Conclusion and Recommendation

Conclusion :

Development of Smart Laundry System is a simple modification of the existing weighing method. It gives benefits to the user in terms of weighing and payment. It provides an attractive and user friendly interface through visual basic application.

However, this project has several weakness :

1.accuracy for the weighing

2.prototype design

For further development I would suggest to improve in terms of accuracy and prototype design. This project can go further and it has a potential to be sold to the launderette. 

Result

Simulation Design :

Hardware :

Visual Basic Application :

For items in pieces

For items in Kg

Payment receipt

Payment receipt print preview

Database for the customers records

Project Costing

The total cost for this project is about RM 374.50

Software Development

For this project, I used :

a)      MikroC PRO for PIC

• Used to write the source code of the program. It is written in c language

b)      Proteus 8 Professional

• Used to draw schematic for the project's simulation. ARES in Proteus is used to draw the PCB layout of the project

c)      Visual Basic 2010

• Used to develop the user interface for the user. In this project, staffs of the laundry shop are the users for the interface

d)     SQlite Browser

• Act as the database platform. For this project, there are two important data that need to be stored in the database :

               1. Item Details (such as price, types of washing)

               2. Customer's record

Overall Scope of the Project

These are the scope of the project. It involves two main parts ; hardware and software development. In short, below are the overall component of Development of Smart Laundry System.

Hardware

a)      Load cell sensor 

b)      PIC16F88 Microcontroller

c)      INA125P amplifier

d)     HC11 wireless serial port module

e)      USB to UART converter

Software

a)      MikroC PRO for PIC

b)      Proteus 8 Professional

c)      Visual Basic 2010

d)     SQlite Browser

UART

A UART (Universal Asynchronous Receiver/Transmitter) is the microchip with programming that controls a computer's interface to its attached serial devices. Specifically, it provides the computer with the RS-232C Data Terminal Equipment ( DTE ) interface so that it can "talk" to and exchange data with modems and other serial devices.

• As part of this interface, the UART also:
• Converts the bytes it receives from the computer along parallel circuits into a singleserial bit stream for outbound transmission
• On inbound transmission, converts the serial bit stream into the bytes that the computer handles
• Adds a parity bit (if it's been selected) on outbound transmissions and checks the parity of incoming bytes (if selected) and discards the parity bit
• Adds start and stop delineators on outbound and strips them from inbound transmissions
• Handles interrupt s from the keyboard and mouse (which are serial devices with specialport s)
• May handle other kinds of interrupt and device management that require coordinating the computer's speed of operation with device speeds

More advanced UARTs provide some amount of buffering of data so that the computer and serial devices data streams remain coordinated. The most recent UART, the 16550, has a 16-byte buffer that can get filled before the computer's processor needs to handle the data. The original UART was the 8250. If you purchase an internal modem today, it probably includes a 16550 UART (although you should ask when you buy it). According to modem manufacturer US Robotics, external modems do not include a UART. If you have an older computer, you may want to add an internal 16550 to get the most out of your external modem.

http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/UART-Universal-Asynchronous-Receiver-Transmitter

USB to UART Converter

USB to UART converter V2011 (UC00B)

Serial communication is most popular interface between device and this applies to microcontroller and computer. UART is one of those serial interfaces. Classically, most serial interface from microcontroller to computer is done through serial port (DB9). However, since computer serial port used RS232 protocol and microcontroller used TTL UART, a level shifter is needed between these interfaces. Recently, serial port of computer have been phase out, it have been replaced with USB. Of course most developer chooses USB to serial converter to obtain virtual serial port. The level shifter is still necessary for UART interface. Thus, Cytron decided to develop a USB to UART converter which offers USB plug and play, direct interface with microcontroller and it provide low current 5V supply from USB port.

This product offers low cost USB to UART converter to user.  Make you easy to connect a microcontroller project to a PC. Compare to UC00A which is USB 2.0 speed, this product use a low cost USB 1.1 speed of chip and the driver can support Windows Operating System only, no driver for LINUX or Mac. However, it is more than enough in most of the projects. It has been designed with capabilities and features of:

USB Specification v1.1

Tested with the baud rate up to 115200 bps.

Low cost USB to UART converter

Easy to use, aiming development between computer and microcontroller, 3.3V or 5V logic.

USB powered, no external source is required to use this converter

Configurable for 3.3V/5V UART interface.

Easy to use 6 pin interface: TXD, RXD, GND, DTR, RTS and VCC (5V or 3.3V).