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RDM630 (RFID Readers) connected to Processing by Arduino

mmalherbemmalherbe
edited March 2017 in Arduino

Hello all,

I'm totally new to processing and I currently have a project working with Arduino and Max 7, but I want to get in to the open source world.

Currently it's working as :

  • 6 RFID readers wait for a tag they know
  • Each one is connected to an Arduino ( I recently switched from ID12 to rdm630 due to borrowing those ID12s) -The Arduinos(6) all have been connected to an Mega -The Mega waits for a digitalpin ( each digitalpin is connected to all other Arduinos) and plays a soundfile.

the flow is: for example! - Tag 1 is found on reader 2 -> reader 2 has three digitalpins connected to the Mega, digitalpin 4 is for tag 1, digitalpin 5 is for tag 2, digitalpin 6 is for tag 3. - digitalpin 5 gets turned HIGH - the Mega has (6x3 => digitalpin14 to digitalpin32) pins which it reads and waits till it finds a HIGH signal. -Those pins are connected to an individual soundfile which it will play.

I hope this is a bit clear!

My real question would be, how can I use Processing to take over the Max part. I found out that I can use Firmata to read the digital pins of the arduino through processing, but the RDM630 is connected to a digitalpin from the arduino.

And in that way it talks to the arduino, which ( with the firmata script replaced with one that reads the Rdm630 data) Serialprints the tag ID + info to the Console.

So the first obvious problem I need to tackle is to find a way to get the tag data from the reader, via an arduino on Firmata? But as I have loaded Firmata on the arduino and hold a tag at the reader, I open the "Serial read - Arduino_input" example on Processing and the corresponding pin (which is connected to the reader) just flashes. So it seems to send that data from the tag to that pin, but I'm totally confused as how I can translate that back to the tag info inside processing.

I hope my description is understandable :)

Thanks alot

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Answers

  • kfrajerkfrajer

    Tag 1 is found on reader 2 -> reader 2 has three digitalpins connected to the Mega

    But you said before:

    Each one is connected to an Arduino

    From what I understand, each RFID reader is connected to an arduino which in turn is connected to the Mega. So your first statement doesn't agree.

    This is what I found for the RDM6300 (or is it rdm630?): http://www.sunrom.com/p/rfid-reader-125khz-serial-out-rdm6300rdm630

    Question 1: Could you connect your RFID readers directly to your mega?

    Question 2: How much experience do you have with processing? The following post shows some code how to handle data received via serial: https://forum.processing.org/two/discussion/comment/92348/#Comment_92348

    Playing sound files will be a next step and you can start working on that code as a separate exercise and then join them together after you get each of them working by themselves.

    Kf

  • mmalherbemmalherbe

    Hey Thanks for the feedback,

    True I see the error in my description, it was late already. Every reader has it's own arduino Nano due to problems with getting 2 or more readers on one arduino. Those Nano's are connected to the Mega with 3 digital pins each. Those 3 pins correspondent to the 3 different tags they might encounter and will need to react on those 3.

    Well currently I'm trying to get 2 readers on the same arduino as that would cut down the costs and make it far easier to adapt to new things.

    The problem I have encountered so far is that the readers talk via Serial, so 2 readers talking to the same arduino via Serial would be harder ( Duplexing)?

  • kfrajerkfrajer

    Just curious, did you post in the arduino forum as well? Do you get good feedback there? You can def ask Arduino questions here although the people working with the specific of your challenge is very limited.

    A couple of suggestions: Maybe you could feed the serial lines of your readers into the mega and have the mega detect the changes of signal as processing the data from the serial directly as an analog signal. It might require more work or even signal translation. Another way is to google handling multiple serial devices.

    Kf

  • mmalherbemmalherbe

    Well the problem is that most are struggling with this problem, and point towards old libraries that have been depricated.

    And as Arduino -> Max hasn't really been that great I was just wondering if Processing had it in it to work his magic on this problem :).

    Guess I'll have to keep a dedicated arduino per reader.

    Still thanks alot for the help! :)

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