Alpha 4 features “Green Mode”, a power saving feature. The unit was getting pretty warm when it just sits there all night, we we needed to find a way to cut the power over time. Direct RFID control isn’t available in this code library (or, I think, even for this unit!) so it took a hack to disable the RF field during power saving mode, but it works. The unit is 1/4 the temperature after one minute of inactivity and yet wakes up and is ready for use instantly.
The case has been printed from PETG filament which is supposed to work beautifully with RFID fields, but it demonstrably doesn’t. It’ll read cards and fobs just fine, but implants… notsomuch. Clearly, PLA interferes a great deal less, so future cases will be printed with PLA. PETG is good for normal use and test cases, but production needs to be PLA.
In an effort to get PETG to work better I used transparent filament for the antenna window as well; it didn’t improve performance, but it does look pretty cool. “Spock” achieved!
Alpha4 will be the final code base for a while at ~2,000 lines of code. This is pre-third-party-audit but is strong code and expected to be production ready.
