I would pay $100 for something like this. I want to just scan something, have it beep, and add to a shopping list. I know amazon has something similar but I don't want to order it, just log it. Excellent project.
Show HN: Giving a Broken Barcode Scanner a New Life with Elixir and Nerves
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Re: Show HN: Giving a Broken Barcode Scanner a New Life with Elixir and Nerves
#12I love these little stories, they always make me want to go out and buy a proper oscilliscope so I can start my own adventures. I'm surprised by how simple and easy to understand the data serialisation is on some bits of hardware as in this case.
In this particular case, it's not too surprising. PC-connected barcode scanners traditionally use a relatively-ordinary RS232 (or USB nowadays, usually with support for either depending on which cable you're using), and almost always just pretend to be ordinary keyboards. I'd be more surprised if it deviated from that at all.
I was kinda hoping that this would be someone porting Nerves to run on the barcode scanner itself; quite a few of these scanners actually have reasonably-powerful ARM cores (especially once you get into the 2D scanners).
Re: Show HN: Giving a Broken Barcode Scanner a New Life with Elixir and Nerves
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm an electronics enthusiast (play with it on weekends) and the Rigol DS1054Z oscilloscope (it's the same used by OP) has a really good cost/benefit, and it's also hackable.
Yes I was just looking at it, £300 seems pretty reasonable. A while ago I was looking at old used stuff but even they are in the thousands. Thanks for recommending it, it's nice to know some HN readers are using it because I don't really know what to look for in an oscilliscope :)
I know Rigol was doing a promotion around the holidays where they'd give you expanded bandwidth, serial decode/trigger, and a few other goodies at no charge.
Of course, you can always just see about taking matters into your own hands (http://gotroot.ca/rigol/riglol/)
Re: Show HN: Giving a Broken Barcode Scanner a New Life with Elixir and Nerves
#14I'm already nervous to try it out.
Re: Show HN: Giving a Broken Barcode Scanner a New Life with Elixir and Nerves
#15Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you very much! I'd love to hear about what you come up with for recipe management.
Right now I'm going very low tech for recipe management...I send a DM to my SO on slack. That's most of what we use the DM for, an archive of things we've made. We mostly need a bigger screen in the kitchen that stays on while making a recipe. A Microsoft Surface we have laying around will be used for that. I'd like to do a database of products purchase, purchase date, price paid, scan a barcode and mark it as consum…
I'm working on this idea too! Hit me up on gmail! Love to chat.
Re: Show HN: Giving a Broken Barcode Scanner a New Life with Elixir and Nerves
#16I would pay $100 for something like this. I want to just scan something, have it beep, and add to a shopping list. I know amazon has something similar but I don't want to order it, just log it. Excellent project.
The Android app "Out of Milk" will do this for free using the phone's camera.
Re: Show HN: Giving a Broken Barcode Scanner a New Life with Elixir and Nerves
#17The laser scanner is kind of fancy, but you can get USB scanners for $10-$20 that present as keyboards. For me, the most interesting part of this is looking at Elixir.
Re: Show HN: Giving a Broken Barcode Scanner a New Life with Elixir and Nerves
#18I would pay $100 for something like this. I want to just scan something, have it beep, and add to a shopping list. I know amazon has something similar but I don't want to order it, just log it. Excellent project.
The Android app "Out of Milk" will do this for free using the phone's camera.
How good is the scanning speed? I've tried a few apps which will scan a barcode, but they all seem quite slow. If I buy 50 items at the store, I don't want to fiddle with it for 10 minutes to get everything scanned in, I'd like to buzz through them relatively fast.
Re: Show HN: Giving a Broken Barcode Scanner a New Life with Elixir and Nerves
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Android app "Out of Milk" will do this for free using the phone's camera.
How good is the scanning speed? I've tried a few apps which will scan a barcode, but they all seem quite slow. If I buy 50 items at the store, I don't want to fiddle with it for 10 minutes to get everything scanned in, I'd like to buzz through them relatively fast.
It is a bit slow, sadly.
Re: Show HN: Giving a Broken Barcode Scanner a New Life with Elixir and Nerves
#20I love these little stories, they always make me want to go out and buy a proper oscilliscope so I can start my own adventures. I'm surprised by how simple and easy to understand the data serialisation is on some bits of hardware as in this case.
Thank you for the kind words! I will echo slig and say that I have been really happy with the Rigol DS1054Z so far. I love that you can build a really capable electronics lab at home in 2018 for less than $500.
Any guides in getting started with an oscilloscope?