Hay there. Thank you so very much for reading my post. I have been SO busy in the real world that it has been hard for me to get this project done in a time frame that would let me get this does with a few weeks before its actually due for my schedule.

I have posted a question a month or so about a counter that would add a light and with a push of another button would take one away with a buzz noise on the add and maybe a reset button.

This was for simple order board for the fair booth I have that comes up in the first of August and as well as a counting toy for my toddler (a silly remake of it).

But what I guess I am asking now is this. To make a sort of simplified version using a board (real wood board that is used in the booth now when the fair is in town) I have already made I am looking to create something that will light up a light by my fryers end (where I stand) and show up a light for each of the things I sell so I can read how many of what are out and need to be made.

These lights light up when a little plastic card is lifted off its nail and given to the customer as proof of there order and product they ordered (this helps for busy times) when this card is taken off this nail and given over it lights up a LED or light of some kind on my end under the appropreate section showing me what was sold. I quick buzz would be nice if only for a second but mostly looking for it to just light up.

So any ideas on how to make a light up when something is taken off. I have rolled a few ideas already in my head but they all sound more work then I might be willing to do. So maybe someone here has a clever idea because I know there are lots of kick butt people who have great ideas. You all can't hide from me because I see you posting all the time!

Well anyhow. I am off like a wild herd of turtles for now.

Cheers and best wishes folks. I hope your 7-7-07 was lucky!

Sincerely,

Kevin in Alaska

__________________
The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It's what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.

 

hi Kevin,
These lights light up when a little plastic card is lifted off its nail and given to the customer as proof of there order and product they ordered (this helps for busy times) when this card is taken off this nail and given over it lights up a LED or light of some kind on my end under the appropreate section showing me what was sold. I quick buzz would be nice if only for a second but mostly looking for it to just light up.

If these nails could be replaced with say a slot?
The plastic card fits half way into the slot, when its IN a microswitch is operated, when it its OUT, the 'musw' is released and the contact closes.

The state of the switches are relayed thru a cable to your frying area.
If a switch contact shows a close state a LED lights up.

A buzzer/latch using a relay, sounds the buzzer and you cancel the buzzer/latch.

My order 'two deep fried turtles, to go!'

Regards

 

First the important part of the reply!

NO NOT THE TURTLES!!! Anything but them. They are to cute, besides.

That is all I have to say about that...

Bye an onto the next message about your reply.

Sincerely,

Kevin in Alaska

PS... To go you say?! Ummm.. at the fair, it is only to go!

__________________
The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It's what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.

 

That is a great idea. My menu has gotten bigger and that would save up more room. So simple I like it. I can even fit it under the serving counter I have which is about 4 1/2 feet high (guessing).

Might need to redo the mechanical way it works because of cost of all the micro switches.

Thanks for the great idea.

You have always come through for me one way or the others.

Best wishes,

Kevin in Alaska

Cheers!

__________________
The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It's what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.

 

Oh fine.. one last note.. I have recently found a supplier of goods who is considered 'local' on some levels here in Alaska. I live in Fairbanks, Alaska which is not very large. 30K people abouts with the people who live way out side. This gives alack of choices to shop locally. So I have found a place that is in Anchorage who has a large supply to choose from and ships UPS ground which is almost next day most of the time. It is a 6 hour drive if your breaking the speed limit most of the way there.

So if LUCK has it I might still get some of those original ideas give by lots of good people a shot!

That is all..

bye for the night at least!

Kevin in Alaska

__________________
The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It's what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.

 

Might need to redo the mechanical way it works because of cost of all the micro switches

If you get some strips of 'springy' bronze, you could easily knock up some switches. Smooth them down so they dont scatch your cards to bits.

I was thinking vertical slots for the cards. How many cards to you expect to use?

Eric in England

 

E GADS!!!!! Its almost 4am. I have not done this in like forever and a day! okay maybe a year.

Well 7x..... hummm... 7 menu items and for the busy items maybe 10 for less busy items maybe 4 so lets see... 10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 4 + 4 + 4 .... so 54 maybe 57 slots with the 4's being 5's.

What do you mean by strips of springy bronze? ((looks interested!))

Well for sure.. I am "TRUELY" off like a wild herd of turtles...

Sincerely,

Kevin in Alaska

good night for now... er.. good day Eric in England!

__________________
The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It's what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.

 

What do you mean by strips of springy bronze? ((looks interested!))

The complete name is 'phosphor bronze strip', speak to you local scrap yard.
If no luck, strip down some old pcb edge connector sockets, its not going to be as strong as pbs, but it will demonstrate the idea.

If you wire your card holes as a 8 by 8 matrix, with a few budget diodes, you should be able to cut down
on the number of wires from the cards/board to your display unit.

