ARDUINO HERO's needed to help solve manufacturing communication problem

Projects General Guidance
1

G'day! how's it going? This is Dan, Craig, and Mitch.

We're 3 welders from Australia. And we have a problem that it looks like might be solved by something built using arduino - which a mate just told us about.

We sure ain't no rocket scientists - but we've been told you guys are. So if you could help us by pointing us in the right direction with regards to building this using arduino, you would certainly be helping to solve a real world problem, and make the lives of the boys at our plant a heck lot easier! and safer.

I wrote up the details in full for ya below.

Thanks guys!

PS: If you're actually interested in working it, more than welcome + we'll shout you some drinks!! Cheers.

Project:

A pair of 2 (preferably small) devices that when activated (via buttons on each device) cause each other to vibrate briefly for short intervals.

Application:

Communication at a manufacturing plant where sound notifications are inaudible due to the high volume levels produced by surrounding machinery at the plant.

Background info:

Me and my work buddy work at a large welding and assembly plant in Australia. Every 15 minutes or so once I finish welding a part, I need to let my buddy know, so he can collect it safely. At the moment the only way I can do this is by me walking up to his work area and letting him know - which takes time cause its upstairs. We tried using our phones and some pro walkie talkies, but it didn’t work cause the machinery in the plant is so loud - and its a hassle because we usually wear earplugs to operate most of the machinery . So i had the idea of having some kind of small device in our pockets, and when I press the button on mine, his would vibrate like a phone or a pager would and vice-versa. It wouldn’t need any messaging capability, or a screen, or speakers, or anything else - just be able to vibrate when activated. And it wouldn’t have to look fancy.

Specifications and Requirements:

small frame / box - preferably the size of a wallet or smaller
single button to make the paired unit vibrate
vibrating component
Power source: Small battery (example AA or AAA)
Some kind of receiver with a range of at least 20-30 feet (prefably more)

2

Also forget to mention in the background info - we can't text either cause we're wearing welding gloves

3

also we can't use our phones vibrating ringtones cause that entails navigating to speed dial on the phone, which we can't do once again due to the gloves

4

Are you planning on designing something, or do you want someone to do it for you? Because, there are a different number of drinks involved... and a different forum category.

5

Hi! Thanks for the message!

We'll if its fairly straight forward, we're happy to have a go at building it (just need to know which arduino components we need).

If not, we're happy to pay someone to design it.

Cheers!

6

What distance RF comms do you need, and what's in the way in terms of obstacles?

For the vibration part, maybe something like this:-
Vibration Motor

(I'm in Oz too.)

7

It's not that hard. The radio part is the most complex part, but the RadioHead library will allow you to use cheap TX/RX modules on 315/433Mhz. The rest is just a dumb loop with a switch on the TX and a vibrator on the RX side.

8

I hate to be a killjoy but what you want to build can very likely be built without an Arduino. This appears to be a good starting point...

https://www.google.com/search?q=wireless+key+fob+relay

9

Ok thanks heaps everyone! will look into it!