Finally received my rings but...
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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?
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@shama said:
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.
You're completely right about perspective of course, to me that looks like his swipe card was reading at around 20mm. There's also the issue of ring orientation when he's showing it only working in one or two places on the board.
And I'm pretty sure there's an issue with the connection pins not crossing the board at 90 degrees, proximity of hand etc.
But anyway. I think after this I'm going to knock together a basic outline of what info we need in order to help someone. Otherwise it's like pulling teeth with no anaesthetic and everyone gets irritated. -
@Lokki said:
Now that is a truly worthy kickstarter. Even better would be if it were possible to seperate the antenna from the main board?
Work in progress for the v2 but you will have to unsolder 2 jumpers for use a deported antenna :) I will make another topic when I received the boards and test them.
Oh, there is also a nano version with the same components, but for a test a bigger sized board like the uno is suitable ;)
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I have done more testing today with the Adafruit pn532 board. I am able to get the mifare card to read at 9.5cm from the back and 8.5cm from the front. The nfcring still won't read unless it is in a few narrow spots and still only about 1-2mm(not cm) away from the board.
The Elechouse pn532 boards are all getting 4.5cm from the back using the mifare cards. I have ordered a new one from http://www.elechouse.com/elechouse/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=90_93&products_id=2242 in addition to the 10 we have here at the moment.
To add a little information to all this, we are using raspberry pi's to power and read these boards. I have done tests today with the Adruino Uno using i2c on the Elechouse and SPI on the Adafruit board. I got the same 4.5cm on the Elechouse and 9.5cm on the Adafruit.
I have also tested the NFC inlays that came with the rings. They get 2.5cm using the Adafruit pn532 nd 1.5cm using the Elechouse. The inlay by itself looks closer to what @Lokki posted in his first video using the Classic(black?) ring.
I will wait until the new(11th) Elechouse pn532 board comes in to do final tests and if I am still getting these numbers then I will send these things back for replacement.
Is there any ring material/color/etc (besides Alpha which is too big for us) that has the best readability?
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Ok, so this is a long video (I hate doing videos, I really do) showing the method I use to get a ring to read consistently. There is a Mifare Classic card included for comparison, and I've also shown what can happen to read distance and quality merely by twisting the wires from the microduino uno to the PN532 reader.
To explain something with the rings, the smaller the ring size the more pronounced the curve of the inlay - this can also affect read quality, but using a better read method will compensate for this. Ring orientation will also affect how well and how far you can read the ring.
At the moment I don't really feel up to explaining RF propagation waves and why you get better read areas in different places but that is definitely worth looking at for at least an explanation of why things could be different for you. Proximity of other devices, metal, even your hand can affect this. I have a post here on this.The bare inlays that came with your order should behave more or less the same as a comparably sized keytag or sticker. The lack of a metal surrounding lets them interact a little more readily with the RF field generated by the active device.
I believe silver isn't the best as it might be slightly reflective to RF, you'd have to ask @johnyma22 to clarify that. Black, transparent and white should be comparable in performance and behaviour.
