RFID and Arduino in Car.

Using Arduino Project Guidance
1

Alright so I want to put an RFID unlock feature in my old car. Just as something to show off and give me something to work on

I would like to be able to touch a the Sail on Driver side of a Pontiac fiero and have an RFID antenna read a chipped ring on my hand. Would I use 1 antenna or more than one? o

Would It go like this?:
1.Is RFID Tag present? If yes, 2 If no, 1
2. Turn On Green LED Light Strip
3. Move Motor to Position 2 (Lock Pos1, Unlock Pos2)
4.End

also how should I do this without having the antennas constantly looking and draining my battery?

2

How much power does it take to do one 'look' with the RFID Arduino?

How many amp-hours are in your car battery?

Slow it down so it only looks once per second or something, which will make the battery last a reasonable amount of time.

3

Could you think Of a better way of doing this? Maybe using a low power peoximity sensor to activate the look circuit? I feel like this would be more power efficient though Im not sure, any ideas?

4

Proximity sensor has ts own challenges false triggering etc..
One year standby easily with car battery with small code changes.

Ex.

    // Look for new cards low power consumption MCU and PCD
    LowPower_IsNewCardPresent();

    // Select one of the cards
    if ( ! mfrc522.PICC_ReadCardSerial())
        return;
5

SteveP76:
Proximity sensor has ts own challenges false triggering etc..
One year standby easily with car battery with small code changes.

Ex.

    // Look for new cards low power consumption MCU and PCD

LowPower_IsNewCardPresent();

// Select one of the cards
    if ( ! mfrc522.PICC_ReadCardSerial())
        return;

So this is for the antenna, Will the arduino and antenna drain my battery if left for 1 week? alone without any interaction?

6

Yes it will drain your battery by a very very small amount negligible. Setup hardware Arduino mini pro 3.3v (power led desoldered) and rc522 (power led desoldered here too if any).
Sleep current arduino mini pro + rc522 = 60uA current consumption is very low because
power on card detection is in the milliseconds range. 4 AA alkaline in series will last 25 weeks for sure field test.
A car battery should out perform that easy and be able too start car.