Adding A Display To A USB Digital Scale

arduino_scale

[Oleg] found himself in possession of a Stamps.com Model 510 5lb digital scale.  It’s a great scale, but only works as a USB HID device. In other words, it’s a digital scale without a digital display. He decided he wanted it to be more standalone, so he added a Toshiba HD44780 (compatible) display. An Arduino UNO and USB Host shield were used to make it happen. His sketch simply polls the scale and outputs the weight on the display.

In this case, he used the USB Host Shield from Circuits at Home, but a brief look shows they use the same MAX3421 controller chip as Sparkfun and other versions of the board. You might also be able to pull off the same functionality with an AVR running V-USB, though admittedly it wouldn’t be so easy.

We haven’t found a great way to add USB host mode to projects other than shields like the one [Oleg] used. If you know of a better way, share your ideas in the comments.

Of course, if this isn’t hardcore enough for you, forget using a consumer scale – make your own from scratch!

16 thoughts on “Adding A Display To A USB Digital Scale

  1. Phillip, welcome to the team! Nice job with your first post.

    I think LUFA might also support USB host mode but I’ve never tried it. I do agree that it would be more difficult (for me anyway) to get that set up than it would be to use a dedicated controller like the shields do.

    I’m amused that they display the weight of the LCD screen on the LCD screen. Ha!

  2. Many ARM chips like STM32F107 have USB OTG ports that can be configured as host ports. ST ships a HID demo program, it would be simple to hack it to read the scale.
    Get an OTG adapter cable and a cheap STM32 board (STM32F4Discovery will do) and you’re off to the races.

    1. Oh I’m certain that is possible. But I’m actually really interested in the thought of easy USB host mode. Since it’s a know standard and there are debug tools available this should be WAY faster than sniffing around the PCB to figure out how it’s working.

  3. I wonder if it wouldn’t be possible to circumvent the whole USB stuff and just get a value with the Arduino directly from the board of the scale somehow. Using the USB shield + protocol seems like overkill.

  4. i have done somthing similar with my stamps.com scale … but what i did is use a MSP420G2553 on the weight sensor thing … it took calibration but after that it was a nice usable scale!

  5. Other than the fact that the load cell system is compatible to your device, all scales are also suitable for many types of weighing equipment. It’s always good to know that besides assurance, it also gives precise measurements over an extensive period of time. It is also consistent, balanced and reliable. I think that you used a sensor from a digital scale to get the result.

Leave a Reply to claudinemannCancel reply

Please be kind and respectful to help make the comments section excellent. (Comment Policy)

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.