Magtek MagneSafe D99875494-52, Technical Reference Manual

 7 

SECTION 3.  OPERATION 

LED INDICATOR 

The LED indicator, if equipped, will be either off, red, green, or amber.  When the reader is not 
powered, the LED will be off. 
 
When the reader is first plugged in, the LED will be solid amber.  After the reader is plugged in, 
the host will try to enumerate the reader.  Once the reader is enumerated the LED will turn solid 
green. 
 
Solid green indicates that the reader is either awaiting Authentication (if configured to require 
Authentication), or armed to read (if configured to NOT require Authentication). 
 
If enabled to operate with authentication (Security Level 4) and when the host completes 
Authentication successfully, the reader’s LED will blink green; the reader is now armed to read a 
card.  If the host fails an Authentication sequence, the LED will turn solid red and stay red until 
either the host completes Authentication successfully or the reader is powered down. 
 
When a card is being swiped, the LED will turn off temporarily until the swipe is completed.  If 
there are no errors after decoding the card data, then the LED will turn green for approximately 
two seconds to indicate a successful read.  The LED will remain solid green to indicate waiting 
for the next operation.  If there are any errors after decoding the card data, the LED will turn red 
for approximately two seconds to indicate that an error occurred and then turn solid green to 
indicate waiting for the next card swipe.  The retries can go on indefinitely until a good read. 
 
Anytime the host puts the reader into suspend mode, the LED will turn off.  Once the host takes 
the reader out of suspend mode, the respective LED will return to solid green.  Authenticated 
mode is always ended by a USB suspend. 
 

CARD READ 

A card may be swiped through the reader slot when the LED is solid green or flashing green.  If 
there is data encoded on the card, the reader will attempt to read the data, encrypt it, and then 
send the results to the host via a USB HID input report or, if in Keyboard Emulation mode, as if 
the data was being typed on a keyboard.  After the results are sent to the host, the reader will be 
ready to read the next card.