What arduino do i choose

[abdullah_7june95]

Hi
i am currently on a project to put magnetic stripe card door locks in a 3 story building. I'm planning on using one arduino for all the doors

Requirements of arduino

It needs to be able to send and receive information over the internet.

know which card is the correct card for what door.

datalog of who and time of entry.

to recognise a master card and it will be able to add more cards to the system correctly (i.e know which card is the correct card for what door) , and unlock any door.

(Preferably PoE)

[graynomad]

My take on this would be

• Central Arduino with ethernet shield and local mass storage like SD for card info and logging.
  

• Door Arduinos with some form of comms link to the central one.
  

Having an Arduino at each door is probably an overkill (but it could be one of the small clones) but required I think to localise the card reading.

If there aren't many cards the lookup table to match cards to doors could be stored in each door Arduino to reduce response time. In this case the door just tells the central processor what has happend.

______
Rob

[retrolefty]

magnetic stripe card door locks in a 3 story building.

A lot depends on how 'smart' the magnetic stripe card reader/door lock is. If it's just a 'dumb' stripe reader and a simple solenoid type lock assembly, then I think you would be better off with a minimum standalone type arduino board at each door. Perhaps communicating via daisy chained RS-485 type multi drop serial link shared with all the other locks and of course a master arduino. If wireless link is desired this could grow to a little complex and expensive. Power requirements also have to be known.

I think if you could provide a link to the specific door lock & strip reader you might get better and more specific recommendations.

Lefty