Sheep EID Reader Hardware
Goal is to develp an inexpensive set of reader hardware for reading official sheep RFID or Electronic ID tags.
We're looking at 3 hardware pieces, reader, handheld tablet or phone and desktop. This project documents the reader device development.
Pix of the current state of the device are here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26001709@N03/sets/72157631585185604/
We used plumbing parts to make the holder for the reader and have a terminal program running on the Android tablet that is just displaying the tag numbers as read.
No smarts, no database nothing really but verifying the hardware is working.
More info on the existing state of the system:
RFID Reader:
http://www.priority1design.com.au/shopfront/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=24
Antenna is included.
Bluetooth Serial module:
For prototyping:
For production: (needs FCC cert, the above ones from China are real cheap, but no certs.)
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10253
Battery holder:
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/551
This one holds 4 cells, I used one that held 6. 4 is ok for this purpose as the RFID reader can take 6-16V as an input. Should run for a couple of hours on these batts, maybe use rechargeable NiMH or LiIon's for production.
Misc.:
switch, led's 2 1k resistors, wire, various PVC fittings ($10US worth, although the switch was surplus and probably cost a lot originally)
You could use GetBlue right now to do a good job of logging tags:
http://www.tec-it.com/en/software/android/getblue/manual/Default.aspx
the free version works ok (with nags), paid it's $25US and can save all the tag data to a file or stuff it into a database or whatnot.
Our app will be completely open (GPLv2)
The Bluetooth API for Android already works well and there are open source apps that use it successfully to read GPS's and the like.
This is where we are starting: