Ethernet/Wifi Based RFID Controller with Color 3.5" TFT Color LCD

Hi Osman,

How about a TI Tiva C TM4C1294 Launchpad?

It has an ARM Cortex M4 with ethernet and you can get a QVGA Booster Pack that plugs right in.

Doug

Hi Doug,

Thanks for the reply. The pricing of the booster packs components gets way higher then our budget and also the launchpad has only two ports for boosterpacks. We can use one for Wireless and the other for Display but how do we embed RFID.

Do you have any launchpad in mind with only Wifi no Ethernet. Thanks.

Hi Osman,

Maybe you could use a USB WIFi dongle and an RFID Booster Pack.

There are several other platforms that could handle this, such as Arduino Yun, but if you put together a complete specification, it would be easier to optimize a solution.

What functions need to be performed and how fast? Power requirements? Cost? What user interface? etc...

Hi Doug

We are in the amusement industry and we have recently developed our in house POS and now were taking it to the next level to integrate it with RFID Debit cards. We had some equipment developed from a local vendor and they claim that they've designed their own 3 layer PCB using atmega328 MCU but were facing problems with their support. So I've been given a go ahead from my management to do this in-house as we have more than 400 rides in different locations and expanding More.

What we need is a Rfid based controller which can connect over WiFi to the main server which in turn will be integrated with our pos server. When a customer comes and gets the card loaded with cash they can use that as a debit card on each ride and a screen will display the ride amount and later the balance amount if the ride is activated or insufficient funds if there are not enough funds. We've been doing our research and came across arduino, ti, raspberry pi etc launchpads but don't know which is better than then other.  Our numbers for the controller calculated so far indicate that we should be able to get the controller for somethig around 60-70 USD. We could be wrong and open to suggestions.

I hope the scenario is clear and were open to suggestions. Thank you.

Pl excuse any mistakes as I'm writing from a Mobile phone.

Hi Osman,

This sounds like an interesting application.

If it was my project, I would design a custom circuit board so I could optimize power, size and features. However, it is certainly possible to build a functional prototype from off-the-shelf modules, but it will likely be pretty big and clunky and may have reliability problems due to all the connectors. If you do build a system from standard modules, it might be worth using modules that are based on open reference designs, so you can easily incorporate appropriate sections of the circuit in a fully custom design and avoid a lot of software modification - if and when you choose to shrink the design.

Normally decisions about which platform to use need to take into account things like which development tools your development team is familiar with, potential component obsolescence, and which software language your developers prefer.

To make an optimum decision, you probably need to put a complete specification together of all desired features and performance and rate various solutions against the list.

I could say that an ARM Cortex M4 is about the minimum MCU power you need unless you use a dedicated WiFi module, but a lot depends on how strong your software team is and what performance level you want.

Hi Doug,

Yes it is indeed an interesting project and we hired a professional to design the electric circuit from scratch but apparently his arrogance and attitude has literally shattered our trust and the device has been developed with alot of minor glitches which being in the amusement business are not acceptable. He is not willing to share his circuit designs with us now and basically exploiting us by not sharing the RFID frequency so we have to get the cards encoded by him and he is charging us for every single card. We only have 35 of these made which are not aesthetically or technically what was agreed upon initially. Therefore, we have decided to do our own R&D and undertake this project in house.

We believe by using off the shelf boards and using them in a professional way we can come up with a very nice product. Our first phase is very simple, we are using an Arduino Ethernet Board with Atmel MCU available on Arduino website. This will work with a 16x2 LCD and a RFID Module, we have the capability in-house to design the firmware both in C/C++ and Java, but it will not be a problem to find a resource who can also work in assembly if needed. What we need is the right hardware at the right price with best quality. Going for a complete ground-up design will require more time and that is what we don't have at our hands plus in our country we don't have good quality PCB fabricators available so even if we do that we will have to get the PCB fabrication done from China or Taiwan as they are cheaper and will be of good quality.