Remember the light intensity of budget LED's is low for daylight viewing.

 

Hi,
An alternative approach along similar lines, if you're trying to keep it REALLY cheap and basic: maybe put a strip of aluminium foil on the ends of the cards, then make the holders using 2 bent paper clips* a couple of inches apart, where the cards sit with their foil-ends in the corner of the clips. Then the clips for each holder are the terminals of your switch. Wasn't sure how to explain what way to bend the paper clips, so on the offchance it somehow wasn't obvious, I made a quick diagram. *grin* pclips.pdf

(*-make sure you have CONDUCTIVE paper clips! Sounds utterly ridiculous, but I once tried using some random staple as a breadboard link and couldn't work out why the circuit didn't work. Some poking later, I found the staple mysteriously DID NOT CONDUCT Yes I quadruple-checked. And yes also the circuit worked fine with a proper wire link Stainless steel IIRC has very high resistance so perhaps it was that, or maybe it had a thin coating of something, or it was having a day off, I have NO idea why, I don't claim it makes sense, but it just DIDN'T)

Anyway, there may be some pitfalls with this perhaps. eg if the foil gets mucky from some kid's sticky fingers and stops conducting, OR if the cards fall out of the holders, OR if you make card-guides or "sides" to the holders that keep the card in, but are tight enough that they manage to prevent it resting against one of the clips and completing the circuit. I'm just putting the idea out there. Good luck

 

Okay... about to out for a 'late' 4th of July party think with family. I plan on taking my notes and hopefully when I get back I can come up with some kind of idea to bounce back on you all.

see you all soon...

__________________
The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It's what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.

 

Have fun
FWIW it occurred to me that my "cheap and easy" paper clips+foil idea might well end up more work and more expensive than Eric's scrap bronze strip idea, even if there were no other problems. Not that I've worked it out properly, just speculating.

Also I think the polarity of my version would be opposite (switch would be on when the card is in) and would probably need a little transistor inverter or such to get the same behaviour. Each of those might be only about 5p or equivalent (10c?) but might end up a lot of soldering if you've 50 of them. Not sure how any of this might fit in with Eric's matrix suggestion though, got a headache this morning so I can't think clear. Maybe matrices suffer from collisions(?) though, if you expect to have multiple cards out at once.

One medium-tech answer to the lots-of-wires problem (for either switch type) if PICs are out of the question: maybe a couple of shift registers, a clock generator and some other logic chips might make a workable multiplexer to get a collision-free representation of the cards over 2 or 3 lines. No I don't have a design for such a thing ATM XD And yeah, digital circuits might be a PITA to work with

Meanwhile, I realise I don't entirely understand what the situation is with this, I think I missed some earlier thread: is it that you've got one booth where people order stuff and get given the cards from the switchboard, and another somewhere further on where they bring the cards to to collect their order ("fryer's booth"? Food?) from you?

If so, just how far apart are these booths? Perhaps there could be an even simpler approach. And is it necessary here to get the cards back to the ordering booth? Or switch off the indicators for an order you've got ready which hasn't been collected yet (so they don't distract you)? Any possibility of an overstretched booth attendant putting a card back in the wrong slot?

 

maybe a couple of shift registers, a clock generator and some other logic chips might make a workable multiplexer to get a collision-free representation of the cards over 2 or 3 lines.

hi tomble,
Same way as I would do it.

hi kevin,
If you go to the scrap yard, look thru their cable dump, quiet often they have cables ready for burning off, for the copper.
A few metres of old telephone multi-core twisted pairs would be ideal.

You will be suprised what 'goodies' you can pick up, just for the scrap value cost.

Eric

 

Heh... Tomble your great no matter how much you understood or didn't understood. Still a heart of gold.

Okay I am sure it's my fault on why this might not be understood. Let me start from scratch and explain the plan a bit better.

First about me. I am a reemerging electronics geek with only 1 year of electronics under my belt. I am how ever a long time computer geek and better at looking at the big picture then knowing how I got there. Probably a ADD trait of mine. So I often get myself into a problem where getting to the end is harder then 'should' be because I see a big picture and have to then find a way of getting there. This way of thinking is both good and bad as I am sure you can understand.

I have always loved taking apart all kinds of things I have had through out my life. One of my earliest memories is me taking apart a train set I received at age 5 or 6 for the magnets and to see how things tick inside.

So with all of that that is what leads me here and now trying to make something for my fair booth that will help it run a bit more smoothly. Here is what I was originally looking for.

I wanted to create something to help convey what was sold and needs to be cooked from the counter to my fryer where I stand and cook the foods.

I give out these little plastic kind of rubbery like cards that are different colors that represent the different menu items.

