Hi guys, I have 3 big component bins (128+ components) and it always took me a while searching for the name of the component (I have a sticker printer) so I decided to create an excel sheet and organize it by row (Letters) and column (Numbers). It is soo much easier to keep track of everything but it still takes me time looking for the exact component big for example V6 is in the middle and sometimes I dont see it right away so I want to put LEDS on each row and column but I dont want to put a separate Arduino near the component bin with large keypad and I want to sync the Arduino with my pc so I can just type in the row and column on my pc to the Arduino. I was thinking ESP8266 but I dont know how to properly make a website and I need ideas!
I have to type in the row and column because the arduino wont be able to find the component I am looking for because I have too many with the same name, for example LED I have 3mm LEDs 5mm LEDs 10mm LEDs smd LEDs and plus thats too much to deal with. I really like the esp idea but I am open to more suggestions!
You can tell that I haven't thought of everything but just now I thought about how many pins on the esp are going to be used, 16 only on 1 component bin so I was thinking of neo pixels but they are expensive and its going to take me a while to find out which neo pixel goes where. Also the lights are going to be behind the component bin on plexiglass because the bins are transparent almost.
That was my first idea. But if 1$/m for addressable LED strips is too expensive to you...
Have you ever tried 5V red laser (pointer) diodes going through your entire bins horizontally and vertically? You'll find what you need where the beams cross.
On digikey it costs 118$ for 160 neo pixels but I also forgot that you could just get a whole strip for cheaper and ill keep that in mind also its going to be really hard to keep the lazers straight and its going to take up all of my pins and the light might go dimm but I dont know for sure.
I was thinking, can you integrate Arduino in excel? What if I just highlight the box (where it says A1 or B2) and it sends a command to the Arduino to turn on that pacific LED?
I was thinking xbee too but that’s too expensive and I only have like 2 xbee shields. I do have some MikroE Zigbee click boards but I don’t know how to use them and it’s been like 3 years now. I even bought the MikroE click shield for arduino uno.
Is there any special need for it to be wireless? The complexity of this project goes to almost zero if you can use a serial connection. Then you're just sending some characters over serial and deciding what led to light up based on them.
Oh I get what you mean now but how deficit do you think making a webpage would be? I could try to find someone else’s code and work off that but I don’t have experience with html
That all depends on your ability and skill level. If the intent is to try to modify found code and hack at it, then I'd say it would be fairly difficult.
But these projects are best taken one step at a time anyway. Get it working over serial, that way you have the lights and the address system working. Then once it works that way you can try to replace that serial link with something else.
The biggest mistake people make here it trying to create the whole thing at once.
