Sharing an update on my dog collar. Code is good and stable, added a “Christmas” theme for the team collars so I don’t have to modify the pallet options on the collar later in the year. First show will be next weekend, should have videos to share then.
Moving on, and why this is posted in “Quasi-related random”:
If I end up selling the collars at the shows, I’d like to be able to have my customers pick from the pallets available, and slot their choices into, say 5 different pallet spaces I want to be able to give them. At the table, I will have a laptop and an ISCP or ISP programming tool to upload the customer’s desired pallets (my person programming the collars would also select from one of three collar sizes to adjust for the different number of LEDs.)
So here is the question: Does anyone have any suggestions on how to make a Windows GUI front-end so that the person programming the collars just has to check off the customers choices, plus the collar size, and then have it interface to the arduino code, and then program the collar? It seems much easier than having to teach someone how to modify sometimes multiple lines of code, and keep everything all organized. I can envision a stray key stroke messing up the arduino code, not compiling, etc… Lots of horrible things under pressure.
Ideas?
You can use an excel script with all the options pre-defined. There’s lots of help online for doing that. You can make it ‘sales assistant proof’ pretty easily.
It could double as an invoice/sales receipt, too
It changes however many colour variables and the size variables in a template sketch, then issues the compiler against that sketch.
Of more concern is how to ensure windows picks the correct com port each time - you will probably have to set that as a variable too.
Hey @Roger_Kolasinski i guess you’ve hit that point lots of cool projects hit. Putting it into the hands of the general public, changes how you look at things, especially if you have to provide support!
You could incorporate an SD card reader into the design, and let the end user “upload” palettes at ‘boot’ time. It would increase the complexity of your code a little, and the overall cost of your BOM, but a txt file on and SD card would be easier for an end user to manage, than you creating some software to ‘upload’ palettes, that you then have to support on a multitude of operating systems and platforms…
Another alternative could be to include a push button, that is only read at ‘boot’ time and if its pressed, the collar enters setup mode, allowing the user to cycle through the colour wheel, until they settle on a palette they want to “store”, which would then be used on every subsequent boot, until the user enters “setup” procedure again.
a rotary encoder would allow for a push button, and the rotary control in one extra component; affording you a richer UI again.
Just spit balling here, there’s many ways to skin a cat i guess.
Thanks both! Right now, I’ve got the team field testing the collars starting Saturday. I’ll get a much better idea on battery life – the collar is powered by a 680mah LIpo, and as you all know life depends on duty cycle and color. Most of our routines use Red and Blue, seldom full on White. And I’ve incorporated three brightness levels. if they can live with one of the dimmer ones, that would help too. Regular users are likely to be happy with much lower brightness levels – especially at night. Unless of course they want to use their dogs as puddle lighting… LOL