I am not active in this electronics world but had an idea and thought maybe I would ask you all for feedback.
Here goes…
The Challenge:
To electronically take an inventory of liquids stored in individual bottle in order to produce a re-order list.
The Idea:
To design a shelving system that simulates the modern hotel minifridge model. Once a bottle is placed in a specific location, sensors track if it is moved, still weighs the same amount and is still present.
I was thinking a pressure sensor that you can use to calculate the weight would work best.
The data would need to be recorded as needed or at a scheduled time each day.
The system would need to be scalable and account for a bottle base measurement of as small as 2” x 2” up to 7” x 7”.
Questions:
Does this system or something similar exist?
If not what sensor technology would be needed?
Looking forward to ideas and responses.
Regards,
Bill
I think the core products you are looking for in this products would be a micro-controller(Arduino), MUX(depending on how many sensors you use and how many vessels you have to measure simultaneously), a way to transmit the data to a computer in real time(radios, bluetooth, wifi, etc) or a logger(Openlog would be perfect) RFID to actually track the vessel itself(would require cards on vessel and close proximity to RFID ready when moved), force sensitive resistors(depends on how large and how much vessels weigh, what kind of variance in weight you are looking at when used, etc), etc, etc, etc.
You can look all of these different parts up on the SparkFun website and determine what your project needs. We may have everything you are looking for and you simply just need to do some product page and product documentation locating and studying. I do not know if a system like this already exists.
If you have a specific question about a specific product for this project, feel free to post in the appropriate forum for that product and we can try to answer your technical questions.
If you are new to Arduino, I highly recommend starting out with our SIK and working your way to other sensors and projects. The SIK is a perfect introduction to micro controllers and provides a foundation for learning the hardware and software associated with Arduino.
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/14265
I hope this helps!