Hacking a String Pot with Gadgeteer

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1

Hi,

Apologies because this isn’t really a gadgeteer question as such, but a general hacking question.

But I will use the gadgeteer.

Anyway. I wondered wither people think it’s feasible to hack one of these:

http://www.firebox.com/product/4770/Pocket-Smart-String

to work with the gadgeteer?

I’m assuming it’s just a calculator screen and there hopefully is an easy way to read the data that’s being sent to the screen?

Some suggestions would be really helpful. Or similar projects, I’ve had a hunt around but not found anything.

I basically want to measure distance with a string using the gadgeteer. I’ve been making string pots myself:

These are fine but it would be easier to hack the Smart String.

Thanks in advance.

2

Just a quick guess but it would appear to be some kind of rotary encoder that is used to work out the distance.

In your own design, would this be the case?

3

Yeah. I should have said. It’s basically a ten turn pot but I’ll replace it with an encoder thanks to ingenuitymicro’s gadgeteer quadrature. When you pull the string the pot turns and measures distance. The key chain gives it spring, but far too much at the moment.

http://ingenuitymicro.com/company-news/gadgeteer-quadrature-module-released.aspx

But actually my design is getting a little fiddly for a quick build so I wondered about using something existing to get it working…