Avery Dennison RFID - Manual (Page 22)

HowToRFID
Revision: 13 Date: 31 August 2009
Page 22 of 53
Power control by “dBm” scaled values
Starting with printer firmware version Vx.34 the direct control of the “attenuation” parameter was removed and a
new parameter “Power level in dBm” was introduced. The printer detects the built-in RFID reader module type +
hardware revision and uses an internal mapping table from the value in dBm to the attenuation value to be send to
the RFID reader module. To make it comparable with previously used settings the menu entry for power level
adjustment shows the resulting attenuation value from the selected dBm value.
The dBm value uses regular logic (low value = low power) and is in depended from the built-in module.
Please note: For applications using the EasyPlug #PC command for adjusting the power level as part of the printer
job an adaptation is needed. The parameter ID for the power level has changed and values need to be converted
to dBm. It’s not anymore possible to directly change the attenuation value.
Power control via EasyPlug
The RFID power level is adjustable via the EasyPlug #PC command. Changing the value shows immediate effect.
(Also during still running jobs, so be careful if working with different supplies.)
Parameter ID
−
printer firmware version <= x.33: 5202 -> attenuation value
−
printer firmware version >= x.34: 5208 -> dBm value
3.1.2.2 Antenna offset
The antenna offset is defined inside an EasyPlug job using the #IM command. Section 2.4 describes why you need
to set the offset and how to find the hotspot.
If you are using a label based on a qualified inlay, the value for the hotspot is mostly identical to the physical
antenna position in the printer (when label producer follows recommended inlay placement position). See section
4.2 for how to calculate the antenna offset for a deviating inlay placement.
3.1.3 Parameters for error handling
They can be found in the „RFID Parameter“ menu. Their meaning is
Parameter Effects
Max tags to stop Number of transponders (tags) that have to be invalid in sequence before a printing job is stopped.
This parameter exists because of the assumption that a certain number of invalid transponders in
sequence indicate a severe problem. After solving this problem the job can be continued.
Nr of CMD retries Number of internal RFID command retries (sending a command to the RFID reader module once
again of negative status is reported by the RFID reader module) before a fail is reported.
For HF technology especially SELECT retries are important when printer is used in noisy
environments.
Try Times UHF technology / AWID RFID reader module only:
This value controls how often the RFID reader module itself tries to perform a requested RFID
operation (read / write) until an error is reported. Setting a high value will result in lower throughput
in the case of bad tags or general non-matching RFID processing parameters (power level,
antenna offset).
The default value is set to 10 to get best throughput.
Increase this value if you have a poor yield rate resulting from a noisy environment.