Am working on a reader app and it works, but I have problems with the distance of the fob.
I am using a plastic box, with some wooden stand-off where the RFC reader is screwed onto. They are about 8mm high, and the plastic is another 2mm.
I have major problems getting the swipe to work on the exterior of the box consistently (works 1 time in 10 approx), but when I flip off the lid and swipe across the sensor underneath, it works fine.
Does the sensor discriminate on which side gets swiped? I have the side with the radiating lines facing towards the top of the box. Or do I need to place the sensor hard up against the lid of the box?
Interesting development: I use a swipe card rather than fob and it get recognised every time. And sometimes my valid fob gets rejected by the "PICC_ReadCardSerial" function. Are all fobs not created equal? Would still appreciate some feedback.
So you are about 10mm from the reader is this correct?
Are the screws metal or plastic?
Are there any other readers within 2 meters of your reader, because that will affect the range you can get from a reader.
Not too surprising because the coil in a card is larger than the coil in a fob so a card is always going to have a longer range.
Well not quite. This is because the resonant frequency of a fob, and a card for that matter, is dependent on not only the inductance of the coil but also the capacitance across the coil. Tolerances on this will produce some fobs, and cards to be slightly better or worst than others. When you are working at the limit of the range these things make a deference.
You haven't said but I am assuming you are using a 13.5MHz (ish) reader and not a 125KHz - 135KHz reader card and fob.