RFID tool tagging

Has anyone ever thought of implementing an RFID tagging system inside linuxcnc for tools and other things?

For those that don't know about it, you basically put a tiny RFID tag inside a hole drilled into the tool holder. When you do your tool setting, at some remote station, you punch in the tool info and it programs it into the tag.

Then when you stick the tool into the machines tool magazine, it reads the tag and loads that information into the tool table of the machine.

Besides the tool offset and number, you can put other useful information into the tag, like its expected life and then update that life as the tool is used on the machine. So if you remove that tool and its sitting on your bench, you can read the data and know what its status is. Lots of other machine and task specific things can be added. It can also effectively check if a tool is missing or has been dropped or that you just have the wrong tool.

With my new machine build, i am trying to make the machine very friendly and idiot resistant - cause I'm an idiot. All the hardware side of this seems to be readily available - tags, readers, writers, etc. Wonder how hard it would be to implement the software side.

Thoughts?

it's a standard feature for Sandvik and many other makers. They drill a hole in the flange of the tool holder, pop a little rifd button in, and that's it. The tag itself is encased in metal already. You'll have to likely have the tool face the reader in the right direction to scan.

Balancing wouldn't be too big a deal. Drill both sides of the tool the opposite side a little less to account for the tag weight. this will be enough for most small tools or slow speed tools.

The only significant hardware side quirk is reading each tool station, which has to be done with one reader, scanning through switched antennas in each tool station and probably one on the spindle itself.

The rest is software to make linuxcnc use it. The tags in this size seem to be 64 bytes of memory - 64 characters. That should be enough for a fair bit of useful data.

as it is not time critical
you can use a NANO and go for the rfid lib
connect to a carosell comp and read /act on given numbers
so workflow woudt be
Press Manuell tool change
Machine goes to G30 point Tool stop Manuell change tool
door close
mashine goes/stays at reding point the Reader can be swapt in if needed by a Festo 10-180 deg Vent
tool is loaded acording to the read from the tooltable

this setup is most comen with a external mesurment system so tools are in a chain to be replaced
i have seen at AUDI a 500tool chain serving 12 CNC

I see that method working on a factory scale for management. My goal is more about idiot proofing at the lower level.

I'm imagining a point where you would by a ready to run CNC router in home depot. What features should that machine have to make it easy and safe to use.

Tagging tools seems pretty good for that. Putting the data in the tool means that tool is never lost. So if a friend with the same machine borrows it, or my main pc has to be wiped and any central data is lost, the tool still knows about itself. Likewise if it was cloud based and my network is down.

4 characters for a number. 7 for offset. 7 for diameter. 7 for life in hours. 5 for max rpm. 34 left for a name or anything else (or maybe 29 cause I guess you lose a byte for the breaks).