Not really designed for manufacture, but the final version of this device is quite easy to assemble and doesn’t look too embarrassing for a low volume unit.
Design files are here => EasyEDA
The only change I may be making is to trial a few PCB antennas. The current 866Mhz spiral antennas were bought for $0.30 each but a PCB antenna would mean one less thing to do. But using the above antenna I am getting around 3KM range at 17dbM power.
Power consumption has dramatically reduced since removing the WiFi, this thing will easily work for 3 weeks on 2 x AA batteries and at least 12 months in power off mode so I am quite happy.
Note I am working on the software for the new design.
I would really love a proper custom case to properly house the RFID coil, snugly hold the LCD and allow a non slanted Barcode reader (see earlier posts on this) but this would make the design crazy expensive and I only need 50 at this time.
2020 Update
So what happened to this project you may ask? Well in a word politics. The unit was designed for Indevin to allow an easier sign-on and sign-off process of jobs (hence the RFID/Barcodes) however I came in one morning to the companies Blenheim winery in 2018 to find they had appointed a new IT Manager in Auckland. Upon seeing that the companies whole production systems was written by and supported by a single developer he decided to halt all new developments by contractors, i.e. me.
I was a bit annoyed as he only had two staff and me as the sole contractor, I hadn’t even talked to the guy at this point, but I dutifully stopped all further development on the Bulls-i system as requested including this. The stop lasted about a month before someone realised a backlog of changes were developing and nobody had a plan for how this would be handled otherwise. I came in a few weeks later to find the IT Manager had resigned.
His legacy on Indevin was to stop development by 9 weeks, and to ensure that I now kept daily timesheets. By keeping daily timesheets I actually discovered i was working far longer hours than I was charging. So I guess it was actually a positive for me!
It was also getting pretty obvious at this point that Indevin was no longer a small business and becoming a corporate driven not from the winery but from the head office. With no momentum for this development from the top and the push for everything to be on a phone I never restarted it.
