Door Locks? Most electronic door-entry locks work on a simple
trigger. A specific level of current or voltage on the trigger wire
opens the lock. More sophisticated ones have more complicated
signals for the trigger, and often provide a return signal to tell
the controller whether the lock was opened or not. These are good
for detecting faults (when a lock was signalled to open but couldn't).
To make this work with RB, you'll need a serial controller.
Something like the PIC micro-controller could do it I imagine
(although I've never used one). If you want to use multiple locks,
you'll need a controller with a bunch of inputs and outputs. This is
much cheaper and less cumbersome than working one controller for each
lock.
To work the locks to an access control database, you'll need some
form of identity input for each lock. Often these are proximity card
readers, swipe cards, pin-pads etc. This could make the solution
quote complicated, as many of these only integrate with computers via
USB or serial. Wiring USB or serial cables round your building could
prove difficult. In any case, once your user enters their id, in
whatever form, your RB app should query the database for a record
stating that user 123 can open lock ABC. If no record exists in the
access database, the user is refused entry. If a record exist, the
RB app should signal the specific lock to open.
Obviously this is the DIY version. There are solutions out there
that take care of all the hardware for you. You buy a single
controller that comes with a number of locks and ID input devices.
You hook them up using something like Cat5, and plug the controller
into your computer via USB. If you can get hold of one of these
devices, it would simply be a case of integrating your RB app and
database with USB interface to send and receive events.
Hope that helps.
--
Charlie Boisseau
On 8 Mar 2006, at 01:42, Ed Lee wrote:
Has anyone here ever done any work with electronic locks?
Specifically, connecting an electronic lock device to a database?
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