JoakimSoderberg
commented
7 years ago Hello,
I guess you are interested more in the RFID part of the project? I don't really use that since the antenna I had did not have good enough range.
However I've had contact with another guy that built his own antenna that worked better at range. Also when he talked to the RFID reader manufacturer, they said the Serial port version was better at supporting "long range" reading. I have the USB version. Not sure why there's that difference though.
But as you say the exact model I have now seems to be sold out, however looking at their product range that's because they have a new version RS232:
or the TTL version: http://www.priority1design.com.au/shopfront/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=37&zenid=06hoh82cn6gepiir0je3peq1c4
FDX-B/HDX RFID Reader Writer with external antenna and RS232 port Version B. Due to users request for increased read range we enhanced the circuit of our standard RFIDRW-E-232 unit. The RFIDRW-E-232E uses a high Q circuit for driving a higher voltage into the antenna. Read range for EM4100, T55xx series, TIRIS and FDXB/HDX animal tags are improved by a factor of 2. However this reader is not suitable for reading EM4205 as read range and performance is reduced for this tag. The RFIDRW-E-232E is a RFID reader module specifically designed to read animal tags using the FDX-B and HDX protocols as described by ISO11784/11785. In addition it will read and write other transponder types as specified below. This unit comes supplied with our standard rfidcoil-49a antenna coil which needs to be connected for the unit to operate. Alternatively users can attach their own antenna and tune the unit by means of attaching a suitable tuning capacitor as described in the data sheet.
This version should work fine with the current code, as long as you manage to connect it and show up as a serial device in Linux. I got the USB version because then that was a straight forward connection to the Raspberry Pi.
However, note that my code has never ran in any "real world" scenarios. Since it turns out I don't really have this problem with other cats trying to enter my Cat door. I live in a very non-crowded area when it comes to cats, and hardly anyone around here has cat doors. So even though some neighbour cats have ventured into the first part of the cat door, they don't really know how cat doors work. Let alone passing through 2 of them.
Also my code is a bit overcomplicated, for example I had the idea to have 2 RFID readers, so depending on the order they would detect the tags I could figure out in which direction the cat was going. This of course could be simplified. But the code is easy enough to modify, and it works with just 1 reader as well.
Are you also interested in building the camera part that detects prey? In any case, I would love it if you keep me updated if you build any part on how stuff went. I'm happy to help and it's always fun to see how other people got things working :)
Hi,
I'm interested in building something similar. Unfortunately, the RFID Reader you're using is not available anymore. Do you know if your code is compatible with other products of that company?