Jul 2025
Arduino RFID Card Scanner
Photo of the completed device, an RFID tag, and an RFID card.
This long-running project started three months ago when I had the idea of developing a device that can emulate building access cards. Unfortunately, I have realized this is not feasible for technical reasons, and have settled for a device that can simply read the UID (unique ID) of most types of RFID cards/tags.
Nonetheless, this project has lead to me learning a variety of new skills, as well as making use of previous ones:
Electrical soldering.
Coding in C++
Arranging electrical circuits.
Designing and tolerancing parts in SOLIDWORKS.
Initial circuit setup using a large breadboard and inferior RFID module.
Final setup using a small breadboard and a superior RFID module.
Empty 3D-printed housing.
Soldering through-hole pins to the RFID module.
C++ code that runs on the Arduino microcontroller.
Circuit diagram for connecting the LCD display.
Cross section of the 3D model in SOLIDWORKS.
Another cross section of the 3D model of the 3D model in SOLIDWORKS.