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,

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

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.

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.