Ben Heck’s Pill-Minder 2000 Episode -- Episode 237

There are a couple approaches that improve upon the resolution you were seeing.

1. I suspect you were using a 10-bit ADC. Without adding external circuitry you could improve accuracy by oversampling at a higher sampling rate. For every 4x samples using oversampling you increase your resolution by 1 bit (doubles resolution). It is more effective than the averaging method you used (see page 5 of the referenced document). Since you are using an Atmel processor, here is a link to an Atmel reference on the subject. http://www.atmel.com/images/doc8003.pdf that your viewers can use.
2. As an alternative, a single opamp can be used to null out the load cell when the empty pill box is present. A potentiometer or DAC (preferable) can be used to drive the amplifier's output to near zero when the pillbox is empty and the gain of the amplifier is set to 80% of the ADC's full scale input when the pillbox is full. For complete digital control a programmable gain amplifier (PGA) can be used. This method would probably be sensitive enough to not only tell how many pills are being added but what the weight of each is by using a calibration weight. For this application a calibration weight wouldn't be needed but one can be assured that differences in position of the box would be accounted for.

I've alway enjoyed your episodes Ben. Over the last few months I've had to deal with my mother who has worsening dementia and had to be put in assisted living. Before assisted care my mother was up and down at all times and did not know what day of the week or time it was. The simplicity of your design is of key importance because dementia makes even simple tasks confusing. The other people have made valid points but your idea still has merit because it can be extended to suit different situations. I'm sure there are pill boxes that meet the different requirements. In my mother's case, she had to take certain pills before and after each meal. A quick Google search came up with a multitude of pill boxes. Here is an example of a box that would have suited my mother's prescriptions.

To keep the design simple, as you have, all that would have to be done is put the LEDs below the transparent pill cases. To take this idea even further, as prescriptions typically change over time, one could make individual compartments that have the LED built in. The boxes plug into each other by the number of times pills are taken each day.

I should point out that loading the pillbox is probably too complicated for seniors suffering from mild dementia in either scenario you gave. Ideally an ap would be developed that uses a smartphone camera to read bar-codes on the pill bottles and reads the instructions so that a far-sighted person, such as is typical of 40 something child caring for an aging senior, can read the instructions. The person filling the pillbox would scan the pill bottle and a light would come on for the box or boxes to be filled. As the pill is dropped into the pill box the light goes off. For this reason it is important to solve the resolution issue you ran into as it isn't uncommon for seniors to have several dozen pills to take every day (I'll keep off my soapbox about how seniors are overmedicated. At one point my mother was on 18 drugs and a hospital nurse told her she was practically taking nothing compared to most seniors).

very good built ben.

but I have some suggestion for pill mider 2000.1

sometimes you need take different pills and different times, this times some times are not too good hours of the day, like too early in the morning, or very late at night, or

you are in the middle of a videogame session find to beat your best record or just don't care about nothing and you want yours pills.

so my suggestions are

use a one single bottom to have your pills

on vertical orientation like a coffee vending machine ( you can put a little cup to receive your pills)

with that not matter witch  scenario occurred you can get your pills or get a notice via sound alarm and displace telling you went you have your next doses

let me know if you need more info abut it

bye

Nice episode Ben, but I think you just scratched the surface.

I have four or five different pills and some of them are taken more than once a day.

So your basic design could handle the day's total pills, I would suggest an option to identify which specific pill or pills are needed at the specific times.

DAB

"Let me tell you about the man I met when I was young... ...during the Salvage Wars" Ben-ionic Commando Re-Soldered