Trying to get the Arduino to read an RFID tag

Ok, firstly, this is my first time working with RFID and my Arduino Uno. I have purchased the RFID evaluation board and the SM130 reader from SparkFun. With everything all hooked up and some demo code loaded, I am unable to read an RFID tag.

The code: Loaded a suggestion from the SparkFun comments, found here: RFIDuino/SM130/examples/sm130demo at master · marcboon/RFIDuino · GitHub. Uploaded as is to the Arduino.
The hookups: I've checked the connections using a Fluke Multimeter with continuity mode and all the connections match the board and reader's schematics. http://dlnmh9ip6v2uc.cloudfront.net/datasheets/Dev/Arduino/Shields/RFID_Eval_13.56MHz-v14.pdf.
What's happening: As far as I can tell, nothing. The code is supposed to display a fireware version, it shows nothing. When I send the SEEK command, I was expecting the SEARCH led on the eval baord to come on. Only light that is on is power. The Rx LED on the Arduino does come on though when I send a command.

Any help, insight, or additional info needed to help me out?

Lots of links there, but none to your hardware.

Ok my bad, first time in the Forum.

Arduino Uno:

RFID Eval Board:

RFID Reader:

RFID Tag:

Basically, the SM130 is soldered on the eval board (in the correct direction) and eval board has some header pins that connect it to the Arduino. Do I need anything additional? I was told that the Xbee module was optional.

I've been going though other links about using the SM130, will it not work out of the box - there are some pages that talk about updating the firmware and stuff.

There are two links on the evaluation shield page that illustrate reading tags and writing tags. What do those sketches do?

As far as I can tell, nothing. I did modify them to run with the 1.0 version Arduino. That was changing any appearance of "NewSoftSerial" to "SoftwareSerial" and removing "byte" from any line (i.e. "rfid.print(147, BYTE)"; would become "rfid.print(147);"

Both sample programs upload properly, the word "Start" will output on the Serial Monitor, but when I move any of my RFID tags near the PCB trace, nothing happens. The Power LED remains on, but the Search or Found ones don't ever light up.

Both sample programs upload properly, the word "Start" will output on the Serial Monitor, but when I move any of my RFID tags near the PCB trace, nothing happens. The Power LED remains on, but the Search or Found ones don't ever light up.

Then, I would question whether the RFID reader was soldered correctly. Use a magnifying glass and look at every pin. Are there any solder bridges (connecting two pins) or poor joints? Fix any that look suspicious.

The schematic implies that there are switches that can connect the RFID reader to pins 0 and 1 or to pins 7 and 8. Do you have such switches? How are they set?

Ha, we were thinking along the same lines...But I was pretty proud of the soldering job I did. Still, I checked those then tried something else:

I got out my Fluke multimeter and started continuity testing with all the connections on the schematic.

Turns out, the evaluation board is supposed to have the SM130 Pin 12 connected to the Arduino's pin D7. It was failing. Pin 11 and Arduino pin D8 were connected though.

I've emailed SparkFun to request a replacement. Thanks for the responses though, I appreciate the feedback. Hopefully I won't be back here because I'll get a working PCB...