Wiegand Generic
Most Wiegand readers will be configured using the Wiegand Generic option. Readers configured this way will interpret the Wiegand data as two numbers – a Site Code (sometimes known as facility code) and a Badge Code (or ID code) – which are joined to form the final card number.
Parity bits
If required, before parsing the card data, a parity check is performed. Your card issuer should have told you if a parity check is required – if not, leave the Start and end parity bits option set to None. In case of issues, the correct parity setting can be determined by testing with a range of cards until all read successfully.
Parity bits are used for checking data has been read correctly and are not included in the final badge codes displayed.
Site and badge bits
After a successful parity check, the data will be processed by reading Site bits number of bits from the start of the data, interpreted as an unsigned integer, followed by Badge bits number of bits from the following data, also interpreted as an unsigned integer. The two numbers are then joined together as a string to form the full card number.
This card number then has the badge format applied to it, as with our other types of card reads, to form the final badge number.
Note that the widths of the numbers used in this process are fixed – card numbers will not vary in length just because the integers happened to be small. The width of the numbers is calculated according to the number of bits.
Bit count | Digits | Example |
1 to 8 | 3 | 001 |
9 to 16 | 5 | 00001 |
17 to 24 | 8 | 00000001 |
Over 24 | 10 | 0000000001 |
For example:
· The raw data is 02 00 01 00 00 00 00 00
· Site bits is set to 8, badge bits to 16
· This will give a site code of 02 = 2, badge code of 00 01 = 1
· These values are padded to the minimum widths of 3 and 5: 002, 00001
· The resulting card number is 00200001
Worked example
The screenshot above shows a sample Wiegand card read performed on the T2. The following steps have been performed to extract the badge number:
· The raw data (in hex) is E6 D9 F4 CB C0 00 00 00
· No parity check is required
· The first 8 bits make up the site code: E6 = 230
· The next 16 bits make up the badge code: D9 F4 = 55,796
· The site code (230) and badge code (55,796) are joined to form the card number: 23055796
· The badge format ****** is applied to this card number: 230557
Comparison to MF900 Wiegand Parameters
The options available under the Wiegand Generic reader type mirror those available in the older MF-series terminals under the Wieg Parameters heading.
The Wieg parameters were defined as <TotalBits><SiteBits><IdBits><Parity>.
There is no requirement for TotalBits on the T2, and SiteBits and IdBits translate directly to the new Site bits and Badge bits options.
The old parity values were specified as a number, as shown in the following table:
MF900 parity value | T2 parity value |
0 | Set both as even |
1 | Set start as even and end as odd |
2 | Set start as odd and end as even |
3 | Set both as odd |
4 | None |
