[dorkbotdc-blabber] Ardunio / RFID serial + what else?

[Tom Lee]

Apologies if this is a naive suggestion (if it is, I hope somebody'll
drop some knowledge squarely on me) -- but since it sounds like you
haven't yet selected a network interface, what about using a device
that support SPI rather than serial?  I don't have much experience
with SPI beyond attending a uC class on it at the space, but some
quick googling shows Arduino implementing it using non-serial pins
(http://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/SPIEEPROM).  Perhaps this consumes
the hw UART despite the different pins? I don't really know.  If it
doesn't, though, the Wiznet ethernet module is cheaper than the xport
and supports SPI.

I don't think the same can be said of the xbee, unfortunately.  OTOH,
the SC16IS762 chip costs $3 or $4 and provides two serial connections
over the SPI bus (http://octopart.com/parts/search?q=SC16IS762).  That
might be an ideal solution.

The softserial approach is probably the simplest option for what you
have on hand, though.  The specs for the Parallax RFID module seem to
indicate that it can't go higher than 2400 bps anyway.

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 5:20 PM, M@<mattbillings at gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm in the process of putting together an inventory tracking project
> using an Arduino and the Parallax Serial RFID Reader.. I'm trying to
> decide how I should manage items.  I am building a web application
> that supports REST so as long as I am on a network and can issue
> commands, then I should be good to go.
>
> My question is if I am using the serial RFID reader from parallax, can
> I still use something like xport or xbee? Will the RFID use the only
> serial port and make the transmission to the webserver impossible?
>
> If so, I was thinking of writing the items to non-volatile memory and
> then doing a serial dump later. I've heard about loggers in the field
> that do that so it's probably possible. Right now the webapp is Ruby
> on Rails so I could probably do some serial dump to the  command line,
> but a real time direct connection is preferred.
>
> Any ideas / pointers?
>
>
> M@
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