Scales

Use the Scale tab to configure a connection to a scale and make it available through HubCapp.

Under Configure Scale Connection, Interface Type can be one of:

  • Internal Test Mode. Use this to test a HubCapp setup before a scale is available. Test mode always returns a weight of 1lb 8oz. This is what the user should see in their App. If no weight is returned, check that the HubCapp settings supplied in the App match the settings in HubCapp Peripheral Agent.
  • Serial. When selected, select the type and port number in the Scale Type and Serial Port dropdown lists. Refer to your scale’s documentation for the appropriate Bits Per Second, Data Bits, Parity and Stop Bits settings. Finally, click WEIGH to test the connection, and then SAVE to save it.
  • USB. When selected, select the connected USB scale in the Scale Type dropdown list. If no connected USB scale is detected, the list is empty. Click WEIGH to test the connection, and then SAVE to save it.
  • QubeVu®. A dimensional scale. See QubeVu below for details.

Advanced Options

Select Allow each user on this workstation to configure their own scale if you want each user to be able to open Peripheral Agent and configure their own scale. Unselected means that everyone using this machine will use the same scale connection.

Logging can be enabled for diagnostic purposes. Do not enable this permanently. Logs are written to a Client Scale Log File text file in the HubCapp Peripheral Agent folder. The location of this folder will vary depending on the version of Windows being used and the Allow each user… setting described in the preceding paragraph.

Generic Driver Settings

With Interface Type set to Serial, and Scale Type set to Generic Driver, you can configure an unsupported scale type. To do this, in the Generic Driver Settings section, specify the message formats used by the scale.

There are two fields:

  • RX Expression. This is used to parse the response from a scale.
  • TX Expression. This is a string in the form of bracketed values to transmit to the scale.

Receiving - The RX Expression field

When receiving, the following values can be used:

  • <[Any Character]>

    The delimiter to use when splitting the response.

  • <CR>

    The response is to be split by Carriage Return.

  • <LF>

    The response is to be split by Line Feed.

  • <[Any number]>

    The response is to be split by the ASCII character. For example, <9> split by the tab character.

The response should be received within 5 seconds of transmission.

Once the response is received, it is split (using the delimiter if provided). Any other characters (including spaces) in the RX expression are removed. The remaining value should be a numeric value that represents the item's weight.

Below is a sample response from a scale:

W 00.78 lb

This can be parsed by the RX Expression:

<W>[x.xx]lb

Transmitting – the TX Expression

When transmitting, the following values are replaced:

<CR> = Carriage Return

<LF> = Line Feed

For example, if a scale requires a W character followed by a carriage return character, then the following TX Expression should be used:

W<CR>

QubeVu®

QubeVu® is a dimensional scale that you can configure to use with the Ship App. Configure the scale device (for configuration details, visit the QubeVu website), and then configure the scale connection on HubCapp. If successful, you'll see the live feed from the device displayed in the tab.

QubeVu can be further configured to capture and upload images through the PackSnap microservice. This option requires a separate PackSnap license.

Apps can include the QubeVu Status snippet to show the status of any connected scale. See Snippets for general details on using snippets in Composer Designer to create or modify Apps (as the snippet has no parameters, it does not have its own topic).

QubeVu is a network attached device, and requires an additional IP address (Hostname or IP).

Article last edited 3 July 2017