Simplest sheep EID tag reader and thermal printer

[milkloss]

Why are these software companies still using psions etc? They have a huge cost and (used) to be big and bulky. Why not move development towards iPhones and android devices? Great colour screens, water resistant, fast chips, long battery life, inbuilt connectivity and compatibility to pretty much everything and it can be insured the same as the psion type thingy. To top this off, nearly everyone on the farm will have a phone, although I'll admit it might not be a smart one, but upgrades are cheap nowadays.

why use a thermal printer? A cheap inverter and a cheap wifi laser printer and you're good to go.

i think the whole industry is trying to keep some farmers stuck with legacy devices for the ££££££. Let's be honest.

this is why I don't trust eid in cattle and the industry behind it.

 

[DartmoorEwe]

We get on fine with ours for scanning small to medium groups for dosing etc. Mrs has a known number tag that she will scan three or four times at the start, then go through the group and then scan it again at the end. Quick download and she can find everything between the two marks, so no worries about the memory buffer/ overflow.

Handy if there’s any doubt on who gets what for the medicine book, when moving groups etc.

That's encouraging, thanks for the tip of scanning a tag to mark the beginning and end of the session. I'll give it another go when I sort after pregnancy scanning. Its not like my visual reading of the tags is 100% accurate. Given they are so inexpensive it would be feasible to have 2 scanners and use one for singles and the other for twins to make 2 lists.

 

[Highland Mule]

That's encouraging, thanks for the tip of scanning a tag to mark the beginning and end of the session. I'll give it another go when I sort after pregnancy scanning. Its not like my visual reading of the tags is 100% accurate. Given they are so inexpensive it would be feasible to have 2 scanners and use one for singles and the other for twins to make 2 lists.

We thought for a while that the last number wasn’t always going into memory - hence scanning the known one more than once. Might be worth a check before you rely on it.

 

[PhilipB]

We get on fine with ours for scanning small to medium groups for dosing etc. Mrs has a known number tag that she will scan three or four times at the start, then go through the group and then scan it again at the end. Quick download and she can find everything between the two marks, so no worries about the memory buffer/ overflow.

Handy if there’s any doubt on who gets what for the medicine book, when moving groups etc.

This is genius.- I hadn't picked up on how they can be used for scanning batches.

I've ordered a 'Halo'. More expensive at £45- but widely stocked, which gives me confidence.

 

[DartmoorEwe]

Halo looks good. Here's a youtube link telling a bit about it

 

[Highland Mule]

Halo seems to need Windows to operate - I'm 100% Mac here, so will have to stick to the cheaper one.

 

[Ffarmwr bach]

You can get chinense reader for £200 reads the RFID but the software for that to be coverted to UK tag number is the prob. I had a grant to buy Shearwell stick reader, bough a cheap thermal printer off e-bay for £50 works fine and with the app Stock Move Express (that is free for those who are Welsh Farm Assured FAWL!)

 

[r80dub]

Hi

This is my first post on the forum so hello!

If anyone is interested and up for a bit of DIY electronics, I have recently built myself a stick reader for roughly £60.
I only have a small flock so couldn't really afford a £500 reader. After looking to find a cheaper alternative (including reading this thread) I decided to go about making one myself. It took a while to figure out what I was doing but I'm glad I did because it has changed the way I record everything.
It has Bluetooth and communicates with stock move express (I presume it would with any other application that talks to a stick reader, although I haven't tried this) so now I have everything stored on my phone in my pocket all the time.
Its relatively easy to do, with little or no experience as I had none before starting the project.
I would be more than happy to give full instructions and a shopping list of parts required to anybody interested as well as the code needed to make it all work as this was an arduino based project which is an open source electronic platform.

I hope I haven't posted in a thread out of place but thought this may be useful to people.

Cheers

Rob

 

[aangus]

Hi

This is my first post on the forum so hello!

If anyone is interested and up for a bit of DIY electronics, I have recently built myself a stick reader for roughly £60.
I only have a small flock so couldn't really afford a £500 reader. After looking to find a cheaper alternative (including reading this thread) I decided to go about making one myself. It took a while to figure out what I was doing but I'm glad I did because it has changed the way I record everything.
It has Bluetooth and communicates with stock move express (I presume it would with any other application that talks to a stick reader, although I haven't tried this) so now I have everything stored on my phone in my pocket all the time.
Its relatively easy to do, with little or no experience as I had none before starting the project.
I would be more than happy to give full instructions and a shopping list of parts required to anybody interested as well as the code needed to make it all work as this was an arduino based project which is an open source electronic platform.

I hope I haven't posted in a thread out of place but thought this may be useful to people.

Cheers

Rob

You should start a production line, these stick readers are a total rip off. Unfortunately l have bought one only because I have received a grant.

 

[PhilipB]

Hi

This is my first post on the forum so hello!

If anyone is interested and up for a bit of DIY electronics, I have recently built myself a stick reader for roughly £60.
I only have a small flock so couldn't really afford a £500 reader. After looking to find a cheaper alternative (including reading this thread) I decided to go about making one myself. It took a while to figure out what I was doing but I'm glad I did because it has changed the way I record everything.
It has Bluetooth and communicates with stock move express (I presume it would with any other application that talks to a stick reader, although I haven't tried this) so now I have everything stored on my phone in my pocket all the time.
Its relatively easy to do, with little or no experience as I had none before starting the project.
I would be more than happy to give full instructions and a shopping list of parts required to anybody interested as well as the code needed to make it all work as this was an arduino based project which is an open source electronic platform.

I hope I haven't posted in a thread out of place but thought this may be useful to people.

