Animal Tagging -- reader?

Hi, all

My cat is being tagged with one of those RFID chips. Now I want to read the information. Cat gets into places where I do not want it to go and I want to set up a detector there that will scare it away. Ue of IR detection will not work as people get there too. So, since cat is already tagged, I'd like to use it. I am after a detector that will read the ID from a distance of a bout

1-1.5m. Reader does not have to be self-contained. I will have to interface it to a micro anyway to implent the "scaring" part.

Any help is appreciated.

If sending anything by e-mail, please send to aus.electronicsATrumatech.com

Thanks, Rudolf

Reply to
Rudolf
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"Rudolf" wrote in news:43c74045$1 snipped-for-privacy@news.iprimus.com.au:

LOL! When I don't want my cats to go somewhere, I close a door!

It will, if you make some attempt to differentiate between people-sized bits of IR, and cat-sized bits of IR.

[...]

With respect Sir, it's not gonna happen. The RFID 'capsules' they're using on animals have such a tiny antenna that it may as well not have one at all. That is certainly the case at the distances you're talking.

We keep a cache of assorted RFID 'chips' to show to students during the Supply Chain Management lecture on bar codes, rfid, etc. Some have quite large antennas - the ones that the Hong Kong Airport Authority attach to every item of checked luggage that flows out of the place are about 50mm x 200mm - and of course most of that is antenna. The antenna in an animal capsule is tiny by comparison - a small coil of copper wire.

I had to take my young bloke back to the RSPCA recently to get his number checked (someone made a typo, got it wrong, blocked some little old lady registering her cat up on the Central Coast! In a system of RFID and bar codes, someone *still* ended up manually typing a (very) long number!).

So I had a chance to have another good look-see at the RFID readers they're using. They're a battery powered device with a large coil antenna - a diameter in the order of 100mm at a guess.

Common practice is to insert the capsule between the shoulder blades. In my boy's case, it has slipped off, and down one side of his shoulder (you can feel it under his skin) - perhaps 20-30mm away from where you might expect it to be

That distance is enough to make it really difficult to read his number. It takes several attempts, 'scanning' over his shoulders with the reader pressed on his skin.

This isn't a one-off. I've seen similar difficulties with reading on others, dogs too, in the past.

What this means for you is that it's going to be nigh-on- impossible to get a reading of any sort at a distance of

1000-1500mm...

Having said that, you don't necessarily need a *reading* as such. What you need to do is identify the presence of a device that 'talks' when excited by an RF field. That's going to be a *lot* easier (and a lot cheaper) than understanding what it is actually talking about. I'm assuming here that you don't need to confirm that it is specifically *your* cat that is where you don't want it to be???

Anyway, not needing to know the actual number means that you get to up your 'read' distance to something like

25-50mm. Still doesn't really solve your problem, does it.

I think back to the IR thing might be a better bet. You

*can* get the 1000-1500mm read to happen with the capsule implanted in your cat, but there are serious health-and- safety implications and, notwithstanding that there's nothing ferrous about your cat, you're still going to end up with him/her being *so* magnetically polarised that you'll have trouble with him/her sticking to the fridge all the time!

I haven't even *touched* on the bit where RF generally is a total black art, or the amounts of money involved in reading RFID. You're using a micro. Go IR. A bunch of recievers at diffent heights. If the one near the ground is the only one lit up then its a cat or a human playing silly-buggers who deserves to be scared away anyway :-)

HTH,

GB

--
"When all you have is a flamethrower, everything looks like a 
 speed camera." (Peter)
Reply to
GB

as already said... forget it. detection range is around 5cm... perhaps you could expand your idea slightly, and use an RFID tag on the cat's collar.

eg:

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keyfob style
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21mm round, easily superglued to collar or back of current nametag.

range is likely to be less than you want however; the card readers tend to have very short detection distances for security reasons...

-mark

Reply to
mark jb

OK,

We moved to a new house and there is a pathway behind the house. Pathway is about 1.5m wide. It ends at the door that leads to frontyard and cat gets there through the door as it is not solid.

  1. I do not want to make door soild. It is made out of metal rods and looks quite nice.
  2. Somehow our cat does not like climbing, so I am not concerned of it climbing the fence and escaping this way.

So, the idea is to install some detector on the pathway near the door and scare the cat away. I thought about IR detector, but this pathway i used by us and our gardener and I do not want the device to trip on humans.

I though about using RFID tags, but then remembered our cat already has one implanted. If I can not use this one, I will have to put one on the collar. Any pointers to cheap reader and tags? I only need couple of tags and a single reader and do not want pay big $$$. RFID kits from TI are few hundred dollars.

Thanks, Rudolf

Reply to
Rudolf Ladyzhenskii

you don't need rfid tags. simple resonant tags (like they use at K-Mart to catch shoplifters) would suffice. (these are just a coil with a capacitor attached)

as for a detector you might have to google for that.

I's try chicken wire (etc) on the gate first just to be sure that a barrier in that place is all you need.

Bye. Jasen

Reply to
Jasen Betts

If you used two IR beams/detectors - one high (3ft) and one low (6"), and connected their output to an AND gate, it would trip on the cat, but not humans

Might be the cheap and easy way

David

Rudolf Ladyzhenskii wrote:

Reply to
quietguy

This is an idea.

Anyway, thanks for replies. Will play with it.

Rudolf

"quietguy" wrote in message news: snipped-for-privacy@REMOVE-TO-REPLYconfidential-counselling.com...

Reply to
Rudolf Ladyzhenskii

Jasen Betts wrote in news: snipped-for-privacy@clunker.homenet:

His cat already has a tag implanted, so that's why he was heading down the RFID path IIRC.

Well that's the obvious, inexpensive and sensible solution to the problem, but where's the fun in that? :-)

G
--
"When all you have is a flamethrower, everything looks like a 
 speed camera." (Peter)
Reply to
GB

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