Thursday, June 09, 2011

Compare the SAM4s SPS-500 series and the Sharp UP-800 series

After the Sharp UP-820F register was released I thought it would kill every other high end cash register. It was ahead of its time and full of features. Turned out I was wrong about that. Not long after the UP series was introduced SAM4s released the SPS-500 series which is made up of the following models


The release of the SPS-500 series quickly slowed of our sales of the Sharp UP 800 line and we began selling many more of the SPS-500 series. Here are a couple of the features that we like more in the SPS 500 line.
  • USB ports
  • CF Slot for memory expansion ($75.00 for SAM4s Memmory $400.00 for Sharp)
  • Keyboard Port
  • SPS 500 series less expensive
  • 7.1" Color Touch Screen
The SPS 500 series is the best cash register we have ever seen. This machine series can only be beaten by a more expensive POS system or maybe Sharp is lurking out there with a new model?

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Dave, I have bought the sps-530 touch screen pos system for my fruit and vegetable shop and I am having trouble figuring out how to link my scales to it. My scales are CAS scales and I have plugged it into com 1. However I do not know how to program the PLUs so that it records price per kilogram (I am in Australia so we don't use pounds and ounces) and can automatically calculate the price. I cannot find anything in the manual about setting up scales.Can you please help me?

Dave said...

Sure I think I can help with that. You must program the PLU to be scalable and you have the option to make it auto or manual. Here is the programming right from the book

(13) IS PLU SCALEABLE?
Choose Yes if you wish to multiply items reporting to this group by a weight from a scale connected to
the register. Pressing the SCALE key enters scale weights.
(14) AUTO SCALE ON THIS PLU?
If Yes, registrations of PLUs linked to this group w ill automatically multiply by the weight placed upon a
scale connected to the register.

Now that does not address if you set up the port correctly to make the scale work but it sounds like you already have?

SAM4s Cash Registers

PetalumaVictory said...

Hi Dave,
Great blog. I am wondering if you have any insights into this problem I am having. I have a samsung4s SPS 530 cash register, this month a problem showed up in the reports. Some dates are duplicated and have the wrong day of the week. They all seem to have been made within the same hour as the "real" record. Since I am the one who runs the reports, I know I did not do this.
In addition, on those "phantom" records the grand total is completely different from the normal records (by tens of thousands of dollars). I also can't find a paper record of these "phantom" records. If you subtract the grand total of one "phantom" record from the previous one, the result matches the day's sales, even if the records are separated by several days. These "phantom" records would add several thousand dollars to my total if they were real, but I can't see how they could be, but where do they come from? In addition to FIN, there are also GRP, PLU and TIME reports. Since the reports should only be saved if one saves them, I am totally confused.

Dave said...

OK yes I have heard of a few bugs like this in early ROM versions that have been solved for quite awhile I think.

So is this a standalone or a network of machines?

Do you know what version of ROM your machine is running?

SAM4s Cash Registers

Angelo said...

Hi Dave,

Not in front of the machine yet, but it is standalone. What is the quickest way to find out which ROM version it is running?

PetalumaVictory said...

Hi Dave,
It says bootloader version 1.14 and is standalone, not networked.

Thanks,
Angelo

Dave said...

I spoke to a tech here and he said the ROM verion will also have a letter with the numbers and that is what we would need to know. However he noticed the boot rom was quite old which indicates that yes you are running an old version and you should upgrade. The ROM to upgrade is free we would just charge for the SD Card with ROM installed plus shipping. You can upgrade your self which will require you to back up ypour program (because you will lose it) update your rom and then restore your program. At that point start re-testing your reports. Our techs could walk you through for a fee and they were thinking in most cases about an hour for which they charge $110.00 or you get a large discount if you buy at least 5 hours for future support at $90.00 per hour and that time does not expire until you have used it all even if it takes years.

SAM4s Cash Registers

PetalumaVictory said...

Hi Dave,
Here is the full info:
Application Version v1.00 CRS (Apr.7 2010)
Kernel Version SPS-500 KERNEL V1.03 (Sep. 25. 2009)
RAMDISK Version SPS-500 RAMDISK V1.00 (July. 7. 2009)
MICOM Version STD 1.15 Mar 28 2010, 22:19:14
Bootloader Version 1.14
XLIP Version v.1.11 (XLIB 02:24:2010)
So it looks like some things are quite old. How recent are updates? I only bough this machine just over one year ago.

