I am trying to workout how read the data result from a set of digital scales connected by USB. I thought it would be like a scanner or RFID and you just capture the keystrokes into a text filed, but at this stage I can't even see any output at all. Any ideas?
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Digital scales
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Digital scales
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Regards
Mark Pearson
[email protected]
Youtube channel
WebsiteTags: None
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Re: Digital scales
Hi Mark,
What does the manufacturer of the scales say about digital output?Regards
Keith Hubert
Alpha Guild Member
London.
KHDB Management Systems
Skype = keith.hubert
For your day-to-day Needs, you Need an Alpha Database!
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Re: Digital scales
Hi Keith,
My reading interpretation is that output is a simple hexadecimal. All seems to indicate I should just get an output, there is simple mention that it is plug and play, but no mention that you need additional developers kit etc to read the data. That said they do sell a kit so that you can interface into a third party software. The way it is all written I am believing I should be able to see the result value, but I guess I am going to need to get the kit.
Was hoping someone could explain more by their experience in this topic.-----------------------------------------------
Regards
Mark Pearson
[email protected]
Youtube channel
Website
Comment
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Re: Digital scales
A few years ago I tried to interface an Elane USB digital scale to the Stamps.com software, and, like you, started out assuming it would be easy, like working with an old-time serial interface. It didn't turn out that way. Some Google searching led me to a program that would dump the output from the scale, and a C# program that implemented basic communication with an HID USB device like a scale. I spent a couple of days on it and finally gave up after realizing that it would take way too much time to get to be an expert in USB device drivers.
If the scale manufacturer sells a kit, it's well worth whatever it costs. There's a lot more to it than just reading characters from an interface.
-jimc
Comment
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Re: Digital scales
This an elane scale as well. They sell the dll for 10, so i am going to buy. They provide instructions for the functions to extract the info. Look like vb code so when i get the dll, l will play and feed back. It angers me somewhat as they say usb, plug and play, no software needed. All that happens this way is that the scales are powered by the usb-----------------------------------------------
Regards
Mark Pearson
[email protected]
Youtube channel
Website
Comment
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Re: Digital scales
OK - for those interested. I got this to work
FYI - I got the dll file from Elane (cost $10.50). put it in the directory that I want to house my DB and registered.
I then had to add apigid32.dll to the windows\system directory. This file was one three listed in their instructions and I think has been left off of W7. The other two were there.
I then wrote the following code in a script to test:
-----------------------------------------------------
dim object as P
dim isther as l
dim isweight1 as c
dim isweight2 as c
dim someobject as P
someobject = ole.create("ElaneScaleDLL.ElaneUSBScale")
isther= someobject.elane_findusbscale()
isweight1 = someobject.elane_getscaleweight()
isweight2 = someobject.elane_getscaleweightdecimal(1, 2)
debug(1)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
I put a debug(1) line in and found that all variables returned a correct result. Hope this helps you-----------------------------------------------
Regards
Mark Pearson
[email protected]
Youtube channel
Website
Comment
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Re: Digital scales
Great stuff, Mark. Now I know who the man is I need to come to if I have a similar project.Regards
Keith Hubert
Alpha Guild Member
London.
KHDB Management Systems
Skype = keith.hubert
For your day-to-day Needs, you Need an Alpha Database!
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