I used a standard 6 pin header mounted on the PCB to allow a FTDI 5V USB-232 cable to be used to program the chip in-situ - this was especially important, as the ATMega chip is soldered directly to the PCB, so it couldn't be removed for insertion into a normal Arduino PCB- This is a small price to pay to have a nice compact project.

The chip was programmed using the .pde Arduino sketch that was supplied in Step 4 - using the normal Arduino IDE.


The .PDE file that I have provided is tailored to the standard cheap eBay RFID systems.  It is not the version for the other IFID readers I have access too..... (I just thought I would mention that :-) )

 

Step 8Testing the project

Testing was a breeze - I typed the relevant code into the keypad, swiped the board against the reader, and was rewarded with a satisfying 'BEEP' indicating that the read was successful.

Testing at the other readers I have access to was just as rewarding, and scored infinite geek points!!!