I recently purchased the seeedstudio serial RFID reader for 125khz tags, but I cant really understand the datasheet. I am having trouble figuring out how I am supposed to interface it with my picaxe.
Here is the product:
http://www.robotshop.ca/seeedstudio-125khz-rfid-module-uart-2.html
And her is the datasheet:
http://www.robotshop.ca/content/PDF/datasheet-rfr101a1m.pdf
Any idea on how I should start?
From the datasheet, it seems
From the datasheet, it seems your RFID card supports two different data protocols, Wiegand Interface and RS232. The Wiegand interface is probably not what you want here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wiegand_interface). You want to interface to the Picaxe using standard RS232 protocol. It is not clear to me from the linked datasheet how to select which protocol you will use, so perhaps the card auto-detects it. Not sure.
Read through the Picaxe Manual part 3 Advanced Interfacing 2 - Serial Interfacing to a Computer. A computer uses the same RS232 data protocol as your RFID card. Note that you want TX (transmit) from the PICAXE to connect to RX (receive) for your RFID card, and vice versa. Connect the Ground pins from both sides together.
The PICAXE manual includes interface circuit diagrams and more detail. There’s an option in the manual to use a circuit to boost the PICAXE interface voltate to 15VDC, in case you are interfacing to a device that needs true RS232 voltages. However, both the PICAXE and the RFID card should be working at 5VDC, so I don’t think you will need to do that. Just use the first circuit diagram with the three resistors.
You also need to set the data rate to 9600 bps, no parity, 8 data bits and 1 stop bit (9600,N,8,1) to match your RFID card.
The manual provides code examples for interfacing. Good luck.
