Getting the RC522 RFID to work with the Wemos D1 R1

Yesterday I tried to reverse engineer the MFRC522 library and I failed, receiving varying data depending largely on the SPI setup.

I've also tried earlier versions of Espruino, just in case. No changes.

The board I have, the Wemos D1 R1 is no longer in production, they are doing the R2 now, mostly pin changes apparently. But I can't help but wonder if that is the root of my problem.

I should get the NodeMCUV3 and an ESP32 any time now. I'll try with that and make sure to keep this thread updated.

'If you like you can flash the 4MB build after you got the MFRC522 working :)'

I thought that was that I had going?? I got the 4MB version, in directory form and flashed it with :

esptool.py --port COM3 --baud 115200 write_flash --flash_freq 80m --flash_mode qio --flash_size 32m 0x0000 boot_v1.6.bin 0x1000 espruino_esp8266_user1.bin 0x3FC000 esp_init_data_default.bin 0xFE000 blank.bin

After running the esptool erase_flash, of course.

'So go and get your Donated label below your Avatar.'

I've become a small patron on patreon, I'll make sure to update that as well when I get back to full time employment.

'Stopping Wifi is helpful during testing'

I figured that would help with @allObjects's comment on the non-negotiable demands of the wifi stack. It didn't seem to affect the results I was getting (not like changing NSS pin or using software SPI)

'got a pico, esp8266 and a MFRC522 on my desk and will give it a try.'

If you get to dig deep, I'd be interested in what the communication looks like in a working MFRC522!

Sooo... In the meantime I gave in to the dark side, plugged the MFRC522 in the Arduino Nano and wrote a small C script for it to be slave I2C and report back to the ESP8266 running Espruino. Within 30 minutes I was reading cards, that felt good.

I'm not giving up on having it directly on an ESP, but I'll take a break from it until I get further gear (or the logic analyzer!). Thanks again for the answers.