So once we are done with the 16x2 controllers we want to shift to Wifi and Color LCD and we have already started working on our R&D so we can kickstart the prototype and testing phase asap. Looking forward to your reply. Thank you.

Hi Osman,

depending on legalities, perhaps you could use an inexpensive commercial RFID reader/writer to figure out what frequency is used and it probably could be used to monitor the protocol as well if needed and even program new tags.

You could get a WiFi module for your arduino for under $20 and a color touch screen (QVGA) for about $17 if you want to stay with the same platform.

Hi

How about using a stm32 discovery board with 3.5" tft, stm WiFi expansion module and an id20 RFID reader module. We thought if we are doing it again let's do it the right way and get all the features implemented. Please suggest if his hardware will be good for commercial use if the packing is done professionally. Thanks

The ST discovery board is a development board, not  a production component (ST make no claims about long term availability or suitability of production use) . You would do much better to take Douglas' advice and use ready made development boards for development and then design a custom board. Don't be put of using contractors/consultants to help with the work because you have had one bad experience - next time you'll know much better what to look for and what to write into the contract. (Like that the circuit and design and IP belong to you, set up payment milestones which require the handover of documents etc.).

MK

The ST discovery board is a development board, not  a production component (ST make no claims about long term availability or suitability of production use) . You would do much better to take Douglas' advice and use ready made development boards for development and then design a custom board. Don't be put of using contractors/consultants to help with the work because you have had one bad experience - next time you'll know much better what to look for and what to write into the contract. (Like that the circuit and design and IP belong to you, set up payment milestones which require the handover of documents etc.).

MK

Thanks Michael

When it comes to designing the boards we have time constraints now. And the consultants that we've met are asking for at least 3 months for design and simulations. Therefore we decided to go for off the shelf boards to reduce the time to market. Any comments.

The chances are that if you put  a system together in a hurry from ready made low cost boards that it won't be reliable and it won't comply  with EMC and other regulatory requirements. You could reasonably expect to make  a prototype from ready made bits and then productionise that. If I were doing this job for you (and I'm not offering !!)  I would think to be able to coble a prototype together in 4 weeks, but 12 weeks for  a production design is not unreasonable. You need to to take some care with this because you are handling customers' money in your system and they will get very cross indeed if you lose it !

I have worked with Mifare cards in the past and I think my client (who specialised in making systems with them) would have needed about six months to bring a product like you describe to market and they had a lot of experience and existing products to start with.

There is  a useful guide to development trade-offs:

Quick, Cheap, Good - pick any two.

MK

Yes I believe what you're saying is correct. But in our case there are no regulatory compliances for electronic products. I think well go for quick and quality  

Thank you for all the help.

You said: "in our case there is no regulatory compliances".

That is a classic response from someone who has never developed a product.

Compliance is actually one of the best ways to learn how to build successful products.

What do you know about ESD? this alone can render any product unreliable in the field.

Standards have "built in" a good part of the history of product development.

Ignore it at your peril!

Good and quick, no problem but it won't be cheap !

Jon is right about standards - I can't think of anywhere in the world where there are no regulations at all - but even if there are none or they are not enforced you need to take care of your customers.

MK

Thank you Jon for your honest and candid reply. I believe you are correct when saying that irrespective of any regulations having our product compliant will surely help us to develop a reliable and stable product. When I said that there are no regulatory compliance was because we don't have any such law in our country having said that I believe we will work on having our product compliant with the best possible industry standards. You are also correct that we have not developed a product in the past similar to this, though we have developed software based industry specific solutions for our clients for which we have worked on various compliance guidelines.

Having said that and moving forward what I have gathered so far from all the comments received that we should go for prototyping as a first step using development boards available and once we are satisfied move ahead to getting the consultant to design the board following ensuring our product is fully compliant and lastly go for mass production. As for the budgets it's not that big of a problem but then again we need to draw a line somewhere.

Thank you.

I agree with you Michael, we do need to take care of our customers and we need to be compliant. What kind of costs are we looking at when we say good and quick .

Thank you.