TransportFool

I was looking at the statistics for this site and noticed that I get a lot of google and yahoo searches for “vin scanners” so I thought I would do a post on what I have learned about this up-and -coming development at least as it pertains to auto transporters. Although the scanners that have this capability have been around for a while we are now seeing the price get down where it is effective to equip individual trucks with them where we used to see them primarily at auction gates for check-in or exit. The problems with the most inexpensive units is two-fold. First many of them are attached to the device by a cord so you need to carry the laptop or notebook that receives the data out to the vehicle. Secondly some of the manufacturers placed the vin barcode under the glass of the windshield and the reflection stops many of them from retrieving the data. We have not figured out a way to tell if a particular model can penetrate the glass or not by looking at the specifications so before you buy you need to have it tested. I had a fellow that was looking at some refurbished scanners on ebay and the seller was happy to go out and scan the barcode on his chevrolet for us but not all sellers are that accommodating. Stepping up to the bluetooth connections fixes the portability problems especially if you get one that will store the data if you are out of range.

Another discovery was the extra digits stored in the vin barcodes for some vehicles. When I scan the barcode on my pickup I get “I1B7MF3361XJ503719″ And on my car I get “KLAVB69272B324911″. As you can see the pickup has 18 digits instead of 17 that you read when you look at it. The car however has a clean 17 digit vin in the barcode. We have found some with 19 digits. It isn’t a big deal unless you are trying to match it up with something in a database like a dealer stock or vin decoding software. In EZDispatch the vin gets run through a program that finds the valid vin and scrubs the excess digits so the decoding programs can determine year make model and weight.

I know some of you are using the new low profile bluetooth dongle from Kensington to connect your VIN scanners and I just recently purchased one myself only to discover that it didn’t work as good as my old clunky one. It often disconnected when not in use. I mentioned the situation to the technical dept at Baracoda and they said it is because the new dongle uses a Toshiba stack and the old style uses a Widcomm stack. They gave me an easy solution that worked well for me. Just uninstall both the drivers and plug in the new dongle and let windows recognize it and install its own driver. You may have to click on a button to allow it to do that. Then reinstall the driver for your VIN scanner and you should be good to go. At least for me it made it stay connected.

Now it works as good as my old one and I don’t have that dongle sticking out of the side of my laptop catching on things. If you have a scanner that isn’t staying connected well and this is not your problem call me on my cell 619-889-1589 and I will try and get a solution to your problem, These scanners are supposed to auto connect when you turn them on and stay connected as long as you leave it on and if that is not the case yours is working improperly. If you need help you can email me and I will help you get it working correctly.