Finally received my rings but...
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Forget the coloured rings problem, that was a red herring. Your AFAIK is not correct. As I said there were also problems with inlays, wood, purple, rainbow and silver are all ones that spring to mind as having problems.
RE: board problems. So the ring does work then just not on the board you've got... -
1 ring has a black inlay, the other is transparent. Both experience the limitations. So that's classic rings with black, transparent, wood, purple and silver. Is there any ring that doesn't have problems?
I have tried on 4 of the Elechouse pn532 V3 boards as well as the one from Adafruit. The Adafruit board is a little more forgiving and will function about 1/4 inch from the board. I'm not sure why you recommend the Elechouse over the Adafruit. Regardless, the Elechouse requires physically touching the board in order to register.
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@leftyfb You're a really hard person to try and help with constantly ignoring questions asked of you, completely (purposefully?) misunderstanding what has been told to you, and then you're quick to come back with something snide or accusatory because you've completely failed at some basic level of comprehension.
Let me be extremely clear for you, and try and spell out this discourse in easy-to-follow points. You came here with 3 problems:
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Order was wrong
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Rings don't work on your board
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You had to reregister your forum account
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Order was wrong
- You said "it was supposed to be classic black like mine and not transparent". Unfortunately this lead to some confusion and you were then given info about black plated rings, which isn't your problem at all.
- You then gave your desired order as two rings both black+silver, but said "2nd ring as mentioned above, doesn't have a colored inlay like the first and is transparent".
- I asked if this meant you received 1 ring in black+silver and one in transparent+silver (because the word 'coloured inlay' might mean the black one or the silver one, but from your first post I assumed you meant black and tried to clarify what you actually received. I also mentioned that the factory wasn't producing all the coloured inlays originally required of it, maybe I should have gone into more detail on that and linked to the actual updates posted on Kickstarter that cover this.
- Unhelpfully you then said "As posted above, they are titanium rings with black inlay and transparent inlay". But earlier you said "it was supposed to be classic black like mine", so did you get two different rings or not? If you got both rings with black then why did you start by saying "it was supposed to be black ..."? If you received black+transparent then surely it is the silver that is missing? This thread would be a lot quicker if you left out the attitude and just gave the bloody facts.
- You then said "AFAIK ... these should be the rings with the least amount of issues". I pointed out that it's not just the plating (i.e. black or blue rings) that has been a problem, and that there have also been production problems with inlays. I listed some of the ones that have been an issue. These have been mentioned in updates, along with the fact that the team have been substituting rings affected for ones they have in stock, and detailed what they're going to do to remedy it. Presumably you've been ignoring the Kickstarter update emails about this.
- You then blur the inlay production problems into the problems you are having with the board you bought, which are completely unrelated. Throwing in a 'is there any ring that doesn't have problems' doesn't help people help you.
tl;dr
Read the Kickstart updates to find out why your inlays may not match those you ordered.
- Rings don't work on your board
I don't really have much to add to this except you've shown that the ring works with
- A phone
- Another board
... but doesn't work with a particular board. It seems your beef is about the recommendation post here rather than the ring, because obviously the ring works just fine. From that recommendation, the user who recommended it didn't have your problems. I don't know what to say. Unfortunately you pissed off the one user who might have spared time to help you get to the bottom of this.
- Forum account deleted/purged
That's all cleared up now, I believe.
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@shama, thanks for helping sort things out here.
@leftyfb, if you are interested in attempting to sort through your issues with the PN532 boards then I am able to help out there. If you're interested in getting to the bottom of the problem and trying to sort something out then let me know and I'll skype you or something.
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@Lokki I am interested in triggering the ring using the PN532 V3 board by holding the ring at least 3/4" away. Not having to rely on physically touching the circuit board.
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@leftyfb I'm not sure how well you can judge the distance in this, but this is the edge of where I could read my ring with a V3 reader.
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I was actually getting slightly further with the board turned over and reading from the back of the unit.
