OK Tom,
Why don't we attack this problem?
Is the sprocket method really the most reliable means of indexing a digital
tape measure? How about a LED and photo sensor, count the flashes.
Now there must be a number of talking chips particularly with limited
vocabulary. I have a very old Sharp calculator which has a wonderful voice and
when it gets weak or under some other conditions it speaks all sorts of things
the calculator never says including some interesting musical sounds. It has to
be over 25 years old. Anyway, do we have any idea how much that sort of
technology would cost in lots of say a hundred?
I would bet there are digital tape measures out there who's manufacturer would
sell us their components at reasonable price if for no other reason just the
possible public relations value.
There has to be a way of building talking tape measures more robustly than we
presently have.
Similarly, versatile audible levels. I was watching a chap on television
yesterday. He was developing a scale model of a personal flying vehicle with
something close to vertical take off and land. This is apparently a huge
control issue however his solution was twin propellers mounted to be able to
swing out toward the ends of the wings using the gyro effect to bring the nose
up or down. For control he had some sort of sensor which adjusted the speed of
each propeller according to the horizontal position of the wing. It was cool
watching him hold the plane and swing it to one side or the other and hear the
motors immediately change pitch. Presumably a similar sensing device could be
easily integrated into a leveling measure.
Do you think it would be practical to develop reliable equipment with
off-the-shelf technology at reasonable cost? I understand that production
quantities would present other cost considerations but there may be
alternatives there too if one doesn't need to make a living from it.
----- Original Message -----
From: Tom Fowle
To: blindhandyman@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Saturday, November 07, 2009 8:34 AM
Subject: Re: [BlindHandyMan] Talking tape measures
Eric
We bought one at work in hopes it would do better than the Cobolt.
the technology used to keep track of the tape seems identical in both.
The voice is a lower quality than the cobolt but very similar.
the function of buttons is different but not dramatically so.
It uses 2 AA cells rather than the 9 volt of the cobolt.
I see no reason to spend the extra money.
tom Fowle
On Fri, Nov 06, 2009 at 06:52:28AM -0500, Eric wrote:
> Hello all. Previously there was alot of discussion on the vox talking tape
measure and the cobalt talking tape measure. It seems most of us had the cobalt
and was dissatisfied with it. My question is have any of you bit the bullet and
bought one of the vox ones made by Bosh, and if so, how is it compared to the
cobalt one? Thanks.
>
> Eric
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
