AIC Pico and AIC Key

Amusement IC Card Reader, AIME & Cardio Emulator

Features:

It's small, smallest as far as I know.
Many variants
- AIC Pico (PN532)
- AIC Pico (PN5180, no housing)
- AIC Key PN532
- AIC Key PN5180
- AIC Pico Lib (see notes 1 below)
Easy to make.
Sega AIME I/O and Spicetools CardIO emulation.
Command line for configurations.
Supported card:
- FeliCa (Amusement IC)
- ISO/IEC 14443 Type A (BanaPassport, Mifare, Amiibo, some IC tags, some ID tags, etc.)
- ISO/IEC 15693 (Old E-Amusement cards), only with PN5180 (see notes 2 below)
Emulates virtual AIC from any Mifare cards.
All source files open.

Notes:

So one can integrate "AIC Pico" into a Raspberry Pi Pico based controller. Will be ready later.
PN532 supports only 14443A (Mifare) and FeliCa cards, while PN5180 also supports 15693 cards (old e-Amusement cards).

Thanks

Thanks to many respectful guys/companies who made their tools or materials free or open source (KiCad, OnShape, InkScape, Fritzing, Raspberry things), ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot helped a lot as well.

And thanks to community developers and projects that helped me a lot: CrazyRedMachine (https://github.com/CrazyRedMachine) for the Spicetools Card IO part, Sucareto's AIME Reader (https://github.com/Sucareto/Arduino-Aime-Reader) for the AIME protocol part, .NET nanoFramework (https://github.com/nanoframework) for the PN5180 part.

Warning

This project:

Heavily depends on 3D printing, a Bambu AMS system helps a lot.
Requires skills to solder tiny components and wires.

Disclaimer

I made this project in my personal time with no financial benefit or sponsorship. I will continue to improve the project. I have done my best to ensure that everything is accurate and functional, there's always a chance that mistakes may occur. I cannot be held responsible for any loss of your time or money that may result from using this open source project. Thank you for your understanding.

Check out my other cool projects, they're all great, I promise. https://github.com/whowechina/

About the License

It's CC-NC. So DIY for yourself and for your friend, don't make money from it.

Building "AIC Pico (PN532)"

Seriously, this is the easiest one among all my Pico series projects.

Components

1x Rasberry Pi Pico or Pico W (clones work too).
https://www.raspberrypi.com/products/raspberry-pi-pico
1x PN532 Module (the Red Square board version, cheap clones work too).
https://www.elechouse.com/product/pn532-nfc-rfid-module-v4/
Some thin wires.
Thin WS2812B LED strip.
4x M2*8mm screws.

3D Prints

aic_pico_bottom.stl
The bottom part.

For the top part, choose one that fits your need.

aic_pico_top.stl
Regular top part.
aic_pico_top_ams.3mf
Regular top part, for multi-color printing.
aic_pico_top_tall.stl
Taller top part, so a thicker LED strip can fit.
aic_pico_top_tall_ams.3mf
Taller top part, for multi-color printing.

Wiring

Assembly

I'll let these images do the talk.

Notes

The firmware supports up to 16 LEDs on the WS2812B LED strip. I personally used 3 as shown in main title image. But you can experiment with different LED numbers, as long as they fit within the housing.
LED might be excessively bright even at low settings, consider covering it with some filter tape.
The mode switch on PN532 must be in "I2C" mode, picture below shows the correct settings.

Building "AIC Pico (PN5180)"

If you opt for the PN5180 NFC module, note that the housing design is up to you. Ensure it fits your design or you can use it without a case. Be prepared to solder more wires compared to the PN532 version.

Wiring

Note: WS2812B LED Strip wiring is the same as the PN532 version.

Building "AIC Key"

AIC Key is a variation of the AIC Pico - a keypad is integrated. Much more difficult to build than the "AIC Pico" as it has many tiny components to solder.