In 2009 I put together a project called RFiDJ that used media tiles to queue media that I wanted to play from my HTPC (Home Theater PC). We had a lot of fun with the project but felt that the tether to the reader surface was too much of a limitation. In 2010 we decided to break the tether and make the reader surface wireless and portable. Since then we have found this project to much more interactive & entertaining. Of course we added a few features along the way. This is the RFiDJ Refresh.



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This is the architecture we designed for this project. I'll use this diagram as a guide to document the project from left to right starting with the Media Tiles.


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The media tiles are the same from the original project although they can be anything that can hide an RFID tag. The circular RFID tags I used are visible in this picture.


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The reader uses a rechargeable lithium polymer battery back to power an RFID reader and the 433MHz transmitter.

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Everything is enclosed in a small shadow box frame (thanks Ikea).


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The assembled reader and media tiles.


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The 433MHz receiver is powered by the FT232R UART to USB converter. It can be connected directly to the HTPC.


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Not shown in the schematic is the LPC1114 that I added in between the 433MHz receiver and the FT232R. While not necessary, I added it to perform the data framing since the 433MHz is not a packet based radio.

Finally this is a second video that shows me opening up the reader with the receiver in the shot.




Note: You'll hear references to RF-AID in the videos but we decided to drop that name in favor of RFiDJ Refresh. What's in a name right?