their Frankenstein HDMI-to-RJ45 cable. Of course, there was only a single drop at each register lane, so I'm glad i brought a handful of 5-port switches. The fact that they are network after all is actually disappointing, because it opens up the obnoxiousness that is PCI compliance for IP terminals. I was really hoping to avoid that with a web-based POS. Better luck next time, I guess.

The ELO terminals came without an OS install disk, but include a utility to make a factory-restore flash drive - I'm thinking it's probably better to just take an image of the drive for each one now that they are all configured and store them. Maybe update the image once a year or so. That has got to be faster than starting from zero if the SSD ever goes Tango Uniform.