<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=us-ascii"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">May my daughters robotics team list makers local 256 on their display board at competition as "consultants" ?<div><br></div><div>Faye Lynn Thompson<br><div><br><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>From: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">Faye Lynn Thompson <<a href="mailto:watersprite@charter.net">watersprite@charter.net</a>><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>Subject: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;"><b>Re: [General] RFID help</b><br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>Date: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">December 31, 2012 7:05:28 PM CST<br></span></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px;"><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium; color:rgba(0, 0, 0, 1.0);"><b>To: </b></span><span style="font-family:'Helvetica'; font-size:medium;">General discussion about makerslocal <<a href="mailto:general@lists.makerslocal.org">general@lists.makerslocal.org</a>><br></span></div><br><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">Thank You!!<div>We've got it working with your help. Now we're making it "pretty"<br><div><div>On Dec 31, 2012, at 12:50 PM, James Fluhler <<a href="mailto:j.fluhler@gmail.com">j.fluhler@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><div dir="auto"><div>Also as a side note those ftdi chips are really great and robust; they are absolutely a very simple USB to serial chip and used in many consumer devices. <br><br>James F.</div><div><br>On Dec 28, 2012, at 12:59 PM, Arthur <<a href="mailto:Arthur@cd-net.net">Arthur@cd-net.net</a>> wrote:<br><br></div><blockquote type="cite">Yep, it looks like those use an FTDI chip to look like a good old serial port. Here's the driver page for them. <a href="http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm">http://www.ftdichip.com/Drivers/VCP.htm</a> Though, last I checked on most newer Operating Systems (Linux at least) you don't need to install a driver. It just works.<br>
<br>I don't know what controller you're using, but if it's the Lego NXT, here's a python module for that as well: <a href="https://code.google.com/p/nxt-python/">https://code.google.com/p/nxt-python/</a><br>
<br>Since it looks like the tags are preprogrammed with a unique ID, it looks like you don't have to configure them as well.<br><br>Based on the <a href="http://www.parallax.com/Portals/0/Downloads/docs/prod/audiovis/28140-28340-RFIDreader-v2.2.pdf">datasheet</a>, to activate the reciever you need to set the DTR pin to high on your virtual serial port. This pySerial command should do the trick "<span style="background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">ser.<span style="font-family:monospace;font-size:16px;line-height:20px;text-align:justify">set</span><span class="highlighted" style="font-family:monospace;font-size:16px;line-height:20px;text-align:justify">DTR(</span></span><span style="font-family:sans-serif;line-height:20px;text-align:justify"><span style="font-size:16px;background-color:rgb(255,255,255)">True)</span>"</span><div>
<div style="text-align:justify"><font face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:20px"><br></span></font></div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:20px">Here's a simple pySerial program to test this:</span></font></div>
</div><div><div style="text-align:justify"><font face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:20px"><br></span></font></div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
<font face="sans-serif"><span style="line-height:20px"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">import serial</blockquote>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">#This is COM? on Windows systems</blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
ser = serial.Serial('/dev/ttyS1', 2400, timeout=1)</blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
#Enable the serial module</blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">ser.setDTR(True)</blockquote>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">#Do this forever</blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex">
while(True):</blockquote><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>#The datasheet says the module returns a 12 byte string</blockquote>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>#If timeout happens without reading anything, it should print a blank line</blockquote>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left-width:1px;border-left-color:rgb(204,204,204);border-left-style:solid;padding-left:1ex"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>print(str(ser.read(12)))</blockquote>
</span></font></blockquote><div><br></div><div>Hope this helps,</div><div>Arthur Moore</div><div><br>On Fri, Dec 28, 2012 at 10:20 AM, Faye Lynn Thompson <<a href="mailto:watersprite@charter.net">watersprite@charter.net</a>> wrote:<br>
> Wow, y'all are already being so helpful.<br>><br>> This started as an add on to my daughter's FIRST Lego League robotics team<br>> project. The team is trying to use RFID to find misplaced items without the<br>
> need to replace batteries. The one we have is too short range, but it is a<br>> good way to learn we hope.<br>> We have this one...<br>> <a href="https://www.parallax.com/StoreSearchResults/tabid/768/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/517/Default.aspx?txtSearch=rfid+usb">https://www.parallax.com/StoreSearchResults/tabid/768/List/0/SortField/4/ProductID/517/Default.aspx?txtSearch=rfid+usb</a><br>
><br>> It is built/designed by Grand Idea Studio....<br>> <a href="http://www.grandideastudio.com/portfolio/rfid-reader/">http://www.grandideastudio.com/portfolio/rfid-reader/</a><br>><br>> I think the usb port is an add on to the board from FTDI chip<br>
> <a href="http://www.ftdichip.com/index.html">http://www.ftdichip.com/index.html</a><br>> but I'm not sure which driver to use.<br>><br>> We are using my early 2009 macbook pro and osx 10.8.2 because it's portable. <br>
> We have windows 7 available on other machines and dual boot on the laptop. <br>> Just to make it trickier we'd like to be able to compile the code on a<br>> friends linux machine too.<br>><br>> I suspect part of our problem is just not being able to make time to get it<br>
> our brains wrapped around it. Now we'd like to have something that looks<br>> nice for the teams display at state competition on Jan 12th in Huntsville. <br>><br>> Thank You so much already<br>> Faye Lynn<br>
><br>> p.s. You are all invited to the state competition. Dates are still a<br>> little fuzzy but it will be in Huntsville. Jan 12th or 19th at Huntsville<br>> High or Grissom<br>> <a href="http://alabamafll.org/">http://alabamafll.org</a><br>
><br>><br>> On Dec 27, 2012, at 11:36 PM, Arthur <<a href="mailto:Arthur@cd-net.net">Arthur@cd-net.net</a>> wrote:<br>><br>> That sounds like a fun project. Could you give me some details about it. <br>
> Does the reader use a virtual serial port? If so, I would suggest pySerial. <br>> The other question is what do you want to do with it? There are so many<br>> great ideas for RFID. Which one are you looking at?<br>
><br>> Arthur Moore<br>><br>> On Friday, December 28, 2012, Faye Lynn Thompson wrote:<br>>><br>>> My daughter and I are trying to get a usb RFID reader to work and look<br>>> good doing it. We can get it to read and display the tags in a monitor /<br>
>> shell window. (ugly but it works) We'd like to do something in python. So<br>>> far we have lots of bits and pieces of code, but are having trouble getting<br>>> it all together.<br>>><br>
>> Any advice, urls, etc you can throw our way would be great.<br>>><br>>> Thanks<br>>> Faye Lynn<br>>> _______________________________________________<br>>> General mailing list<br>>> <a href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>
>> <a href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br>><br>><br>><br>> --<br>> Sincerely,<br>> Arthur Moore<br>> (256) 277-1001<br>
><br>> _______________________________________________<br>> General mailing list<br>> <a href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>> <a href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br>
><br>><br>><br>> _______________________________________________<br>> General mailing list<br>> <a href="mailto:General@lists.makerslocal.org">General@lists.makerslocal.org</a><br>> <a href="http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general">http://lists.makerslocal.org/mailman/listinfo/general</a><br>
<br><br><br>-- <br>Sincerely,<br>Arthur Moore<br>(256) 277-1001</div>
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