RFID/NFC Shield for Arduino v1.3 + EXTRA

A RFID & NFC reader for Arduino

This shield for Arduino own the very popular PN532 breakout - the perfect tool for RFID 13.56MHz or NFC (Near Field Communicatiion - Communication proche sans contact WikiPedia) application.

The Arduino shield use a PN532 controler (the most popular NFC chip on the market) used in almost all recent cell phone and NFC based product. 

This shield can do almost anything, read and write tags, exchange data with amobile phone (to made payments) but can also act as NFC tag. If you want to include NFC feature in your project then the PN532 is the component to use!

NFC (Near Field Communications) allows 2 devices to communicate with each other  when they are close enough. It is a bit like a Bluetooth communication at very very close distance (and not requiring any authentication). NFC is an extend of RFID specification, so it is still possible to create RFID application from NFC reader. NFC also allows advanced applications like bi-directional communication with mobile phone.

As this shield can read and write RFID tags, you can use the shield for RFID oriented project. Various tags are can be used with this awesome component (on tag is included within the kit). It can also be used with all other NFC/RFID tags from type 1 to 4 (and also the NXP MiFare tag types Google)

The Adafruit shield has been created by skilled  RF engineers and using the bes equipement to create the best layout and antenna allowing the reader to work in an area of 10 cm (the max distance of the 13.56MHz technology). The shield can be attached being a plexiglass panel or inside a case while still reading the RFIDs.

Note about the silkscreen

The 1.0 version (previously sold at Adafruit) does contains a printing error on the silkscreen.
The SEL0 and SEL1 print were reversed on the board..., so SEL0 is in fact SEL1 and vice-versa. This will only impact user wanting to communicate via the UART or SPI interface of the PN532 (instead of the default I2C).
The I2C bus is used by the Adafruit's PN532/NFC library for Arduino.
This minor error have been fixed at the next revision of the board.

Wiring on Arduino

This shield is made to support I2C or SPI communication protocols. By default, the shield use the I2C protocol which requires less pins to communicate: analog 4 and 5 are used to I2C (and you can still use other I2C devices on the bus).

The digital pin 2 is used to send an "interrupt" notificiation. This means that you software does not need to continuously check the availabilitty of data, he can still wait for an interrupt request when data are available from the RFID shield. The pin 2 will be at low level (pulled down to ground) when a tag, phone, etc enter the communication field. You can use another notification pin if you need the Pin 2 for another usage.

It is also possible to switch from the I2C bus to SPI bus (usaing 4 wires) by solering 2 jumper on the board. This shield is compatible with all "classical" Arduino - NG, Diecimilla, Duemilanove, UNO - and also with the Arduino MEGA R3 and followings.

To use the I2C interface with the Mega R2 (or previous), two wires must be soldered on the board as the Mega board have the I2C bus elsewhere on the pinout.

Content

This product contains:

• The NFC/RFID PN532 shield from Adafruit (with integrated 13.56MHz antenna)
• A 2.54mm pinHeader of 36 pins (to plug it on your Arduino)
• You can still use Stacking Header if you want to stack several shield on an Arduino.
• Also include a 1K Classic Tag (more tag are available on the web site).