USB RFID to Raspberry pi

PtoTheSchke

Sorry if this is sort of a simple question, I am pretty new to hardware.

I bought this (http://www.parallax.com/StoreSearchResults/tabid/768/txtSearch/28340/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/517/Default.aspx) USB RFID reader to connect to my raspberry pi. I cant seem to find the drivers for linux (I have a LAMP setup) and was wondering where to get those.

Mike Green

It depends on the Linux distribution you're using. I think the appropriate FTDI driver is built into the Linux kernel now for several years, so it should be "plug and play". This is for the serial to USB chip that Parallax uses for pretty much everything USB. The RFID reader should just show up as a serial port.

SRLM

Did you see this in the datasheet?

The Parallax RFID Card Reader USB version can be connected directly to any PC, Macintosh, or Linux
machine that has a USB port and the appropriate drivers installed. The module is powered from the host
computer’s USB port and uses an industry-standard FTDI FT232R device to provide the USB connectivity.
FTDI drivers are available from www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm.

PtoTheSchke

I have :Debian GNU/Linux wheezy/sidLinux 3.2.27+ armv6

will try to plug and play when I get home, thanks for the help!

PtoTheSchke

Mike Green wrote: »

It depends on the Linux distribution you're using. I think the appropriate FTDI driver is built into the Linux kernel now for several years, so it should be "plug and play". This is for the serial to USB chip that Parallax uses for pretty much everything USB. The RFID reader should just show up as a serial port.

What exactly do you mean by plug and play? I think I need different RFID cards, but should it just read into whatever is there? So if I have terminal open will it read into terminal, and if I have notepad open will it read into notepad?

SRLM

PtoTheSchke wrote: »

What exactly do you mean by plug and play? I think I need different RFID cards, but should it just read into whatever is there? So if I have terminal open will it read into terminal, and if I have notepad open will it read into notepad?

Plug and play is a rather standard phrase that refers to the auto locate for drivers capability of modern systems. Beyond that, you're on your own.

The FTDI circuit emulates as a serial port, not a keyboard. So you can view it's output on a terminal, but it won't output the numbers to notepad, etc.

PtoTheSchke

SRLM wrote: »

Plug and play is a rather standard phrase that refers to the auto locate for drivers capability of modern systems. Beyond that, you're on your own.

The FTDI circuit emulates as a serial port, not a keyboard. So you can view it's output on a terminal, but it won't output the numbers to notepad, etc.

Ahhh ok, that makes sense. I apt-get installed ftdi so once I get some new tags hopefully it will work, thank you so much!

PtoTheSchke

SRLM wrote: »

Plug and play is a rather standard phrase that refers to the auto locate for drivers capability of modern systems. Beyond that, you're on your own.

The FTDI circuit emulates as a serial port, not a keyboard. So you can view it's output on a terminal, but it won't output the numbers to notepad, etc.

So i downloaded a soft float version of the raspberry pi OS and got the cards to scan.

Not sure if you guys are good with the software side of things, but I'm not sure what to do with this code to get a usable string. I found this

#!/usr/bin/env pythonimport serial
import time
ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyUSB0', 2400, timeout=1)
while True:
    string = ser.read(12)
    if len(string) == 0:
        print "Please insert a tag"
        continue
    else:
        print string

with this output

Please insert a tag
?ٮ?v?VE?kV
?ٮ?v?VE?kV

And I found this online but cant make sense of what to do with the output
Code: http://stephenjam.es/wp/wp-content/uploads/java/RFIDReaderBasic.java

Output:
COM port opened!
0xc2 0xbd 0xc3 0x99 0xc2 0xae 0xc3 0xb6 0x76 0xc3 0x96 0x56 0x45 0xc2 0x8b 0x6b 0x56 0x00
0xc2 0xbd 0xc3 0x99 0xc2 0xae 0xc3 0xb6 0x76 0xc3 0x96 0x56 0x45 0xc2 0x8b 0x6b 0x56 0x00