Arduino build - no reading from Chinese scales

[ibonneau]

Hi,
Very much a newbie to DRO and also to arduino, a friend helped me to put this together but we've ran into a wall and I'm hoping someone here might be able to help.

I've bought these scales:
Shahe 600 and Shahe 300
we've built the board on an Arduino Uno and connected the HC06 (didn't receive the Micro USB connectors so we soldered the wires directly, didn't have the right capacitors on hand so we did with out).

It was quite hard to get a connection to the HC-06 (it kept disconnecting immediately after connecting) but after that worked out somehow the board still isn't showing any date from the scale.

Would appreciate any help to troubleshoot this thing - can't wait to start working with a DRO !!!

[gerritv]

I have built 2 now. I suggest:
1. Connect your Uno to PC and start a serial monitor, e.g. PuTTY on Windows. Baudrate should be 9600. If nothing appears then you probably didn't program the device successfully. The stream should be readable, e.g. X0Y0Z0T0 repeatedly.
2. Check that your connection matches the scales, there were some differences in pinouts.
3. Check your wiring: One pin is Gnd, another is 3.3V, D- should be a pulse train at 3.3V (from pin D2 on the Uno) , D+ is connected to Pin 3, 4, 5 or 6 depending on X, Y, Z, W axis.
4. Your output from D2 on the Uno must go through a voltage divider to lower the 5V to 3.3.

Gerrit

[ibonneau]

I have built 2 now. I suggest:
1. Connect your Uno to PC and start a serial monitor, e.g. PuTTY on Windows. Baudrate should be 9600. If nothing appears then you probably didn't program the device successfully. The stream should be readable, e.g. X0Y0Z0T0 repeatedly.
2. Check that your connection matches the scales, there were some differences in pinouts.
3. Check your wiring: One pin is Gnd, another is 3.3V, D- should be a pulse train at 3.3V (from pin D2 on the Uno) , D+ is connected to Pin 3, 4, 5 or 6 depending on X, Y, Z, W axis.
4. Your output from D2 on the Uno must go through a voltage divider to lower the 5V to 3.3.

Gerrit

Thanks so much for the detailed reply.

As I have a mill and lathe a went and bought another set of scales this time from iGaging, it turns out that the setup I've built works with the iGaging but not with the Shahe.

I've followed your advice and traced back the wires to identify their pinout and in fact they aren't really following the standard convention - thanks for that tip.

unfortunately i'm still not able to get the Shahe to work, does the Arduino sketch need to be modified between the two different scales ? any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[gerritv]

This thread seems to imply the Shahe scales are different: https://forum.yuriystoys.com/showthread.php?tid=253
You might find an answer in there, but it could require the mixed mode software which won't run on the Arduino?

Gerrit