Your Warranty Is Void.com

Image courtesy of Parallax.com

Hello Everyone!   If you’ve been in a Radio Shack sometime in the last year or so, you’ll know that Radio Shack and Parallax have teamed up to bring some variety to the parts drawers.  This once $50 serial RFID reader kit is now $10 at Radio shack although it only comes with two tags.  Read more for additional details about the Serial RFID reader now on sale!

The Parallax Serial RFID reader is 5 volt TTL compatible signalling and requires two I/O pins.  One is output for the “enable” pin which when brought low, turns on the RFID reader.  The tag data comes in on another pin to be read by your 5V TTL compatible microcontroller.   If you are using the 5V Basic Stamp or the 3.3V (5V tolerant) Propeller, then this is just a snap-in add on, no additional hardware is required.  Other controllers may require additional voltage converters to drop the TTL signal down to a voltage compatible for your controller.

Also take note that this is a 125kHz tag reader, so reading your company’s HID RFID tag will more than likely not work unless you have a 125kHz tag.

You can find the full datasheet, sample code and schematics from Parallax’s product web page here.

If two tags just aren’t going to cut it, you can take a look at all of Parallax’s tags here.