The RSPA is an invaluable source for networking and information, and an active participant in promoting understanding of the PCI (Payment Card Industry Security Compliance), a very important industry  initiative to understand.

RSPA’s print publication Connect, email newsletter jiuce-news, and web site gorspa.org are full of articles on emerging technologies, current industry events, legal topics, and much more. RSPA also hosts the RetailNOW and INSPIRE conferences and conventions, and makes a membership directory available to its members.

The benefits of membership are a no-brainer for many — the membership cost is often more than offset by savings from services and affinity programs such as those below:

• The RSPA Legal Assistance Program offers a Legal Hotline (no-cost legal consultation),
contracts and forms packages, strategic partner packages, and employment packages
to help you run your business.

• RSPA has joined with Sentry Insurance to offer a new Property and Casualty
Protection Plan at group rates for RSPA Members.

• Educational seminars for all levels of retail technology professionals are
offered at both of RSPA’s summer and winter events, RetailNOW and INSPIRE,
as well as through other newly released programs.

• RSPA awards over $100,000 in college scholarships each year. Children,
grandchildren, full-time employees, and children of full-time employees of an
RSPA reseller member are eligible for an RSPA scholarship.

• Affinity programs for RSPA members — with special rates and pricing for services
and products — are available through UPS, Fedex, Nashua, Office Max, Sprint, and others.

Full details on the RSPA can be found at www. gorspa.org.

LAVA’s Parallel-PCI card is well-regarded for its speed and compatibility in many systems and applications, but every so often someone needs something special. In the case of Lockheed Martin, as they were developing a system for the US Postal Service they uncovered the need for a parallel port card that delivered a particular output voltage on its pins.

The modification LAVA produced met a real-world requirement for improvements in the parcel-handling systems of the US Postal Service — the conveyer equipment needed this particular parallel port voltage to operate properly. Not every supplier of cards is the manufacturer, and not every manufacturer is able and willing to make customized versions of stock products to meet a particular customer’s requirements. LAVA, with all functions from design, through manufacturing, to post-sales support, can do the job.

Lockheed Martin Parallel-PCI

Hennepin County Library

Hennepin County Library in Hennepin MN has been recognized as one of the top libraries in the United States. The 41-branch library system had 5.8 million in-person visits and almost 20 million Internet visits to their library in 2010.

Ether-Serial Link 1-232-DB9

When the library looked to connect their Electronic Cash Registers (ECRs) to a central location they chose a solution offered by local reseller American Metro Cash Register that included LAVA serial device servers. Attached to each in-branch gift shop/book store ECR, the LAVA Ether-Serial Links made it possible to poll each of the stores throughout the the library chain. This system allows them to do everything from monitoring end-of-day sales to doing on-the-fly lookups of items and prices.

“LAVA and Euroline’s existing relationship and history of joint projects, as well as Euroline’s extensive technical support and expertise in serial communications, were key factors in LAVA’s decision to appoint Euroline a full line Scandinavian distributor,” said Bob Figol, Vice-President, Lava Computer MFG. Inc. He further went on to say, “LAVA is looking forward to expanding our sales and marketing activities with Euroline in the Scandinavian marketplaces.”

Euroline carries LAVA’s Ether-Serial Links, USB-Serial Links, Serial Port Splitter, and HQ-ST Link polling system.

Brian Brown, President and Managing Director, Euroline AS says he is very pleased with this step forward between the two companies. He further stated, “We are pleased to receive this opportunity to work together with LAVA in these new territories and look forward to a profitable relationship for both parties. LAVA has vast technical experience and know-how, and their LAVA I/O News publication “Link” provides a wealth of information and insight.”

Mr. Brown added that LAVA specializes in the design and production of computer interfaces for non-industrial and industrial use. Its product lines include I/O cards and Ethernet-to-serial device servers. With I/O cards, various peripheral devices can be connected to computers. Furthermore, with LAVA’s Ethernet-to-serial device servers, RS-232 industrial devices can be easily linked to local computer networks via Ethernet. Both LAVA’s I/O cards and Ethernet-to-serial device servers have a long field lives and LAVA provides a LAVA Lifetime Warranty on all their products.

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Euroline AS is an ISO 9000 certified distributor of computer-based communication components and solutions. Euroline’s primary areas of activity are Serial Asynchronous/Synchronous Communications, CTI and Call Center solutions, WiFi, as well as technical administrative software. Within each of these fields, Euroline represents leading manufacturers/publishers who deliver high quality software and hardware. Besides products, Euroline offersCustomer Support, Technical Services, Development, and Consultancy. Euroline focuses on Quality of Service and Customer Satisfaction as their raison d’être.

Euroline aims to be a leading supplier in each of the fields within which it operates, and to establish itself as a point of contact in the Scandinavian and extended world market for these types of products and solutions. Euroline’s customers are primarily resellers of traditional IT-products, system integrators, software developers, OEM clients in the field of production and development, resellers of telecoms equipment/services, professional service providers, and more. It is through these channels that Euroline products find their way to the end-user. Visit http://www.euroline.no/.

LAVA: The Source for Ports.

About LAVA: Lava Computer MFG. Inc., headquartered in Toronto, Canada, designs and manufactures serial and parallel I/O cards and Ethernet-to-serial device servers widely used in the Point of Sale, Kiosk, Gaming, Light Industrial Automation, and Process/Access Control industries. With well over a million LAVA products built into workstations, servers, retail POS systems, and industrial computers since 1984, resellers, distributors, OEMs, and system builders in over 47 countries worldwide trust LAVA I/O boards and serial-to-IP connectivity solutions. Designed for lifetime performance, each LAVA connectivity link is individually tested and covered by the LAVA Lifetime Warranty. Visit http://www.lavalink.com.

surface mount machine

It’s how we make our cards and boards: soldering is a part of the manufacture of all of LAVA’s electronic hardware. Soldering is in fact a couple of distinct types of soldering, as described in a couple of articles we’ve put together.

