With a real PN532 from DT (not a knockoff) I get a range of about 1cm from the board with a xNT.
it is possible to improve the antenna for greater reading distance, or that could be improved in the PN532 for a longer reading distance
The FlexNT has better range than the xNT because it’s bigger and has a bigger antenna as compared to the tiny glass tube. It’s purely physics. The smaller it is, the worse the range, the bigger it is, the better the range. That’s not the only variable though. Design of the reader antenna does play a role.
In practice, more than a 1-1.5 cm with an xNT has been a challenge.
I hate to be the guy to revive a dead thread, but I purchased the exact model off amazon that @turbo2ltr did (I saw his review when I went back about a week later)
The DT version of the PN532 board is sold out, does anyone have an alternate source to buy a reliable antenna, or should I just get that bulky Adafruit breakout board? I’d prefer not to if I can, as I’m using an arduino nano for this project and trying to keep it small.
EDIT: Saw an electohouse logo on the homepage banner’s PN532. The website has the V3’s sold out, but they have a PN532 V4 for sale, that might be what I’m looking for?
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I see no reason that one wouldn’t work. I would assume you’d get legit product buying from them. The chip at least looks real.
It’s funny they misspelled “antenna” on the silkscreen.
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Yeah, I figured it’d be fine too. I’ll order em, and update the thread with results, for anyone else wondering.
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Hey look into the .h file in the library theres a command to set the ex gain to max that REALLY helps. If I find it I’ll pop the code up
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I found the .h file at
%USERPROFILE% \Documents\Arduino\Libraries\Adafruit_PN532\Adafruit_PN532.h
Don’t know a hell of a lot about software though, but I’ll looking over it to see what I can see.
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There is a line that is some thing like RX_Gain_max that line copy and paste into the init