I’ve had some great feedback on the Arduino-based talking scale project. Many thanks to those of you who have taken the time to write in with kind words and suggestions. For those who haven’t seen this project yet, it is a pocket scale with speech output, intended to measure small items though in my case used to measure the stylus tracking force of a turntable. You can view the build blog Here and the project page Here.
Version two of the software adds a tare function and a better calibration routine. When the button is held for a short period following the measurement announcement (a second or two max), the scale will tare. Holding the button until the scale announces “start” enters calibration mode and gives you two seconds to place the calibration weight.
I have also updated the speech function so it should hopefully handle minus numbers, as the tare function would cause an error. A future version of the software will add the ability to deal with two, three, four or more digit numbers so that the same software can be transferred to larger scale projects. I also hope to add the functionality for more buttons to allow for unit conversion, as in present form the measuring units are set by the value of the calibration weight.