Android DRO Mini FAQ #2

Saturday, November 30, 2013

As the interest in the Android DRO project grows, so does the number of questions I get each day. Some of those questions keep coming up regularly, and since it’s been almost a year since I posted the “Android Digital Readout Micro FAQ”, it’s time to post another one. This post will not cover every question you might have, but hopefully it will address most of the common ones.

Mixed Scale Controller Firmware Posted

Sunday, November 24, 2013

Recently I've been working on a new version of a DRO controller that will be able to read a combination of different scales. Although the project is taking much more time than I anticipated, I’m making steady [but slow] progress. Last week I had some free time, so I was finally able to button-up some stability issues with the common “Chinese” scales. Unfortunately I still haven’t finished a truly universal version, so you won’t be able to mix glass and capacitive linear scales (yet). Never the less I posted two versions of the firmware: one that read up to four scales and one that reads the common capacitive linear scales. Links to both versions are posted on the DRO Project Downloads Page.

Finishing the Voltage Shifter for Mixed Scale DRO

Sunday, November 17, 2013

A few weeks ago I posted the build instructions for an adapter board that can be used for interfacing various digital scales to the MSP430 Launchpad DRO controller. Following those instructions you will end up with a base adapter board that still needs to be configured for your particular setup. This includes providing each scale with an appropriate power supply voltage, hooking them up to the corresponding “virtual ground”, and connecting the adapter to the MSP430 Launchpad. In this post I will use the DRO unit I built for my own mill as an example of a mixed-scale setup.