MalcolmV8:
What if instead of a dip switch I have a tiny push button and LED. The user could push and hold the button till the LED blinked once, or twice, or three times etc. and then release and that would be the selected setting. I would read their inputs on the button and write something to eeprom and store their selection. That might be even more slick and would only require drilling some holes for a button and LED which can be made to look very clean and factory.
MalcolmV8:
What if instead of a dip switch I have a tiny push button and LED. The user could push and hold the button till the LED blinked once, or twice, or three times etc. and then release and that would be the selected setting. I would read their inputs on the button and write something to eeprom and store their selection. That might be even more slick and would only require drilling some holes for a button and LED which can be made to look very clean and factory.
Probably an interface hotrodders could identify with. Be sure you consider a way to bail out and cancel any changes.
Right. And something as important as spraying nitrous in a motor they'd need sound confirmation of their settings. Hence the very simple and easy to operate dip switches. Not only are they easy to set but easy to reference and confirm a setting. I'll see what I can come up with and use the led/switch method as a fall back for now.
If you do find a suitable box with removable side panels, you can design a side panel with cuts and send it to laser cutting service online. That's how I do face plates. Regarding circuit board design, you can post your requirement and expected pay on the gigs and collaboration board. There are plenty of people, myself included, that do contract work with software and hardware designs. See if you can get it done within your expected cost. I agree with you, arduino nano is pretty small. But the benefit of having a printed circuit board for the rest of the parts is short assembly time and much less chance to make mistakes.
liudr:
If you do find a suitable box with removable side panels, you can design a side panel with cuts and send it to laser cutting service online. That's how I do face plates.
MalcolmV8:
What if instead of a dip switch I have a tiny push button and LED. The user could push and hold the button till the LED blinked once, or twice, or three times etc. and then release and that would be the selected setting. I would read their inputs on the button and write something to eeprom and store their selection. That might be even more slick and would only require drilling some holes for a button and LED which can be made to look very clean and factory.
Probably an interface hotrodders could identify with. Be sure you consider a way to bail out and cancel any changes.
Right. And something as important as spraying nitrous in a motor they'd need sound confirmation of their settings. Hence the very simple and easy to operate dip switches. Not only are they easy to set but easy to reference and confirm a setting. I'll see what I can come up with and use the led/switch method as a fall back for now.
I think the screwdriver adjust DIP switch is the easiest to use method you've mentioned. You don't even have to be able to see it, just count the clicks after homing to zero.
PapaG:
I think the screwdriver adjust DIP switch is the easiest to use method you've mentioned. You don't even have to be able to see it, just count the clicks after homing to zero.
I agree and honestly I could just use a slightly larger drill bit and they could see the numbers. Sometimes the simplest solution is the best. I'll have to find a few of those dip switches and try it out.
PapaG:
If you provide a USB serial interface on your product, it would be simple to add a configuration screen that used the terminal program on the end user's PC.
You did perk my interest with this. Do you mean any terminal app like Putty? and does this allow you to adjust values in eeprom easily? I've seen avrdude but that looks a little to cumbersome for an end user.
PapaG:
If you provide a USB serial interface on your product, it would be simple to add a configuration screen that used the terminal program on the end user's PC.
You did perk my interest with this. Do you mean any terminal app like Putty? and does this allow you to adjust values in eeprom easily? I've seen avrdude but that looks a little to cumbersome for an end user.
They aren't talking about programming the Arduino, but instead having the Arduino provide a simple text interface on the serial port. You would read input, have a real simple syntax to read or set values that are stored in EEPROM. Then you can provide a simple GUI interface that would talk to the device as a terminal. While you are debugging it, you would just use the serial monitor.
MichaelMeissner:
They aren't talking about programming the Arduino, but instead having the Arduino provide a simple text interface on the serial port. You would read input, have a real simple syntax to read or set values that are stored in EEPROM. Then you can provide a simple GUI interface that would talk to the device as a terminal. While you are debugging it, you would just use the serial monitor.
I gotcha. That sounds interesting. I use the serial monitor quite a bit when debugging but I'd never thought about having the user interact with the USB interface. Humm are their some examples on the net somewhere? Give me some ideas on how to get started with something like that. It seems like that would be a nice way of getting custom values input for complete flexibility.