It strikes me that 3/4 inch is a fair distance though, what's your use going to be? I've tried 3d printing a 3 to 4 mm thick housing for the board and it works fine through that from the back side - that's going to be in place of the key barrel in my vehicle. If I was doing a house lock I'd probably do pretty much the same thing, mount the reader back side facing out inside a printed enclosure.I can't give you any proper measurements at the moment for ring distance as those were test rings from a while back which have both died. My actual order will hopefully come soon and I can give you a definite answer.
I was also able to read all around the edge of the board with board and inlay on the desk, just pushing the ring inlay up close until it was within 4mm of the board edge. It definitely worked better either above or below the antenna but there were definite dead spots where the read distance was lower.
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Your ring is a lot larger with a larger RF antenna. My ring is:
Normal (Classic) Ring in Titanium Normal Color Metal with a Black top inlay cover and a Silver bottom inlay cover in USA Ring Size 5.5 (though I didn't get silver so now I have 2 black inlays which I can't tell the difference between).
The ring will not register if I am as far away as you are with either of my rings. I have to physically touch the center-left side of the board from the way your board is orientated in the picture. I will check again, but I'm pretty sure the ring did not register at all on the back of the board.
BTW, we have 10 of these boards and have tried this on 4 of them with the same result.
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@leftyfb, yeah noted. That's the only picture I took at the time, both rings were comparable in behaviour.
Signal was strongest following the antenna loops around the board with the inlay aligned lengthwise along the line of the antenna.
Left-center is directly above the PN532 IC itself isn't it? I had a read there, with a dead spot slightly above it, then the next read area from where you see in the picture and downwards, but with that dead spot slightly above the middle of the board.
Where'd you actually order your boards from?-as a side note, I'm running my board on 5 volts.
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The boards were ordered from Elechouse's website as stated 3 posts ago.
http://www.elechouse.com/elechouse/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=90_93&products_id=2242 is the exact product.
Our boards are running at 5V as well.
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Thank you for clarifying something which you hadn't made clear before now. There are 'Elechouse v3' marked clones out there which do not work as well but for all points and purposes look exactly the same.
This is why I asked where you actually ordered them from. The Elechouse website is extremely unlikely to sell clones, no?I have made a short video showing me read two (2) QA failed NFC Rings. The first one is an Alpha, the second one a Classic, to show that the antenna size makes stuff all difference to the distance at which they're triggering a read with the Elechouse V3 PN532.
This is also a 'good' read, giving full info and not just UID.
I am reading these from the back, to show you that it does work. Please note that the read distance on the back of the board is less than the read distance on the front would be! Note also that these are QA fails which don't work as well as QA pass rings and they're Stealth Bombers which are difficult to align and use. They still read, and at a distance.
To perform this test I have deinstalled my car starter unit and reprogrammed it with the "ReadTagExtended" example from the NDEF library. This is so that I know the hardware has no issues and the example no quirks.
If you've got anything set up already I recommend that you go back to a similar setup, try an example sketch that definitely works and use a very basic test setup to keep the guesswork at a minimum.edit: I should have pointed out that the flashing green light near the usb cable is happening on a successful read
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@leftyfb Don't misunderstand, I'm not implying that you're mistaken in anything, I'm showing you how mine functions and that it does work at a distance. You haven't offered much info on your use of the unit apart from it not working and I can't really do much else without more info.
Proximity to metal or other RF sources can alter the way the NFC field is generated which can in turn change where and how NFC devices will trigger in relation to the reader. -
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6 days of silence and all you do is "prove me wrong" with a video and no audio or text, huh? I've about had all the frustration from you that I can take, I even came back to this to try once more to help out after you were insulting to all and sundry the first time. Seriously though, I've had enough. Barring any universal revelation from you this is going to be my last reply.
You can "win" this argument you believe you're having but does it get you anywhere?
Seriously, I'd have loved to actually get to the bottom of this issue because I don't want 1000 people turning up here upset because shiz don't work. But it is looking to be impossible to have a real discussion with you.
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Your rings work.
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Your order is temporary/altered but fine. (You'd have understood this issue if you followed nothing other than the kickstarter updates. I'm done explaining them to you.)
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Your PN532 boards don't work.
I cannot help you with the last issue because you are not helping yourself. If all you're going to do is sulk in the corner and say "no" then nobody can help you.
To reiterate two points:
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your rings work
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your boards don't.
