Chicken Nest Box RFID Tagging System

[freedomlantern]

Thanks everyone for all the responses. I'll definitely be looking into these options.

@wildbill

WiFi sounds good for the short distance you have. I'd have the nesting boxes transmit the hen ID for any it sees and an egg laid packet if appropriate.

The server receiving this can be whatever you fancy. In normal times, I'd say use a Pi, but you may find it hard or expensive to source one at the moment. Beaglebone's another possibility or it may be worth building a minimal PC with Linux.

Push the data into MySql or MaiaDb or whatever and you can do whatever analytics you like.

@JBBOP

Depending on the separation, I would like to use Esp modules communicating with esp-now protocol and master Esp at base hosting webpage to show results. Data stored in eeprom to avoid data loss in case of reboot.
If distance is long, I would use another inexpensive radio, like RFM69, or nRF24 with PA.
I guess you already figured it out

The distance isn't far, maximum 12 meters. I like the idea of having a webpage to show results - @wildbill, what do you think of @JBBOP's idea of using another ESP (instead of a PI) as a master? I'll check into MySQL and MaiaDB, thanks for the recommendations.

@gilshultz

That is a Great idea, I bet there will be a lot of copies in the next few months. I am a bit on the lazy side, a while back I purchased a bunch of 32Kx8 FRAM modules for just a few dollars, the ones I use are I2C. They can be gotten in SPI if you want. They are way faster then EEPROM and do not have the associated delays or wear out time. They will last for over 10 to 14th cycles. They remember for years without power. There are several FRAM libraries, most work nicely. The easiest way for you would be to generate a block (structure) with all the info you want to save then simply write that structure to FRAM. I think you can save several thousand blocks of information. They have a write protect if you want to use it. You can build it so you can remove the FRAM module and replace it with another. Then take it to your office or wherever and read the data.

Thanks! Any advantages over a regular SD card for my application?

@oldcurmudgeon

A lot of design details to figure out. How do you correlate the hen/egg? Do you just use the last RFID when an egg is detected? Do you care/detect when a hen leaves the box?

Yes, the correlation of hen to egg is just the last tag that was read when an egg is detected. A hen can go in and out of a box many times before laying an egg, and this takes care of that too. It doesn't matter when a hen leaves the box so that isn't recorded.

@oldcurmudgeon

It seems you want to use a star system where one receiver collects data for the boxes. The number of boxes is more then nRF24 or ESP-NOW support in a star configuration, so you will need a couple of levels. Can multiple boxes be connected to one processor/transmitter?

You need to think about the data. You need the hen ID. How about box ID (particularly if multiple boxes use one controller). Maybe a timestamp?

That's an interesting point, I hadn't actually thought about using one transmitter for several boxes. My initial thought was to handle hen ID after transmission, an example ID would be BO-24 or CL-49. If I use ESP, the box ID would be the same as board ID. I'm not sure if it's possible to have several boxes use one controller, because how would eggs from separate boxes be differentiated? I think I would only be able to tell that within the group, a certain hen laid an egg. (But maybe there's a way I'm not seeing here).

A timestamp would be nice, maybe add an RTC? It's a feature I've thought about before.

@oldcurmudgeon

If you store the data on the high level collector as it is collected you only need one nonvolatile device. I would suggest an SD card and store the data in .CSV format. This will make it easy to import into a data base.

Nice, that eliminates a lot of memory storage devices or work getting it into EEPROM. Thanks for the suggestion.

@oldcurmudgeon

For a data base I would suggest looking at SQLite for a start. It is easier to use and has enough function for a start. There are a bunch of free tools that support it.

I'll check it out, thanks!