[hackerspaces] Open Access Control for Hacker Spaces v1.0

[Royce Pipkins]

Interesting. I am coming close to being finished with my own access control
system that will initially be used at Bucketworks and then later at
Milwaukee Makerspace (If Milwaukee Makerspace ever gets a space to access).
As soon as I get it all going I'll share all my stuff as well. (I'm in a
rush to just plain finish for right now, hopefully in another week)

I went with two Arduino's. One on the outside that runs an 2x16 LCD,
Sparkfun's ID-12 RFID reader, and a 3x4 keypad in case of a lost card or a
special event with a special non-member access code. The exterior Arduino
talks via RS-232 to an interior Arduino that runs the door strike (or
whatever) via relay and also talks to a Drupal server via RS-485. An
addressed master-slave protocol is used on the RS-485 side so that you can
have about 30 access control units on a single bus before you need a
repeater or a separate bus. The user list is kept in Drupal, not in the
Arduino. A program running on the same server as Drupal will be the master
of the RS-485 and will turn access requests on the bus into web calls to
Drupal and relay the access granted/denied response back down the bus.

Anyway the thought behind the RS-485 was to be able to have centralized
control of access to more than just doors. Perhaps we'd control access to
heavy machinery as well so that only those who'd been trained on a given
piece of equipment could turn it on.

So, I guess my suggestion is to pull the user list out to a web server of
some type.

I gather this Wiegand 26 thing is a pre-made module that can collect an RFID
tag or code from a PIN pad?

Regards,
Royce

-- 
The real problem is not whether machines think but whether men do.
B. F. Skinner
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