You see where I'm going with that? If they don't work for you then don't use them. I've got several of them here and none of them behave the way that one does.
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your rings work
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your boards don't.
Send back the boards and use something else!
If the rings work there's no need to send them back.
If the boards don't work, return them to whomever you purchased them from.If the RINGS WORK with a PHONE then they are FINE.
If the RINGS DON'T WORK with the BOARD you have then USE A DIFFERENT ONE. -
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Um, what? You said you wanted to know how I was using the rings and the board. I posted a video in the exact same manner you posted your video except I showed the board working perfectly fine with 1 of the 20+ RFID cards our members use here in the 2 door entry systems. These have been working fine for months with at least 5 variations of RFID cards, fobs and other items. We have tested 7 of our 10 PN532 boards(the ones you personally suggest is the ONLY board we should be using) and all work perfectly fine with the above tags. They also work with the 2 NFC inlays that were provided with the rings, though from about 1/2 inch away. The only things that do not work with the boards that work on 20+ other RFID/NFC devices are the 2 NFC rings, not more than micrometers away from a tiny area on the boards anyway. The same was found in using the ring on my Nexus 7. There's was only a tiny area on the back of the tablet that worked and only when touching the ring to the back of the tablet. If not physically touching the back of the Nexus, the rings do not register.
As I mentioned before, I got slightly better luck with the Adafruit version of the PN532 because it's got a massive antenna. But still only worked 1/4 of an inch away which is not adequate nor how the NFC ring is supposed to function.
At this point, it has been proven that these rings are defective and need to be replaced.
I'm sorry you have no patience or understanding of customer frustration or the fact that our lives do not revolve around responding to forum posts.
@johnyma22 I would like to formally request replacements for my rings.
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Use the NFC Ring Returns Procedure.
Just to point out one final thing, my elechouse v3 reads a standard card at this distance. Yours doesn't.
Your rings are fine. Figure out what is wrong with your boards.*~70mm - elechouse's data sheets say between 5 and 7 cm to trigger a read. You clearly show yours at ~20mm before read is triggered.
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B.S that's the same distance. Stop blaming the entire batch of recommended Elechouse PN532 boards AND 2 different Adafruit PN532 (I tested the other one we have). I don't know how many different scenerios I have to throw at you to prove that these rings just don't have the signal strength they should. I have tested:
7 Elechouse PN532 recommended boards
2 Adafruit PN542 boards
50(I just looked at the database of cards) RFID cards, Fobs, stickers, and even MBTA Charlie cards
2 NFC inlays provided by nfcring.com
1 Nexus 7
2 Classic NFC ringsEverything works perfectly fine EXCEPT when the NFC rings are involved.
I'm sorry, but I'm done wasting time and money on these clearly defective rings. My support ticket is in to get them replaced.
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Hi,
The actual design antenna of the current shield are not well designed for the small tags like badge and nfc ring, but the pn532 shield is one of the less worst for the NFC ring. (TRF7970A work too).
But the inductive field is not enough for have a good reading distance...Actually, I work on a arduino NFC & arduino nano NFC with a antenna / according circuit designed for the nfc ring. With the test with a RC522 reader I can read to ~2cm. Now I wait the current board with a PN532 from china for some test. After that I would like to make a Kickstarter with all schematics in open source (antenna design too), but it's not sure yet. Maybe you can be interested by this issue?
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@MrStein B.S that's the same distance
From 11-12 secs on your video that read looks like it is sub 50mm, and maybe as low as 40mm. But perspective is tricky and maybe you have fat sausage fingers. The read at around 7 secs does look better, at around 50mm. But none of those reads appear to have the distance shown in Lokki's image, and from 10-13 secs in your video you're definitely not getting a good read at what is considered a normal read distance for that board and the card NFC.
Anyway, not my problem, but I respect the opinion of those who have used the rings in demonstrable fashion on a range of projects. It seems you've had real bad luck with your boards, or how you are using them.
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@MrStein said:
After that I would like to make a Kickstarter with all schematics in open source (antenna design too), but it's not sure yet. Maybe you can be interested by this issue?Now that is a truly worthy kickstarter. Even better would be if it were possible to seperate the antenna from the main board?
