Has anyone managed to get one of these RC522 RFID readers working?
I can see information for it on esphome.io but cannot see a pinout for wiring and cannot get it communicating.
Thanks
It’s SPI - the pins are clearly labelled. Follow the i2c SPI example on the ESPHome site.
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But my board is slightly different to the one pictured.
You might want to share want the differences are…
Maybe you received a SPI version? How knows?
Yeah - well the original picture is actual SPI (my bad- was on my phone browsing) so you maybe have I2C anyhow. Post a photo of it showing pin labels.
Also note some manufacturers are renaming MOSI and MISO to SDO and SDI, and SS to CS so that causes some confusion.
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I’m not sure familiar with SPI, but in most of the wiring diagrams I can fine, which are also Arduino btw, they are wiring all the pins,
as I understand it, SDA normally only needs 2.
This is why im confused. Also, I see a SDA, but no SCL. Goes straight to SCK.
Pick suitable pins for the GPIO - these will work on an ESP32.
spi:
clk_pin: GPIO14 # SCK on this board
mosi_pin: GPIO13 # MOSI (misspelt MOIS)
miso_pin: GPIO12 # MISO
rc522_spi:
cs_pin: GPIO15 # SDA on this board I reckon (no idea why -- I suspect they just change a jumper for I2C board)
reset_pin: GPIO16 # RST
Don’t define a binary sensor - scanning a tag should print it’s data in the log.
Plus of course power and GND.
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Im using ESP8266, D1 Mini
Same pins will work on D1 Mini except GPIO16 (D0), use GPIO5 (D1).
Ok, heres what i’ve got.
ESP | RC522
D8 (GPIO15) | SDA
D7 (GPIO13) | MOSI
D6 (GPIO12) | MISO
D5 (GPIO14) | SCK
Oh damn, connected the RST pin and now its working 
[23:18:32][W][rc522:398]: Communication with the MFRC522 might be down, reset in -1
[23:18:32][I][rc522_spi:013]: SPI Setup
[23:18:32][D][spi_device:355]: mode 0, data_rate 4000kHz
[23:18:32][E][spi:021]: SPI device already registered
[23:18:32][I][rc522:295]: Soft reset...
[23:18:32][I][rc522:303]: Device online.
[23:18:38][D][rc522:263]: Found new tag '60-63-EA-1E'
[23:18:42][D][rc522:263]: Found new tag '60-63-EA-1E'
[23:18:44][D][rc522:263]: Found new tag '60-63-EA-1E'
[23:18:46][D][rc522:263]: Found new tag '60-63-EA-1E'
[23:18:49][D][rc522:263]: Found new tag '60-63-EA-1E'
[23:18:53][D][rc522:263]: Found new tag '60-63-EA-1E'
[23:18:56][D][rc522:263]: Found new tag '2F-A6-DE-02'
[23:19:37][D][rc522:263]: Found new tag '60-63-EA-1E'
[23:19:41][D][rc522:263]: Found new tag '60-63-EA-1E'
[23:19:43][D][rc522:263]: Found new tag '60-63-EA-1E'
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Thank you so much,
You are always very helpful!
Thanks for the info, got mine working following your post. Quick question, how do you list multiple tags?
Binary_sensor:
- platform: rc522
# uid: 5A-64-90-1A,
uid: F7-6C-0D-B3 # Add tag?
name: "RC522 RFID Tag"
How do you get it working?
My wiring is:
| esp | rc522 |
|---|---|
| D8 (GPIO15) | SDA |
| D7 (GPIO13) | MOSI |
| D6 (GPIO12) | MISO |
| D5 (GPIO14) | SCK |
| D0 (GPIO16) | RST |
| GND | GND |
| 3V3 | 3.3v |
My Config:
substitutions:
name: rfid-reader-01
friendly_name: RFID Reader 01
packages:
esphome.bluetooth-proxy: github://esphome/firmware/bluetooth-proxy/esp32-generic.yaml@main
esphome:
name: ${name}
name_add_mac_suffix: false
friendly_name: ${friendly_name}
api:
encryption:
key: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
wifi:
ssid: !secret wifi_ssid
password: !secret wifi_password
spi:
clk_pin: GPIO14
mosi_pin: GPIO13
miso_pin: GPIO12
rc522_spi:
cs_pin: GPIO15
reset_pin: GPIO16
My log:
[00:09:28][I][rc522_spi:013]: SPI Setup
[00:09:28][D][spi_device:379]: mode 0, data_rate 4000kHz
[00:09:28][E][spi:021]: SPI device already registered
[00:09:29][W][rc522:399]: Communication with the MFRC522 might be down, reset in 10
[00:09:30][W][rc522:399]: Communication with the MFRC522 might be down, reset in 9
[00:09:31][W][rc522:399]: Communication with the MFRC522 might be down, reset in 8
[00:09:32][W][rc522:399]: Communication with the MFRC522 might be down, reset in 7
[00:09:33][W][rc522:399]: Communication with the MFRC522 might be down, reset in 6
[00:09:34][W][rc522:399]: Communication with the MFRC522 might be down, reset in 5
[00:09:35][W][rc522:399]: Communication with the MFRC522 might be down, reset in 4
[00:09:36][W][rc522:399]: Communication with the MFRC522 might be down, reset in 3
[00:09:37][W][rc522:399]: Communication with the MFRC522 might be down, reset in 2
[00:09:38][W][rc522:399]: Communication with the MFRC522 might be down, reset in 1
[00:09:39][W][rc522:399]: Communication with the MFRC522 might be down, reset in 0
I dont think I got this working. I gave up on this.
It just went in the pile of shitty sensors with poor support. I will try something of a little more quality next time.
I solved my problem. There was an issue in my wiring, because my dev board is slightly different 
New wiring:
| RFID-RC522 | ESP32-DevKitC-32 |
|---|---|
| SDA (SS) | GPIO5 |
| SCK | GPIO18 |
| MOSI | GPIO23 |
| MISO | GPIO19 |
| GND | GND |
| RST | GPIO21 |
| 3.3V | 3.3V |
Config changes:
spi:
clk_pin: GPIO18
mosi_pin: GPIO23
miso_pin: GPIO19
rc522_spi:
cs_pin: GPIO5
reset_pin: GPIO21
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