Cheers

Rob

Hi Rob-

This all sounds great- and potentially a great leap forward- Bluetooth is clearly the way to go.

 

[DartmoorEwe]

Thanks for the input @r80dub I'm looking forward to some photo story instructions. This sounds just what I've been waiting for.

 

[PhilipB]

Halo looks good. Here's a youtube link telling a bit about it

To pick up on the HALO-

The trouble is that it seems heavily designed to support a database of missing pets.

It downloaded masses of stuff (presumably missing pet details) to the device and every time I scan an eartag it says 'Searching' as it presumably tries to find if my sheep is reported missing..... so currently it's pretty useless until I work out how to use it without its software.

 

[ShooTa]

@r80dub -rob would love to see the bits you used etc.

 

[TGM]

Not all software companies are still using Psions! - we've abandoned them, except in the case where an exisiting user damages one beyond economic repair and inists that the damaged one has to be replaced with the same. Other than that, we've moved to the agrident range of readers, which begin at £385. These can do all sheep recording on the reader, therefore there is no need to bluetooth to anything. - simple to use! Bt printers - yes the really cheap ones off web will print, but we've found that the ones around the £30 mark have a weaker print than the slightly dearer ones. we sell low cost BT printers with good quality printout for £65. The ones that some of the other software companies sell for £200 + are a different class. at £65 or less you're getting cheap and cheerful chinese plastic. but they've fine to print sheep tag numbers. the ones at £200 + are uk made - very strong, very high quality - we did sell these at one time and I still have about 4 left in stock. But dropping a printer in the yard which cost £65 is a lot less painful than dropping a printer in the yard which cost you £200. Finmally the other thing which has a significant impact upon print quality is the thermal paper. The really cheap paper off ebay is likely to print so faded you'll barely be able to ready the numbers. There's a big difference in paper at 20 pence a roll compared to paper at £1 a roll.

 

[TGM]

sorry one last thing. having recorded everything on an agrident reader, we've an android app which takes all the data off the stick and sends it either to cloud or attached to an email. so it is not necessary to bring the reader back tot he office to sync. it'#s a 2 way cloud communication - if you sort your sheep on the pc software and set alerts for best, worst, keep, sell etc, you can save to clould and the app on the phone will put the updated animal records back into the agrident reader. You reader then beep s loudly and displays the alerts to allow you to separate the best, worst, ones to keep, ones to sell etc. but reader never needs to be connected to pc.

 

[DartmoorEwe]

I can't say real time alerts for target sheep is not exciting but I'm currently a fan of my pet reader. It does the most important thing well and is value for money.

 

[Andy84]

sorry one last thing. having recorded everything on an agrident reader, we've an android app which takes all the data off the stick and sends it either to cloud or attached to an email. so it is not necessary to bring the reader back tot he office to sync. it'#s a 2 way cloud communication - if you sort your sheep on the pc software and set alerts for best, worst, keep, sell etc, you can save to clould and the app on the phone will put the updated animal records back into the agrident reader. You reader then beep s loudly and displays the alerts to allow you to separate the best, worst, ones to keep, ones to sell etc. but reader never needs to be connected to pc.

with the Agrident readers is it easy to make a list of usually used antibiotics/medicines on the reader and put it to the software to make a digital medicine book? I was almost decided on buying a Psion but are the Agridents more practical?

 

[TGM]

there are 2 software options for pc which we have available. AWRLink which is free and Select Sheepware which is a paid for package. Both will allow you to enter medicines to a medicine list on the pc, which then becomes a drop down list in the agrident reader when entering a medicine treatment. Both softwares also allow you enter lists of illnesses, name of qualified administrators, batch numbers. Both software will provide you with a digital medicine book. AWRLink saves data in spreadsheet type files - useful to a certain level. Select Sheepware links all medicines to individual animals. Each animal in Select Sheepware has an individual record card, which is shown if you double click on an animal - all medicines are shown for the animal, , all weights, all tupping history, all lambing history etc. AWRLink does not have individual animal record cards - it has just enough to pass as a medicine book, but not individual detailed record cards. It's my opinion that the Agridents are more practical for day to day use. we don't supply any free software for the Psion. So on top of the cost of the psion, you have to add on the cost of the Select Sheepware software (or alternative from another software supplier). Regardless of where you buy your agrident reader, AWRLink is avaiable to download for free. There's more information on our website https://tgmsoftware.com

 

[kLupton]

Hi

This is my first post on the forum so hello!

If anyone is interested and up for a bit of DIY electronics, I have recently built myself a stick reader for roughly £60.
I only have a small flock so couldn't really afford a £500 reader. After looking to find a cheaper alternative (including reading this thread) I decided to go about making one myself. It took a while to figure out what I was doing but I'm glad I did because it has changed the way I record everything.
It has Bluetooth and communicates with stock move express (I presume it would with any other application that talks to a stick reader, although I haven't tried this) so now I have everything stored on my phone in my pocket all the time.
Its relatively easy to do, with little or no experience as I had none before starting the project.
I would be more than happy to give full instructions and a shopping list of parts required to anybody interested as well as the code needed to make it all work as this was an arduino based project which is an open source electronic platform.

I hope I haven't posted in a thread out of place but thought this may be useful to people.

Cheers

Rob

Hi Rob, I realise this post is somewhat old but I have recently purchased a cheap scanner apparently I should be able to download but after installing the ch340 drivers still can’t work it out, I’d looked at the arduino software but code is beyond me, do you by any chance still have the code and would be willing to share please? thanks Karen

 

[buttercup]

If you plug the scanner into pc does it recognise it, with a beep (turn sound on ?)