It's been a fast, busy summer with lots of things going on. After much delay and no time to think, I've realized I need to get busy on my project or it will never get done. To do so, I'm breaking my project up into small bites (or bytes for my fellow geeks!). I figure the first step is to get the Arduino to simply read the tags and cards that have come with the RFID-RC522. After a thorough search on Element14, I've found nothing of any assistance. With that in mind, I'm just going to do my research and post my findings here so should some other poor guy come along who is trying this first step, he/she can at least learn from my mistakes.
So here we go:
I started out buying what I though was a unit that I could experiment with on a PC. I went to Amazon and did a little digging around. I pounced on this:
$30 later I realized this was a waste of my money. The disk that came with it has nothing in English and there is no assistance given anywhere that could be located that was of any use. It is stitting on a shelf collecting dust waiting for another use. I did discover that the case can be taken apart and the pins are simliar to that I found later (The RC522).
After a bit more reading, I ordered this next:
This was ordered from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00DRB1R4W?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o02_s00
I have found quite a bit of information about this card and it's use on the Arduino. I'm still trying to figure out which one will fit my needs the best and go that route. I'm sure which ever one I choose, I'll need to do some customization.
My ultimate goal for this first step is for the RFID reader to spit the details of each item swiped by it to a flat text file. I'll tweek from there.
<more content to come>
