Ahhhaaaa Hi David, a subject close to my heart :o) Ok I have done alot of work in the security industry (I have not yet had a client use smart cards) I have researched smart cards, and found in manufacturers literature a lot of warnings about ESD and card handling ie storage in purses and wallets, and MTBF, I was not happy with the findings (I am still surprised that we use them for money). The current trend in contact security devices is the Dallas Ibuttons (available in Australia from Dallas security products IIRC. This company are the only people able to sell I button stuff, but be warned they are pricks, they told me that the demo kits were no longer available and that they would have to consult their boss who was on holiday before giving me a few samples, even though if I had a customer letter of intent to buy 2 million "code devices" over a 10 year period. I used the web form on the Dallas web site, and 2 kits arrived within 8 weeks ( I thought I had been knocked back as I had no response, and they suddenly appeared on the front door) I have not had a chance to play with the dev kits yet (as I have been in hospital) but I did read the documentation. One other idea is to use mag swipe cards everyone has (fly buys, Medicare, bank cards etc) you use track 3 which contains the card number and expiry date, which is safe and non intrusive. commercial mag stripe readers are available form inner range security products for about au$30 and it sends the data out in a serial format. Regards, Kat. ____________________________________________________________________________ /"\ ASCII Ribbon Campaign | K.A.Q. Electronics \ / - NO HTML/RTF in e-mail | Software and Electronic Engineering X - NO Word docs in e-mail | Perth Western Australia / \ | Ph +61 419 923 731 ____________________________________________________________________________ ----- Original Message ----- From: "David Duffy" To: Sent: Tuesday, October 16, 2001 6:16 PM Subject: [EE]: Smart Cards > Hi All, > I have an application for a low security access control system. What I > propose is to use 256 byte Smart Cards (correct name?) as electronic > keys to enter rooms internal to a business. This is not a Fort Knox type > application, the customer just wants to limit customer access to the room > that they've paid to use. Has anyone used these type of cards before? > IIRC, they are basically a 256 byte EEPROM with an I2C interface. Farnell > do have the cards & reader frame/contact assembly quite cheaply. The > assembly has a switch which closes when the card is fully inserted into it. > Are there any rules on applying power to the card? Do you have to switch > power on/off when the card is inserted/removed or is the +5V rail always > left applied to the reader contacts? I'm planning to have a PIC in each > reader with a RS485 network to log access from a central PC. The PC > will also program the cards each time with a new access code tied to the > room booking system. The PC will update the reader PIC with the new > code at the same time. Thinking about it, this is more or less like Hotels > use use these days for room access. Any comments welcome. :-) > Regards... > ___________________________________________ > David Duffy Audio Visual Devices P/L > U8, 9-11 Trade St, Cleveland 4163 Australia > Ph: +61 7 38210362 Fax: +61 7 38210281 > New Web: www.audiovisualdevices.com.au > New email: avd@audiovisualdevices.com.au > ___________________________________________ > > -- > http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different > ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details. > > -- http://www.piclist.com hint: The PICList is archived three different ways. See http://www.piclist.com/#archives for details.