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Mail room...

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markinro

markinro

IS-IT--Management
Mar 27, 2002
25
US
Hi, I just found this forum. Hope its the right place for this question.

We have a mail room with postage meters and are attempting to automate production so the operator does not need to manually keypunch on the meter device and record their log with paper/pencil.

Our budget is rather limited, the cheaper solution the better.
 
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Most people just ask questions about implementing this or that.
Are you asking for a quote to do some work (not sure how the admins like that). If you are just asking for suggestions, then I think that you will need to provide a bit more information for me to be able to help you.

How many postage meters do you have. If it is automated, how many do you think you will need (what kind of throughput are you expecting, and in what time)

Can you explain the process an operator goes through when a typical letter is recieved ?

(Sorry, I used to do a lot of automation, but I have not done a post room before, so if some of this seems simple questions, then sorry !)
 
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Nope, not asking for a quote. Just wondering if anyone is in the same situation. Here's the layout:

Postage meters are mounted on a base unit. The envelope comes through and the meter stamps the postage. The meter provides piece counts, postage used and remaining postage (the meter acts like a bank account -- we can deposit money and as envelopes are metered, money is withdrawn). The operators feed the envelopes and then manually record the pieces, remaining balance and postage used. All the meters have either 25pin or 9pin port so I suspect it can be connected to a PC. The manufacturer has offered a solution of implementing their own over-priced ($200,000) software which is hardly cost effective.

We have quite a few meters but each installation is identical. If I can get one to work, the rest will fall.

Is there a way to determine if the 25/9pin port is used ?

We can live with the manual process but I just thought someone out there has been successful in implmenting a home-grown solution.
 
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So your feed to the meters is already automated ?

What do the operators need to punch in ?

Were you provided with any software to enable you to configure the serial / paralell ports ?, or do you have any manuals on the machines to say what they can be used for.

I'd say that 200k sounds a lot, but that I don't really know a lot about what you have.

You can try to connect a null modem cable to a 9 pin port, and see if you can connect to a machine using hyperterm. It may be that inside the machine theres a switch to enable the ports, or a combination of keys on the front.

If the ports use their own protocol though, then things may start to get more interesting, as you need to work out which pins are doing what.

If you want to automate all of these stations though, and if it is a paralell / serial port, you need to find some way of getting all the ports into a PC (you may need more than one).

I'd say that it can be done, and almost certainly cheaper than 200k, but if you start to play around with a meter and it goes belly up, whats the cost to replace it ?
 
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Yes, the feed is automated but the accounting is not.

The manufacturer will only dicusss their solution so I'm pretty much on my own. I've used 'sniiffer' software on com ports. I can give that a try. I can test a standard cable, null modem and I also have an RS422 card. Is there software which can 'sniff' the individual pins ?

The plan is to get one PC for each meter and have the PC's on a network.

The meters are pretty stable but I do have a test meter.

By the way, thanks for all the help.
 
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No problem, (it may be possible to have >1 node per PC, but it depends on your software etc, and given the cost of PC's it might be easier to have 1 each.)

I have never heard of software that will sniff individual pins on a port, but IIRC, one of our technicians years ago had a gadget that could be connected between a device and the PC, and lights flashed when data was coming down that line. (but this was 10 years ago, so I could be imagining it !)

Good luck, and if you want any more help, post here and I'll try :)

K
 
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