Hi, for a university project I am going to be creating a thickness checking robot, as part of this I am going to be using a pre-bought thickness gauge with a clearly readable LCD screen.
Is it possible for me to use a pixy camera mounted above the LCD in order to read the numbers on the screen and then store these values inside my arduino memory?
These numbers will then be saved to gather a database of thickness measurements.
Any help is much appreciated, thanks.
Masseymo:
I am going to be creating a thickness checking robot, as part of this I am going to be using a pre-bought thickness gauge with a clearly readable LCD screen.
Many thickness gauges have a serial output that will make it easy to get hold of a reading. What is the type and model of your gauge?
The initial type i was looking at was a OMNI-TM-8812 which as you say, had a serial output port. I then downloaded the software that comes alongside the product to extract the source code from a .dll file using DotPeek.
The .dll file turned out to be '' and thus i am thinking image recognition may be a better stance to take using a cheaper thickness gauge that doesnt have a serial output.
Thanks in advance.
The Pixy does not do character recognition. Check the docs Pixy – PixyCam
Masseymo:
The initial type i was looking at was a OMNI-TM-8812 which as you say, had a serial output port. I then downloaded the software that comes alongside the product to extract the source code from a .dll file using DotPeek.
If you are using an Arduino to read the serial output then you don't need the code from the DLL file.
Try the second example in Serial Input Basics.
Do you know the baud rate that the gauge uses? If not then 9600 is a good guess for starters.
If you are using an Uno it will be easier if you use SoftwareSerial to create an extra serial port for the gauge so that you leave the HardwareSerial port free for communication with your PC.
I reckon that getting the serial output to work will be a whole lot easier than number recognition with a camera.
...R
I would try to reverse engineer the RS232 output. If you can do this then transferring results to a database will be very easy. A logic analyser will be a great help in the reverse engineering.
Robin2:
I reckon that getting the serial output to work will be a whole lot easier than number recognition with a camera....R
++++++
stowite:
I would try to reverse engineer the RS232 output.
If (as seems likely) it is sending out standard serial data then it should be readable by an Arduino program without any trouble.
However you have usefully brought up the subject of RS232 and if the gauge is using RS232 rather than TTL voltage levels it will be necessary to convert from RS232 to TTL for the Arduino using something like a MAX232 chip. RS232 voltage levels can damage an Arduino.
...R
Thanks everyone for your help!
Im sure you're right about it being easier to extract the serial data using the RS232 port, i cant find the baud rate in any datasheets so i will have to use the logic analyser to figure it out.
Once i determine the baud rate, should it be rather simple from then on to make sense of the data?