For this upcoming Halloween, we’re moving the Morbid Industries warehouse out to California. It was a business decision a long time coming. Shipping product from China to the East Coast and then back across the country was getting expensive. A lot of our customers are on the West Coast too, so we were basically shipping product in containers across the country for nothing. So, because we were doing this, and we use Escalate Retail’s Ecometry for order management, I needed to build a shipping station to send out there. Ecometry sends you to Agilysys, for pre-built shipping stations, however, they’re really expensive and we were looking to save some money. I had read on the Ecometry Google newsgroup that people had built their own, so I decided to brave it and do the same.
I’d like to thank a couple of people for there help right off the bat. Paul, a support engineer from Datalogic/PSC was a big help getting the right interface cable I needed and helping with programming the scanner to read our barcodes properly. Also, Daniel Lively for his suggestions on the Ecometry Google newsgroup. Thanks guys!
Here’s the list of parts I used:
- Dell Optiplex computer
- Zebra Z4MPlus Thermal Printer
- Mettler Toledo PS60 scale
- SIIG Cyber 2S1P (model #JJ-P21012-S6) Dual serial port and Parallel port card
- PSC Powerscan PSSR-1110
- PSC AT keyboard wedge Y cable Model #8-0738-03
- AT to PS/2 adapter
- PS/2 to AT adapter
Pretty much you can hook up the entire thing and it will work. For the scale, you need to set your COM port to the following settings:
- Baud Rate: 9600
- Databits: 7
- Parity: Event
- Stop Bits: 2
- Flow control: X on X off
For programming the scanner, you can find documentation on Datalogic’s website here. The programming guide that I needed for the model scanner I purchased is here. Depending on the scanner model you use, you’ll need a different programming guide so that you can scan the right bar codes for your application. We enabled Code 39 and Code 128 since we scan FedEx bar codes.
A couple of additional notes. I’m not sure I actually needed the SIIG Cyber 2S1P card as I would have had enough ports to hook up all the equipment. It was recommended on the newsgroup to get one for the scale. I was also told an easier setup with the PSC Powerscans is to use PSSR-7000 and a USB interface. They’re really easy to set up I guess. Also, in place of the Zebra Z4MPlus thermal printer, you can supposedly use a Zebra S600 or a S400, which are cheaper.
Most of the parts I sourced on eBay. I think all said and done, we paid less than $1,000 for the entire shipping station. The computer was free as we had one kicking around, but you can use pretty much any computer running Windows 2000 or Windows XP. I just recommend having a bit of memory in it so it isn’t a complete slug. I believe this is significantly less expensive than buying a pre-built shipping station through Agilysys. It’s faster than the one we originally bought from them too!
Did you get the scale cable through Agilysys or use what came with the scale?
I used the one that came with the scale. Its just a regular serial cable from what I can tell.
Which wedge are you using? Did you canibalize an old shipping station or did you buy a new wedge? From what I can tell, the PSC AT keyboard wedge Y cable Model #8-0738-03 is just the cable that is to be used with the wedge. Looking at our shipping station we have the AML M2000 wedge in it, but it looks like Agilysys is canabilizing this system for the wedge.
http://www.barcodesinc.com/aml/m2000.htm
Any help would be greatly appreciated. Our shipping station died for the second time in a year and we want to have something as a backup.
Thanks
Edgar
Edgar,
Yeah, it does look like Agilysys does canabilize their system to use the wedge you linked to.
Datalogic/PSC told me when I called their technical support that the cable was in fact the wedge. Really all you needed was to be able to interface with the PS2 port with the scanner. It has a splitter to allow the keyboard to act as input as well. I’m not 100% sure why Agilysys uses that decoder, but my guess is so you don’t have a Y-splitter cable and can use a longer serial type cable and keep everything internal. The Y-splitter cable is plenty long enough for our purposes.
After hooking the cable up with the AT adapters and programming the scanner for the right codes we needed, I was able to scan a FedEx bar code into Notepad and it popped up fine. So my guess is that added Decoder (for the extra $100 or so) isn’t necessary.
Thanks for the info. Are you going to the conference?
No, I can’t make it. Too much going on up here in Massachusetts with our e-commerce sites.
Sorry to hear that, I had hoped to thank you personally. I’ll keep you updated on our progress. We are right now in the process of quoting the hardware.
Thanks again
Edgar
That would have been great. Maybe sometime in the future! One thing to keep in mind, Agilysys might put that decoder in there so the shipping station works with any scanner. This Y-splitter cable I got might only work with PSC Powerscan scanners.
Hey Bill,
Great post. I was suprised too at how easy setting up those special peripherals can be now. I recently set up a point of sales system for Shannon’s parents. It was pretty much plug and play.
