Hi there

This instructable offers you to make your own ColorScanner. It's not a basic scanner, it scans the objects color, converts to RGB value and saves in a database. Each scanned object is shown in a table with the datetime and the colorvalue. On the webserver, which is written in php, there is a list with the Color name for each value as well. The scanner is connected on Arduino UNO through Raspberry PI.

How do we create this? I want to focus on 3 aspects. The housing of the scanner, Arduino/Pi and Php/Mysql.

I wish you good luck and have fun.

Jens Huysentruyt

Step 1: Required Material

First of, the most important thing to create the ColorScanner is having the right material.

So what do we need?

The housing

* A wooden box/casket (Wine)

* Additional Wooden planks (34cm by 18cm)

* Steel nails

Arduino/Pi

* Arduino UNO

* 4 Jump wires

* Raspberry PI 3

* Arduino USB cable

* Adafruit Tcs34725 Color Sensor

* Breadboard

* Raspberry Adapter

Step 2: The Housing

The housing of our ColorScanner is quite simple.

First of all, you want to get yourself a wooden box with one side fully open.

My box was originally a wooden wine box, which i cleaned & scoured up. I cut out about 3/4 of one side. This allowed me to use the other 1/4 as space for my arduino components.

If you can't find your own box, feel free to make your own box with wooden planks. Ideal box measurements are height: 22cm, width: 17.5cm and length: 34cm.

It's much more convenient to actually you an existing wooden box than rather make it yourself, it will save you a lot of time.

To hide the arduino components, we will use an additional plank (18cm by 32cm) with a hole in the middle, which you can easily drill yourself (diameter: 3cm).

Additionally, based on preferrence you can decide how far you cut the wood out on the side. Since mine still had 8cm of wood, i used a wooden block/platform (6cm height) to place my arduino breadboard. To have a nice outcome with my plank.You can also use any other object, to give your breadboard the needed height.

At the left back of the box, i drilled another hole (diameter: 2cm). This was purely for my raspberry Pi adapter.

Step 3: The Arduino + Raspberry Pi

Arduino Wiring (Color Sensor):

Connect jumpers from:

5v -> VIN (red wire)

GND -> GND (black wire)

SDA -> SDA (orange wire)

SCL -> SCL (white wire)

Note: On older Arduinos such as the Duemilanove and pre R3 UNOs, SDA is on Analog 4 and SCL is on Analog 5.On pre-R2 Megas, SDA is on Digtital 20 and SCL is on digital 21.For the Leonardo, SDA is digital pin 2 and SCL is digital pin 3.

Source: https://learn.adafruit.com/adafruit-color-sensors/...

Raspberry Pi Wiring:

Connect Arduino Uno to Raspberry Pi 3.

Plug your Arduino USB cable onto your Pi device.

Step 4: Arduino Code

To let the TCS34725 work properly and let it RGB read values, we use the following Arduino Code.

Make sure to use this library: https://github.com/adafruit/Adafruit_TCS34725

Arduino_Code.ino
Download

Step 5: Setting Up Raspberry Pi

Install the OS Raspbian on your Raspberry Pi.

Now follow these steps to create an apache webserver with PhpMyAdmin.

https://www.stewright.me/2012/09/tutorial-install-...

After you've done these steps, it's time to connect Arduino.

First type in the Terminal: sudo apt-get install arduino

Then Plug your Arduino into your Raspberry Pi.

To test the port type: minicom -b 9600 -o -D /dev/ttyAMA0

Other than that, you should be good to continue.

Step 6: Database

Now it's time to create your Database. Since we have all different preferrences to name something, i won't share a file because it's quite easy to create your own.

First of all we want our RGB values in the Database. Therefore we create:

* A table called Color which contains 4 Columns (ColorID, R, G, B) --> Type: Integers (INT)

We also want to know when we scanned an object, therefore we create:

* A table called Time which contains 1 column (Time) --> Type: TIMESTAMP

Save everything and you are good to go.