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blownelco
Visitor II
September 7, 2023
Solved

X-NUCLEO-NFC08A1 GUI

  • September 7, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 1897 views

Hello,

I'm trying the X-NUCLEO-NFC08A1 in combination with the NUCLEO-L476RG. I have programmed the demo firmware NFC08A1_PollingTagDetectNDEF.

It detects tags but reading distance is very poor.  ( less then 1 cm for small ISO-15693 tags).

Is there a GUI tool like the "ST25R3916 Discovery GUI" for this setup?  

Is AAT done in the demo firmware?

How can i increase power?

 

 

 

 

    This topic has been closed for replies.
    Best answer by Ulysses HERNIOSUS

    Hi,

    by default the firmware uses the analog config to set different DAC values for the varicaps to control the emissions in reader mode and the loading effect in card mode. Thus the automatic tuning is not used in this use case.

    Please see the AN5322 ch.8 for details in case you want to play with it. I am not expecting any improvements by re-tuning. 

    You say you experience about 10mm. Looking at the provided data the tag has a guaranteed operating range of 2.5mm. So you are already 4 times beyond.

    BR, Ulysses 

    3 replies

    U
    Ulysses HERNIOSUS
    Technical Moderator
    September 12, 2023

    Hi blownelco,

    do you use the default NFC08 antenna? With which tag to you observe less than 1cm? Can you send a photo and some description of what you are doing? Did you enable/use wake-up on the demo?

    The software is using AAT automatically. So unless you changed matching/antenna the system should be working well. By default the system runs at full power so I am not expecting substantial improvements at this side. For increasing the field strength you would need to change the matching (decrease impedance).

    Out of the box the firmware for the GUI functionality cannot run NUCLEO-L474 (no L4 USB plug and different SPI/IRQ connections of the ST25R3916B). I think best approach would be to cross-connect X-NUCLEO-NFC08A1 to the ST25 MBOARD/M25R3916B/MB1396 and then run the default GUI + FW.

    Best Regards, Ulysses

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    blownelcoAuthor
    Visitor II
    September 12, 2023

    Hello,

    i'm using the default NFC08  antenna, trying to read RF37S114HTFJB and

    https://www.infochip.com/products/rfid-tags/hf/duraplug8/

    I don't know if it uses enable/wake up mode. how can i check this out?

     

    - I found the aatMeasure function in st25r3916_aat.c but debugging never comes there so i suppose it does not use AAT?

    Goal of the project is to use NFC tags on metal parts to detect different tools in our machine.  the tag should be small. Reading distance should be larger then one centimeter 3cm would be nice.  I want to design the reader by myself.  The tags we want to buy ready made.  Can recommend tags for this  please?  we do not need a lot off storage space in it, the standard ISO is not important for us. 

    If i cut off the antenne of the NFC08  and solder an antenne with ferrite on it will it tune itself if i use the NFC08A1_PollingTagDetectNDEF demo?

    NFC tags.jpg

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    blownelcoAuthor
    Visitor II
    September 12, 2023

    i have readout the Antenna tuning control registers to see if they have been tuned after moving antenna in metal environment.

    they continue to read the default values for the board in the rfalAnalogConfigCustomSettings:

     

    0x0026,0xff,0x40, /* User Defined ; Set Antenna Tuning (Poller) */

    0x0027,0xff,0x58, /* User Defined ; Set Antenna Tuning (Poller) */

     

    so no antenna tuning is done in the demo firmware NFC08A1_PollingTagDetectNDEF?

     

    B
    Brian TIDAL
    Technical Moderator
    September 12, 2023

    Hi,

    see the technical specifications of the duraplug8 tag:

    BrianTIDAL_0-1694530977603.png

     

    Rgds

    BT

     

    B
    blownelcoAuthor
    Visitor II
    September 13, 2023

    Hello,

    thanks for pointing me to fact I didn't read the specs very well :face_with_rolling_eyes:.    

    It will be hard ( or impossible ) to find an on-metal tag of that size that works at a distance > 10 mm?

     

     

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