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Hacking a digital tape measure?

K

Ken Moffett

Jan 1, 1970
0
I'm involved in a project where the perfect, cheap transducers
would be some of the new digital tape measures...if they can be
hacked for an electrical (quadrature?) output. Some corrent
ones for sale (sorry about the word wrap):

http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-77-008-IntelliTape-Digital-
Tape/dp/B000037X0V

http://www.amazon.com/Starrett-D3416-Digitape-Electronic-
Measure/dp/B00002254Y/ref=pd_sbs_hi_1/002-3795157-3628009

http://www.brandsonsale.com/ht-001684.html

http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_view.asp?sku=9724150

Has anyone tried this?
 
K

Karl Townsend

Jan 1, 1970
0
http://www.shumatech.com/

--
<(©¿©)> An apple a day keeps the doctor away.
Two apples a day gets the doctor's OK.
Five a day makes you a fruit grower like me.

Karl Townsend
 
I'm involved in a project where the perfect, cheap transducers
would be some of the new digital tape measures...if they can be
hacked for an electrical (quadrature?) output. Some corrent
Has anyone tried this?

I have not tried that, but an easier way might be to use a thing made
to work that way. Several manufacturers make linear measuring units
that work sort of like one of those spring loaded gadgets that you
hang your keys on your belt with. It has a cable that pulls out and
retracts with a spring. The internal spool rotates as the cable is
pulled out, and that gives a quadrature output designed to easily
relate to the distance the end of the cable has moved.

I used a couple on a job at work a few years back, it worked great.
Not quite linear scale resolution/accuracy, but pretty darn good +/- a
few thousandths IIRC with maybe 4 foot range. That was plenty for our
application, and it was not nearly as costly as an equivalent linear
scale and much more compact.

Unless you have some compelling reason to use a hacked digi-tape,
this may be a good way to go. The name of the company that makes these
is escaping me at the moment, but some Google work ought to turn it
up.

Hope that helps.

AL A.
 
F

ff

Jan 1, 1970
0
Ken Moffett said:
I'm involved in a project where the perfect, cheap transducers
would be some of the new digital tape measures...if they can be
hacked for an electrical (quadrature?) output. Some corrent
ones for sale (sorry about the word wrap):

http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-77-008-IntelliTape-Digital-
Tape/dp/B000037X0V

http://www.amazon.com/Starrett-D3416-Digitape-Electronic-
Measure/dp/B00002254Y/ref=pd_sbs_hi_1/002-3795157-3628009

http://www.brandsonsale.com/ht-001684.html

http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_view.asp?sku=9724150

Has anyone tried this?



Check out the last link. I hope the tape measure is more accurate than
the advertisement. It states, Accuracy: +/- 0.6"
 
R

Rich Grise

Jan 1, 1970
0
Agent won't wrap lines that have a leading space. This line doesn't look
wrapped to me. How does it look to everybody else?

Agent won't wrap an obvious url, either:

http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-77-00...B000037X0V_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

FWIW, Pan: http://pan.rebelbase.com/
has a "view" menu item where one of the options is a "wrap article body"
checkbox.

And the "compose" window has an option to wrap or not to wrap.

Admittedly, it's not too good at picking up various file associations with
clickable links, but that's not that big of a deal - I do it so seldom
(click links), that a three-click workaround is no hardship. :)

Cheers!
Rich
 
P

Phred

Jan 1, 1970
0
I'm involved in a project where the perfect, cheap transducers
would be some of the new digital tape measures...if they can be
hacked for an electrical (quadrature?) output. Some corrent
ones for sale (sorry about the word wrap):

http://www.amazon.com/Stanley-77-008-IntelliTape-Digital-
Tape/dp/B000037X0V

http://www.amazon.com/Starrett-D3416-Digitape-Electronic-
Measure/dp/B00002254Y/ref=pd_sbs_hi_1/002-3795157-3628009

http://www.brandsonsale.com/ht-001684.html

http://www.coleparmer.com/catalog/product_view.asp?sku=9724150

Has anyone tried this?

Why would you want to hack a tape measure??

If the digital tape measures are that cheap, just buy a couple and
open them up to find the encoder. I am pretty sure it is just a photo
electric light cell (opto tansmitter and receiver) and it reads the
encoded strip on the tape. Kinda like a big, long barcode, just with a
counter and positioning information.

If your really that interested do a google patent search on it.

I am sure you will come up with quite a few hits.
 
K

Ken Moffett

Jan 1, 1970
0
Why would you want to hack a tape measure??

If the digital tape measures are that cheap, just buy a
couple and open them up to find the encoder. I am pretty
sure it is just a photo electric light cell (opto
tansmitter and receiver) and it reads the encoded strip on
the tape. Kinda like a big, long barcode, just with a
counter and positioning information.

If your really that interested do a google patent search on
it.

I am sure you will come up with quite a few hits.

That's exactly what I had in mind. I just wondered if anyone
had tried it. One thing that I wondered about was: are the
quadrature marks fractional and converted to cm on the
display or visa versa. Anyway, I ordered a Sterrett Digitape
Saturday...should be here Wednwesday. I'll let you know what
I find.

Ken
 
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