The hive scale is a digital scale that can be left under a bee hive that will transmit data about the weight of the hive over time. When my wife, Dani, picked up the hobby of beekeeping I found that the bee hive scales for sale were in the $800 range. I would probably buy one if it were under $200, but after searching high and low nothing came close. Finally, one day while hanging out at Hackerspace Charlotte, I decided I would try to make it myself. Some of the other hackerspace members and I even set the bold target of getting the bill of materials down under $35. I'm still in the process of putting it together. I've been playing with the following scale since it is cheap, and small enough to play with until I get the rest of the components right.
I was able to take the four wires coming from the load cell and remove the board that came with the scale to use with my own set up. I decided not to use the board that came with the scale since I don't know how it works and I couldn't find any documentation for it.
I'm using the HX711 chip which has some documentation on how to use it, am able to plug in the 4 wires from the load cell, and get readings just fine. More to come soon!
