SparkFun Forums

[austinbv]

Hey I have a project where I would like to use the RFID keys we have for my office to soup up a foosball table. I want to use the keys so players can log in and stats about them can be tracked.

I recently bought the https://www.sparkfun.com/products/8419 which works very well with the sparkfun 125Mhz RFID card but my office key is not read. I assume this is because the frequency is wrong. How many RFID frequencies are there for RFID and how likely is it that I can find a reader that my office keys can be read from? I don't want to go out and buy the 13Mhz reader if it will not work either is there a way to test what frequency my key is?

Or is there anyone in the boulder area who has a working 13Mhz reader and can tell me if my key is read?

Thanks for the help

[Joeisi]

Most RFID tags are proprietary. That means that they (usually) have their own encoding scheme and frequency. There is no guarantee at all that the tag is 13MHz, 125KHz, 255GHz, whatever. I would look to see if your office key has a part number or manufacturer. This would give you clues to whether you can actually buy a reader for your card. If all else fails, you may want to try asking a technical person there who may know this information or where to get it. If all else fails, just get some cheap cards, and print on them or something.

[wiml]

Is there any writing or marking at all on your office keycard that says who made it? Mine has the brand name ("i.CLASS") on the end in small letters, and from that you can usually find out what standard it uses.

Otherwise, I think the vast majority of keycards fall into three categories. The old thicker HID cards, which are 125kHz but use a proprietary protocol; and 13.56MHz cards using either the ISO 14443 or ISO 15693 protocols (or protocols based on them). 14443 and 15693 aren't compatible; most of the hacker-friendly stuff is 14443, but my i.CLASS card is 15693.

(There are lots of other RFID standards out there of course, but those three are the ones that seem to be common for keycards.)