Bill,
I’m happy to report that I finally had the chance to finish our new shipping station and would have to agree with Dan, it was almost too easy. Our new setup is as follows
New hardware
Gateway S-5105D (Core 2 Duo 1.8 GHz, 1 GB RAM)
SIIG Cyber 2S1P Plus Card (did not need)
PSC AT keyboard wedge Y cable (did not need)
Gender Changer (for COM port)
Hardware we already had:
PSC Wireless Scanner
Zebra Z4M Thermal Printer
Metler Toledo Scale
All I had to do is plug in the scale, configure the COM port, plug in the scanner and printer and we were off to the races. One of the simplest implementations I have ever done.
Thank you for the information you provided us with.
Edgar,
Glad to hear that my experience was able to help you out. It’s amazing how easy it really is and I’m shocked that Ecometry can’t find a way to support enterprising folks such as ourselves. I’m probably going to be building a couple more stations this coming winter so I’ll be sure to either update the post or post another article with my next experience.
Hi Bill
What software are you using on the shipping station – is it Reflections for DOS?
Also, in Ecometry, is there any scale configuration necessary? My understanding was that Ecometry supported (at least) 2 different scale types/families, and was wondering which was which.
No, we don’t use any software on it other than Ecometry’s ESM.
In Ecometry, you do have to configure the scale in Visual Link. Its part of the IO settings I think. They support 3 scale families, Mini, Small, and Large. I believe I use Small for the Mettler Toledo PS60. We have a bigger Mettler Toledo as well that’s a Large scale.
Hope that helps. Sorry it too so long to reply!
Hello Bill,
I came across your blog and wanted some info as to how you built your shipping station.
1. What Windows OS are you using?
2. What version of Visual Link are you using?
Thanks!
Chun,
We use Windows 2003 for the server that runs the Ecometry Application and SQL Server 2000 on another Windows 2003 server. The OS of the shipping station was Windows XP I believe. We’re running Ecometry 8.1F currently. Hope that answers your questions!
-Bill
Hello Bill,
We have full shipping station for Agilysys, but now our PC was not working and we try to use same scale to connect to our PC. I setup all inforamtion you have on this page, but it still not work to us. Do you think we need use SIIG Cyber 2S1P card to connect beturn PC and scale.
Thanks,
Charlie
What type of scale is it? I think the IO settings for the port are set different depending on what type of scale it is, i.e. Small, Mini, Large. I think what I posted here was for a Small scale, which is what the Mettler Toledo PS60 is.
Hi Bill,
So do you know how about Mettler Toledo CB150.
Thanks,
Charlie
That might be a large scale, so you’d want to make sure Visual Link was set up to use a Large scale on the proper port you have it hooked up to. You can ask Ecometry support what size scale they consider that one. The port settings I believe will be the same as in my article above.
Hi Bill,
Thank you to help, I will try it for setup for large scale.
Thanks,
Charlie
Hi Bill,
I try to setup you tell me all information, but it still not working, so do you know have other way we can try becasue Ecometry can’t help us whne we are not use there shipping station.
thanks,
Charlie
Well, they should be able to tell you how to set up a scale. Just tell them you’re setting it up to replace the scale on an existing shipping station. The other thing is to make sure you’ve selected the correct COM port in the Visual Link settings. Maybe if you could take a screen shot of that and get it to me, I could make sure its set up properly from what I know. Same goes for your COM port settings in the OS.
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would a USB to PS/2 adapter to a AT to PS/2 adapter to a PS/2 to AT adapter work as far as a keyboard setup goes or would that be too much…its getting harder and harder to find a computer with PS/2 ports now days. Also where would a good site be to order a AT keyboard?
Hi Bill, have you ever used a ZM400 printer for ecometry labels? if so, were you able to get it to work? I can print out the labels and I get everything I need but I cannot get it to print fully on the 4×6 UPS labels. Any Suggestions?
No, I only used the Z4MPlus and the S4M Zebra printers. My guess is you need to mess with either the margin settings on the printer itself or through the printer settings on Windows. I vaguely recall having to mess with the margin settings on the Windows printer settings a couple of times to get it to print properly.
First let’s start with we are on Ecometry – the MPE version.
Our shipping station has died and I’m not being very successful trying to build one. FedEx has given us a Mettler Toledo PS60 scale but it has either a usb connection or rs232. How do I put this scale on the PC – and how do I configure Ecometry to see the scale? We use reflections as out terminal emulator. thanks in advance for an7y assistance you can give me.
Hi Jerry,
First, let me say I haven’t used Ecometry in a couple of years and don’t have anything set up here to check for you. However, I think we used the rs232 connections to set up our scales. Typical issues with the scale have to do with setting the COM properly in Windows. Have you checked your settings with what I have listed above? Also, there might be a scale setting you’d need to change to be sure its communicating with Windows with the proper settings. I vaguely recall having to change something there, but I can’t remember for sure.