RFID Shield For Arduino
Last week I ordered a RFID shield for Arduino via Marc Boon (who also organizes regular workshops on RFID here in the Netherlands). Friday evening I soldered it together, using the easy to follow instructions Marc sent with the kit.
The ready RFID shield mounted on to the Arduino.
Currently I am troubleshooting the RFIDuino. It seems to start up all right, as it nicely announces itself when connected to the serial monitor in the Arduino software. Green LED lights up as well, meaning it is scanning for RFID tags in the neighbourhood. However it does not see any, when I put a RFID tag on the antenna. Perhaps something wrong with the antenna. Or it may be a power issue (USB port not delivering enough power to the board), however that seems unlikely because the active part of the RFIDuino is working fine.
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Hi Ton,
I have the same RFIDuino and some troubles as well. Here are some things you might want to try.
- I had trouble with a low power USB-Port on my MacBook, worked on my old Windows notebook.
- I wouldn't work with Arduino-0015 (on my Mac, extern. powered), 0014 worked.
- The shield works well at the start, then the sensitivity goes down as the temperature rises.
- Marc suggested to clean the board of all flux, which may effect the atenna.
I think I would blame my tiny RFID-tag. It only gets recognized at one edge of the board. I am currently looking for a bigger one.
Cheers,
Alex
Hi Alex,
thanks for your suggestions!
I'll try and get it to work on another (non-Mac) laptop. Or external power.
Thanks for the tip, that sensitivity will change with temperature, as well. That's good to know.
I think I already have a very clean board, so nothing addtionally to do about that.
Hi Ton-
I noticed several of my projects with shields behaving badly when plugged into the computers USB only. Then I went to the Arduino site and read the power specs more closely. While the board itself says it's operating voltage is 5V (what you get from USB) the actual recommended Input voltage is 7-12V with the limit being 6-20V.
I'm definitely not an electrical engineer, but I went out and got an external power supply and drove in 9V, which solved my problems. It is also nice to have a power supply where you can see what the current draw is for various configurations so you can calculate your power needs when going off the desk and onto battery.
Hope that helps.
Hi Chuck,
Thanks for sharing your experience with shields Chuck! Yes, I think getting an external power supply is the way to go. Useful for other projects too, so that's what I'll do.
I got myself an external power supply. Still no luck though with reading any tags.