Magnetic Card Reader MSR105X

Magstripe Is Not Dead — It Moved

Card payments have largely moved to chip and contactless, and it is easy to conclude that a magnetic stripe reader is obsolete. It is not, because the magstripe did not disappear — it moved to the cards that are not payment cards.

Loyalty and membership cards. Gift cards. Staff and access badges. Hotel key cards. Prepaid store cards. Customer identity documents, which in the US and Canada still carry an AAMVA-format stripe. Every one of those is read by the same mechanism, and none of them is going contactless quickly, because a printed loyalty card costs a few cents and an NFC card does not.

The MSR105X is a three-track reader for exactly that work: 90 × 26 × 28 mm, 100 g, USB, PS/2, RS232 or TTL, with a magnetic head rated for 800,000 swipes.

Three Tracks, Three Different Jobs

A magnetic stripe has up to three tracks, and they carry different data at different densities. A reader that only handles track 2 will miss a large part of what is on the card.

• Track 1 — 210 BPI, up to 79 characters. The alphanumeric track. It carries the cardholder name and format code, which is why track 1 is what an ID or membership system reads when it needs a name rather than a number.
• Track 2 — 75 BPI, up to 40 characters. The densest and most universally used: numeric only, and the track that payment terminals and most loyalty systems read. 75 BPI is the reason track 2 fits the most useful data in the least space.
• Track 3 — 210 BPI, up to 107 characters. Rarely used and often not written at all, but present in some closed-loop and legacy systems.

Reading all three matters when you do not control the cards. A fleet of staff badges from three suppliers, or loyalty cards issued over ten years, will not be consistent. A three-track reader reads whatever is on the card; a track-2-only reader returns nothing from the card that happens to use track 1 for its identifier.

ISO 7811 and AAMVA: Two Standards, One Reader

The unit reads ISO 7811 parts 1–6, which is the banking and general-purpose magnetic stripe standard. It also reads AAMVA, the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators format used on driving licences and state ID cards in the US and Canada.

That second standard is worth knowing about because it is where magstripe reading is still genuinely active in 2025-era systems:

• Age verification at a bar, a liquor store or a venue that scans a licence rather than reading the date by eye.
• Customer onboarding where an ID is captured to populate a form, rather than typed by hand and mistyped.
• Access control and visitor management in buildings that issue magstripe visitor badges.

If your use case involves reading a licence, confirm the AAMVA requirement with us before ordering — parsing the track data into fields is done by the host software, and the reader’s job is simply to return all three tracks intact.

Four Interfaces, Including Two That Exist for OEM Work

USB, PS/2, RS232 and TTL. USB and RS232 are the familiar ones; the other two are why this reader is bought by equipment manufacturers rather than only by shops.

• USB presents as a keyboard, so the card data arrives as typed characters followed by an Enter. No driver, works with any application that has a text field.
• RS232 for a terminal or controller with a serial port, and for software that expects to read a serial stream.
• PS/2 is the interface that lets the reader sit between a keyboard and the PC, passing keystrokes through. It is obsolete on modern hardware but still present in installed retail systems that were specified when PS/2 was standard.
• TTL is a raw serial-level output for embedding — the reader becomes a component inside a kiosk, a vending machine, an access panel or a custom terminal, wired to the host board rather than plugged into a port.

That last one is the reason the unit is small: at 90 × 26 × 28 mm and 100 g it fits into a panel cut-out in a device that is not a PC.

Swipe Speed, Head Life and Error Rate

Operation speed is 10–150 cm/s, which covers a slow, careful swipe and a fast one. That range is wide enough that the reader does not impose a technique on the user, which matters in a self-service application where nobody has been trained.

Head life is rated at 800,000 swipes. At a hundred swipes a day that is over twenty years; at a thousand a day — a busy kiosk — it is about two years, at which point the head is a replaceable part rather than a reason to replace the reader. Ask about spare heads if the deployment is high-traffic.

Error rate is specified as less than 0.5%, and reading is bidirectional: the card can be swiped either way. That one detail removes most of the failed-swipe complaints in an unattended application, because the user does not have to know which direction the stripe faces.

Power is DC 5 V at 65 mA maximum, low enough to run from a USB port or from a host board’s 5 V rail. Working conditions are 0–40 °C at 15–85% non-condensing humidity, and the housing is a black plastic case.

Where the MSR105X Fits

• Loyalty, membership and gift card reading at a POS that already handles payments another way.
• ID and licence scanning for age verification and onboarding, using the AAMVA format.
• Access control and staff clock-in, where badges are magstripe.
• OEM embedding — kiosks, vending, access panels and custom terminals via the TTL interface.
• Legacy retail systems that still specify PS/2 or RS232 peripherals.
• Not for payment cards on their own. It reads the stripe; it does not process a payment. Card payments need a certified terminal — this reader is for the data on the card, not the transaction.
• Not for chip or contactless cards. There is no EMV or NFC reader here.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can it read a credit card?

It reads the magnetic stripe data, all three tracks. It does not process a payment and is not a certified payment terminal. Use it for loyalty, ID and access cards, or for the stripe data your software already handles.

Which tracks does it read?

All three — track 1 at 210 BPI, track 2 at 75 BPI and track 3 at 210 BPI.

Does it read driving licences?

Yes, the AAMVA format used in the US and Canada is supported. The host software parses the fields.

Does the swipe direction matter?

No. Reading is bidirectional, so the card works either way round.

Does it need a driver?

No, in USB keyboard mode. RS232, PS/2 and TTL are hardware-level interfaces.

How long does the head last?

800,000 swipes. At high daily volumes the head is a replaceable part — ask about spares for a kiosk deployment.

What is the warranty?

12 months minimum. OEM branding and TTL-embedded configurations are available — ask at quotation stage.

Next step: tell us what the cards are (loyalty, ID, access, gift), whether the reader goes inside a device or on a cable, and the host interface — we will confirm the configuration and quote factory-direct. Email sales@dcapos.com or contact us.

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Model	MSR105X
Standard	ISO7781/1~6, AAMVA
Function	Read all 3 tracks
Recording Density	1st track 201 BPI (max 79 characters)
	2nd track 75 BPI (max 40 characters)
	3rd track 210 BPI (max 107 characters)
Power Supply	DC 5V
Power Consumption	65mA (max)
Interface	USB, PS2, RS232, TTL
Operation Speed	10- 150cm/s
Lifetime	Magnetic head: 800,000 times
Working condition	0~40° C, 15%~85% RH non-condensing
Error Rate	Less than 0.5%
Dimensions	90 x 26 x 28mm
Weight	100g
Housing	Plastic Case, black color