I am using ThingMagic M7E-HECTO tag reader for reading tags which are placed on a Pegboard with hooks. Please see above picture for more details.
Currently, I am using 14131 RFID ANTENNA 860MHZ-960MHZ DigiKey antena which is vertical polarized antena and 6dB gain. To get all the tags to be read, I need to place this antena very close to Pegboard and also collision is an issue as well, because there are more than one tags (ideally there will be more than 20 tags on one hook).
Can you please suggest a best option for external antena in my case which can read most/all of the tags. I am looking at these options:
I’m using this antenna with the board powered by the computer over USB-C and I’m barely getting a 4” read distance. Is there something I need to do in order to increase the read distance?
I have a 5v 2a power supply wired into the VIN/Ground pins. I see there are pads on the face of the board, do I have to jump those to use an external power supply? I have a heatsink with a fan on the board. I have the board set to use 27db. I found some different tags than what’s on the SF site and they read a little further away (about 2’) but it’s no where near the 10’ I was hoping for. I have the tags on the outside of a plastic fearing with nothing in-between the antenna and the tag.
make sure you have a solid /stable power supply. Not a wall wart… The reader works in bursts and needs a supply that can deliver peek / pulse power (like a laboratory supply)
Next to that the Sparkfun library is a (every) small subset of the larger MercuryAPI that provides much more comprehensive options. Some of those I have added and recently some that allows better select of multiple tags in front of the antenna. Have a look at the latest additions on ThingMagic/Arduino_lib_special at master · paulvha/ThingMagic · GitHub