The first type of soldering, “surface-mount soldering,” is how components such as chips, resistors, and capacitors are typically fastened to a flat printed circuit board (a PCB) — in effect they are secured by the melting of tiny dabs of solder paste. That paste is applied to the PCB through a thin metal screen that has holes that match the solder pads on the PCB. Components are then placed precisely onto this prepared board, with the components’ contacts seated on the solder paste. This assembly is then passed through an oven that melts the solder paste, soldering the components to the board.

Surface-mount soldering

The second type of high volume soldering we do is “wave soldering.” This process is used for components that have conductors that pass from one side of the PCB to the other: “through-hole” components. Once these components are placed, the boards travel on a conveyor over a pool of molten solder. The solder adheres to the pins and contacts that touch it as they skim over the surface of the solder pool.

Wave soldering

After these two types of soldering are done, the electronics of a particular board are essentially complete. That doesn’t mean that they are ready to sell however: they might in fact be parts of a larger assembly, or they might need to be programmed (as with firmware and MAC addresses). At the very least, they need to be cleaned of solder flux, inspected, tested (and yes, we test every one), and packaged.

parallel-connected plasma cutter

The parallel port is a crucial part of the control system for plasma cutters, such as those manufactured by PlasmaCAM in Colorado City, Colorado. PlasmaCAM makes a cutting table, automation electronics, and software to control plasma cutters, and they interface their cutters to PCs using parallel ports.

There are several reasons why parallel ports are preferred in this application. First, the PlasmaCAM uses servomotors on their x- and y-axis with encoder feedback for accurate positioning and contouring, and these motors require bi-directional communications simultaneously, a capability not available on USB. That bi-directionality enables a closed loop system that can communicate to the PC if the cutting head contacts an obstacle that causes the table to bind or the motor to slip — important for reducing waste and increasing safety.

In addition, newer interface technologies such as Firewire, USB, and Ethernet are less desirable in this application because they use higher frequency signals that are readily affected by electromagnetic interference.

Finally, PlasmaCAM also prefers the physically stronger parallel port cable and positively-securing connectors found in parallel port connections.

Parallel-PCI & Parallel-PCIe

The LAVA Parallel-PCI and Parallel-PCIe boards are ideal in this setting. But note — not all parallel ports are equal here: some parallel port adapter cards in the market have insufficient port voltage levels, and all, or virtually all, USB-parallel interfaces also lack the required voltages. Better to go with LAVA.

Panasonic JS-170FR w LavaPort-PCIs

When McDonald’s Canada and their POS system integrator Panasonic Canada were looking for a reliable North American manufacturer of serial cards to add into their cash registers, they chose LAVA.

They needed additional serial target devices to run a reliable, up-to-date, and efficient QSR operation. LAVA provided both companies with LAVA DSerial-PCI and LavaPort-PCI cards, which they tested extensively in their in-house labs and then in a series of field tests. Only when the cards had passed a battery of tests were they certified for the company-wide rollout.

LAVA was chosen for several reasons. As the manufacturer, we were able to meet McDonald’s build and deployment schedule while guaranteeing consistent product. McDonald’s were also reassured by LAVA’s 100% testing of all products built, plus our on-going technical support under the LAVA LifeTime Warranty. And it didn’t hurt that Panasonic had previous successfully used the LAVA DSerial-ISA as a cash register interface in the past.

POS RS-232 peripherals

These cards are ideal interfaces for a wide gamut of POS devices: weighing scales, card readers, pole displays, receipt printers, and so on.

As a result, every Panasonic JS-170FR workstation was fitted with two LavaPort-PCI cards, adding four serial ports to the base configuration. Moreover, as the implementation developed, McDonald’s needs evolved, and new backroom requirements added a DSerial-PCI into each restaurant’s backroom server.

McDonald’s Canada continues to use LAVA cards to this day either in new installations supplied by Panasonic, or through account maintenance provided by NCR Canada. McDonald’s values the cost-effectiveness and durability of LAVA cards in restaurants that sometimes rarely close.

We’d like to share them with you in this blog. Some ideas will turn into fully fledged products, some might become small parts of larger things. Others will be put side and never again see the light of day. Whichever way they go, we think you might be interested to see what’s bouncing around.

We welcome your comments, criticisms, observations, remarks, and reflections.

Low profile PCI cards with full height brackets

Sometimes the card you need is right in every regard, but one: it doesn’t fit! In fact, that was the impulse behind low-profile PCI in the first place — someone realized that full-height computer cases had a lot of empty space inside, and decided to make them slimmer. In doing so, adapter cards needed to become slimmer to match, and the Low-Profile PCI specification was developed to define a standard size for these new, smaller cards.

In becoming smaller, some other things needed to change at the same time. For example, two DB-9 serial connectors would not fit in the height available on the shorter bracket, so instead, they were appended to a fan-out cable.

Similarly for the four-port serial card — a fan-out cable became the solution, instead of having a second bracket holding the third and fourth serial ports. These fan-out cables made it possible to have multiple ports exiting from one chassis opening — a spin-off benefit in some cases.

From time to time it’s necessary for those with full-height cases to take advantage of these low-profile benefits as well. For these situations, LAVA has a simple solution: fitting a full-height bracket onto a low-profile card. The best of both worlds! We can readily supply this optional bracketing on request for the SSerial-PCI/LP, DSerial-PCI/LP, and Quattro-PCI/LP.