Dave said...

They update often as they are upgrading features and adjusting functions. Do this.

With the key in Register mode before you start a sale press @/For or X/Time (same key) a dialog box will appear in the screen and about in the middle you will see V1.00? with the ? being the character we are after. We are currently installing V1.00R

Did you buy from us? If you did just buy the SD card and I'll get you the rom and have our tech team walk you through it.

SAM4s Cash Register

PetalumaVictory said...

Hi Dave,
It says V1.00n CRS (Apr. 7 2010). If you are National Business Systems, then yes, we did buy the machine through you. I would be interested in purchasing the SD card and updating our system.

Angelo

Dave said...

Angelo, yes we are. OK please call or email us Monday for the SD card which I think is $20.00 plus shipping. I will have a tech put the most up to date version of ROMs on it. when you get it call us and one of our techs will walk you through backing up program, upgrading ROM's, restoring program. Then you can test your reports after that. You may have to buy two SD cards. One for the ROM version one for the program back up however you should have that regardless. Do you know how to get ahold of us?

SAM4s Cash Registers

B.Knight said...

Hey Dave, We recently purchased two sps-530 POS terminals from separate locations. I have been having communication issues between the machines, so I looked into them and found out they are running different firmware. Do you know who I could get in touch with to get a copy of v1.00n crs? Would be appreciated. Also loving the blog, you seem to be more knowledgeable then my local service person.

Dave said...

We supply that to our customers and sounds like you already know you can flash that to the register. You will probably continue to have issues from this problem. Did you buy these from a private party? A dealer should be able to provide you with this at no cost. You can email me at jr@nbsystems.com and I'll see if we can send to you. We would also love to get your support business. We have experts on that machine on staff here and we support these machines all over the world now via phone and email.

SAM4s Cash Registers

Roaster said...

Hi Dave

Great blog you have here. I have a Sam4s SPS530F machine and it has been running well. Recently though, it has started to randomly reboot itself. So far it has only happened while the machine has been sitting idle and not while we are dealing with customers. The power supply to the machine is all ok. Any ideas

Dave said...

Roaster are you sure you are not just talking about the screen saver? The power light will still be on however the screen will be blank. Touching the screen or a button will return it to ready.

When you find it in this state what do you do to recover? You mentioned happening in idle time which makes me suspect this even more.

SAM4s Cash Registers

Roaster said...

I thiught that might be the case but it goes through the full power routine complete with the boot screen. After completing this sequenceit then sits there waiting for a clek login. There have been no changes to the screen saver settings that have been running fine for months.

Dave said...

You may want to run it past the dealer you bought it from. I checked the service bulletins and checked with a couple techs and there was nothing talking about that.maybe a ROM update would take care of it? Some ROM issues are random enough that they may never be reported? How old is your machine?

SAM4s Cash Registers

Unknown said...

Hi Dave. Im Kevin from Sydney Australia.

I've just bought a pair second hand Sam4s ER430M & DIGI DS788 scale.
I tried to program the register & got the scale button assigned. When I connect the scale & put something on it, I can access the weigh by pressing the scale button on the ER430M. Pls help me to set up the price scalable & automatic price as well. I spent the whole night to study the manual book but I think I give up...

Thank you so much for your help.

Kevin

Dave said...

Hi Kevin, thanks for posting, however I'm not sure I can help. We do not have that model of SAM4s in the US. We do have models that have the same issue you mentioned and in our case we program the PLU to be auto scale and then forces that PLU when sold to automatically go to the scale allowing you to bypass the scale key. So look over your PLU programming for that option, if not look in system options perhaps?

Hope that is of some help! Take care.

SAM4s cash register

Unknown said...

Hi Dave,
Thank you very much for your reply.

I 've just tried again through PLU set up & system option but NOT SUCCESSFUL yet. I think I will call the shop who used to sell this model & ask them for a call out service...
I will let you know the outcome.

Thz again from Kevin- AUSTRALIA

Dave said...

K good luck with it! Maybe we will get that model in the States one day.

SAM4s SPS-530FT Cash Registers