These are then handed back as proof of the sale and the item sold when they are given their order that was fresh and made to order.

Only real problem is it can get noisy around the booth depending on whats going on and there can be orders missed with the made to order method. So to correct this problem I "originally" had the idea of having a counter of lights (a row of LEDs for each menu item [7 menu items in total] ranging from 1 through 10. so basiclly would be 70 LEDs in total.

But to make things simple only think of 1 menu item and one row of 10 LED (basically this setup 7 times for each menu item and easy to add more if I ever decide to hit 8 which would be the limit)

After the fact I also thought about instead of doing 10 LEDs to have a 7 segment LED to just show just a numerical total instead.

Now to let you know how this would work. Customer comes up to order menu item A and pays for it. Friend at register takes the money gives change if any and then presses a button next to the register that reads 'Menu item A'.

When that A button is pressed (normally open) it lights up an LED and a little "beep" or "buzz" etc sounds to let me know if an order is up if I am further in the back making batter etc or at fryers.

I look up and see the little LED lights up (hopefully color coded per menu item) on the left side of the row of 10 LEDs.

Another customer orders the same item so A button is pressed again at the register. Now "JUST" to the right of that menu item A row of LEDs, another LED lights up showing the first 2 are up and needing to be made. Sense I have one in already cooking I know I only need one more.

The first one is finished so I take it out and place the item in the oil drip pan ready for the costumer. so I then push a button near me that reads "Menu item A" when then removes that second light showing only slot 1 of 10 lighted up. But this would not 'buzz' or 'ding' like when some are added.

Only this would be 7 sets of lights for the 7 items.

Now I also have the idea of making another one of these for my toddler and add it to this little box that has all these buttons and lights etc that she has loved for many months now. Just a little device that keeps her hands busy and learns a little cause and effect. She is getting older and has been learning her numbers at age of 2 this month. So adding these LEDs would be a great way to play with here in saying things like 1 plus 1 is 2, 2 plus 1 is 3 etc etc etc.. or use subtraction. This was actually where I took the fair booth idea from was from my toddlers box idea. Basiclly added a little buzzer idea for the notify part.

Okay so... back to this forum. Being that I live in Alaska and in the center of Alaska for that part. I have a hard time finding anything locally. I JUST received a catalog in the mail yesterday from a company called http://www.frigidnorth.com/
They are in anchorage which is the largest city in Alaska with just over 300,000 people. But this company ships UPS ground and that is cheep and basically over night from Anchorage to Fairbanks where I live. Other shippers in other parts of the USA are far more expensive in shipping because it HAS to be shipped over night or second day air etc and that gets expensive. Some places do ship other methods but its just been difficult.

So with this I have been under time crunch and not sure if I would have enough time coming up with a layout and items needed to make it before Aug 3rd which is first day of fair here in Fairbanks.

So I am looking for a second option using more low tech ideas.

I really hope this helps clear up things. Writing it was good for me because I do have a couple of ideas on this from writing this.

Instead of cards which are on the light weight side I might just get some dowels and cut them into something like 6 inch lengths and spray paint them the different colors needed and use a 2"x6" board and create a kind of "science lab" like test tube holder that these dowels would just drop into. The weight of the dowels would be better for pushing down a switch (LOW tech type, you know paper clips or something) that would make the circuit open and turn the light off. Lifted out would close the circuit and turn on the light. No buzzer for this one just lights. But it would get me by for this year. I plan on using up a bunch of eithernet cable wire I have which is probably 200 feet long or so and tht would be 4 lights per cable sense its 8 wires in total. This I could run to the row of LED's maybe (keep it LEDs perchance) that way I can use them for the final plan with the add and subtract buttons and the buzzer..

So input would be awesome!!!

Sincerely,

Kevin in Alaska

__________________
The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It's what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.

 

By the looks, you posted this while I was typing the other post.

I have all that Ethernet cable all stored up and more of it if needed a friend tried to give me that he still has.

Would that work?!

Sincerely,

Kevin in Alaska

__________________
The circumstances of one's birth are irrelevant. It's what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are.

 

Kevin,
Now to let you know how this would work. Customer comes up to order menu item A and pays for it. Friend at register takes the money gives change if any and then presses a button next to the register that reads 'Menu item A'.

When that A button is pressed (normally open) it lights up an LED and a little "beep" or "buzz" etc sounds to let me know if an order is up if I am further in the back making batter etc or at fryers.

Unless I am missing something, I thought that you wanted to use the 'purchased token' rack holder as the switching source for your 'fryer' display.

If you have 7 push switches next to the POS position, which the 'cashier' presses when a particular menu item is chosen, why are you considering using the 'token' rack as the switching source?...

Are still open to more suggestions on a solution?

Regards