Skylanders "Portal of Power" possible cheap RFID reader/writer?

[RealityX]

I was tinkering around w/ my son's portal today and discovered that it just a simple RFID reader/writer. (For those who arnt aware, the portal is a USB peripheral that allows you to set figures on top that then appear in game and save your progress on the figure it self. It a neat game, but thats besides the point). Activision provides a driver for windows so you can use your portal on some online flash powered version of the game, but as usual no linux support.

I took the device apart and found the the rfid part is being powered by a mfrc530 chip that operates the antenna at 13.53mhz. It works w/ MIFARE 1k or 2k id's and has read/write capability. I wasnt able to see what the other microcontroller as it was covered up, and didnt want to damage it trying to remove the covering. (I have pictures if any one is interested)

My question is does anyone think that this device could be used as a RFID reader for backtrack, vice having to spend a few hundred on one? Im sure some custom driver solution would be necessary.

Here is the output of lsusb -v

root@bt:~# lsusb -s 002:006 -v

Bus 002 Device 006: ID 1430:1f17 RedOctane 
Device Descriptor:
  bLength                18
  bDescriptorType         1
  bcdUSB               2.00
  bDeviceClass          255 Vendor Specific Class
  bDeviceSubClass       255 Vendor Specific Subclass
  bDeviceProtocol       255 Vendor Specific Protocol
  bMaxPacketSize0         8
  idVendor           0x1430 RedOctane
  idProduct          0x1f17 
  bcdDevice            1.28
  iManufacturer           1 Activision
  iProduct                2 Spyro Portal
  iSerial                 3 01049095
  bNumConfigurations      1
  Configuration Descriptor:
    bLength                 9
    bDescriptorType         2
    wTotalLength          153
    bNumInterfaces          4
    bConfigurationValue     1
    iConfiguration          0 
    bmAttributes         0x80
      (Bus Powered)
    MaxPower              500mA
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        0
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           2
      bInterfaceClass       255 Vendor Specific Class
      bInterfaceSubClass     93 
      bInterfaceProtocol      1 
      iInterface              0 
      ** UNRECOGNIZED:  11 21 10 01 24 25 81 14 03 03 03 04 13 02 08 03 03
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x81  EP 1 IN
        bmAttributes            3
          Transfer Type            Interrupt
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0020  1x 32 bytes
        bInterval               4
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x02  EP 2 OUT
        bmAttributes            3
          Transfer Type            Interrupt
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0020  1x 32 bytes
        bInterval               8
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        1
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           4
      bInterfaceClass       255 Vendor Specific Class
      bInterfaceSubClass     93 
      bInterfaceProtocol      3 
      iInterface              0 
      ** UNRECOGNIZED:  1b 21 00 01 01 01 83 40 01 04 20 16 85 00 00 00 00 00 00 16 05 00 00 00 00 00 00
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x83  EP 3 IN
        bmAttributes            3
          Transfer Type            Interrupt
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0020  1x 32 bytes
        bInterval               2
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x04  EP 4 OUT
        bmAttributes            3
          Transfer Type            Interrupt
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0020  1x 32 bytes
        bInterval               4
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x85  EP 5 IN
        bmAttributes            3
          Transfer Type            Interrupt
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0020  1x 32 bytes
        bInterval              64
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x05  EP 5 OUT
        bmAttributes            3
          Transfer Type            Interrupt
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0020  1x 32 bytes
        bInterval              16
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        2
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           1
      bInterfaceClass       255 Vendor Specific Class
      bInterfaceSubClass     93 
      bInterfaceProtocol      2 
      iInterface              0 
      ** UNRECOGNIZED:  09 21 00 01 01 22 86 07 00
      Endpoint Descriptor:
        bLength                 7
        bDescriptorType         5
        bEndpointAddress     0x86  EP 6 IN
        bmAttributes            3
          Transfer Type            Interrupt
          Synch Type               None
          Usage Type               Data
        wMaxPacketSize     0x0020  1x 32 bytes
        bInterval              16
    Interface Descriptor:
      bLength                 9
      bDescriptorType         4
      bInterfaceNumber        3
      bAlternateSetting       0
      bNumEndpoints           0
      bInterfaceClass       255 Vendor Specific Class
      bInterfaceSubClass    253 
      bInterfaceProtocol     19 
      iInterface              4 
      ** UNRECOGNIZED:  06 41 00 01 01 03
Device Status:     0x0002
  (Bus Powered)
  Remote Wakeup Enabled

[GeraldC]

Skylanders is awesome, waiting for a hack to beef up my son's toons (ok mine too, 22 so far). Having the read/write functionality would be cool too.

[RealityX]

waiting for a hack to beef up my son's toons

Well thats already been done, just do a search for SkylanderEditor.zip. Im not as much interested in that as the possibility of using the portal for other things. Since you can get id's for cheap (http://www.sparkfun.com/products/10131) it could be interesting to tinker with. Im just not sure I have the technical prowess to craft up a linux driver for it.

[RealityX]

...
/10char

[GeraldC]

Nice I'll have to pick some up. thanks also for the skylander info.

[MI1c00k]

My question is does anyone think that this device could be used as a RFID reader for backtrack, vice having to spend a few hundred on one?

Few hundred? Touchatag costs only 30€.

[petegordon]

I was researching the same thing, could a Skylander portal be used as a generic RFID reader.

Here is some more information...

1) The NXP MFRC530 chipset found in the portal is the same as found here on SparkFun.
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/10126

2) and the chips run about $10 each....
http://www.findchips.com/avail?part=mfrc530

3) AdaFruit has another example here... with a different NXP chip... (I think more recent)
http://www.adafruit.com/products/789

I started looking into whether I could reuse the skylander portal; and am thinking it might be better to try to create one from the samples from adafruit or sparkfun. But, if others have more thoughts and suggestions would love to hear them.

Thanks!