I was approached by a close friend of mine with an idea he wanted to know if I could help him with. He has a business that installs chain link fences for people. He has a Bobcat skidloader with a post hole auger/digger on the front. The post hole auger is very large and is raised up in the air and then lowered down to the ground and continually lowered as the auger winds into the ground creating a hole for a fence post. The auger motor and auger bit are very large and hang on a 2 axis pivot point so that it can be leveled by gravity. See the attached picture to help create a visual. The sensor assembly can be mounted on the side of the auger motor to get the best sense of the auger's actual position.
What I am looking to do is use possibly a multicopter flight controller or just a sensor board of some sort and feed that data into something like an Arduino board or an OSD board (like the multicopters use) to create a video output feed. Then, in the operator's cab of the skidloader, the operator will have a small LCD screen with a basic graphic displaying the actual position of the auger vs the actual position of true level with the earth. It does not need to be anything fancy.
A few of the design goals are:
-Simplicity and low cost
-The sensor assembly needs to be battery operated for simplicity
-The video feed needs to be wireless RF from the sensor assembly on the auger motor to the LCD display in the operator's station
-Prefer working with existing low cost components to keep things simple and affordable
I am sure there are questions that need to be asked so feel free to ask away and I will answer them as they come in. Thanks ahead of time for your help with this.
Jon
What I am looking to do is use possibly a multicopter flight controller or just a sensor board of some sort and feed that data into something like an Arduino board or an OSD board (like the multicopters use) to create a video output feed. Then, in the operator's cab of the skidloader, the operator will have a small LCD screen with a basic graphic displaying the actual position of the auger vs the actual position of true level with the earth. It does not need to be anything fancy.
A few of the design goals are:
-Simplicity and low cost
-The sensor assembly needs to be battery operated for simplicity
-The video feed needs to be wireless RF from the sensor assembly on the auger motor to the LCD display in the operator's station
-Prefer working with existing low cost components to keep things simple and affordable
I am sure there are questions that need to be asked so feel free to ask away and I will answer them as they come in. Thanks ahead of time for your help with this.
Jon