Re: [EE] Suggestions for barcode scanning

Yeah, the details were messy, but the idea came through.
You had a device with internal memory. It only needed to record the barcode
number one scan==one partnumber==one line in the file. Then you wrote
software to count the quantity of each number. Makes sense.

Keyboard wedge mode on basic scanners is really easy to use to read a
barcode. Effectively pretends to be a keyboard and "types" the barcode data
in. The obvious human performance problem there is making sure the focus
and cursor is where it needs to be before scanning. With thousands of part
numbers to scan and humans being human, not sure I can trust that.

With some care and a bit of software I should be able to take away the
human side of where to place the cursor. A simple form that has only one
text box and always has the focus. Plenty of options of what to do with it
after that.
But all that is back to me writing software. Not impossible, but just like
where I started I have to ask myself "is that really the right answer?"

I've been playing with MIT App Inventor again recently and it's come a long
way since I last tried to use it a few years ago. Can't say I love the
block programming language, but with a youtube tutorial I was able to use a
tablet camera to scan a barcode and push data to a google sheet with a
couple hours effort. Obviously going from "hey there's my data" to
something I can deploy and have others use reliably is going to take a few
more steps.

Someone offlist suggested an app called "lightspeed scanner". It looks to
be another app designed to plug into some bigger inventory management tool,
but one feature that works stand alone is scan to local storage and send
that file via email. That might just get the job done. Either way, it's
probably better than writing my own app.


Thanks
-Denny



On Sun, Nov 16, 2025 at 7:30 PM Justin Richards <[email protected]>
wrote:

> I see there are lots of errors (eg 10,000 not 1000)  in my previous post
> but I hope you get the idea.
>
> Justin.
>
> On Mon, Nov 17, 2025 at 8:26 AM Justin Richards <[email protected]
> >
> wrote:
>
> > I used small pocket sized barcode scanners that simply scanned to
> internal
> > text file.
> >
> > I then used vba in excel to extract data (the scanner mounts as a drive).
> > Once in VBA i got it to do all sorts of automated things and compare with
> > our online parts systems.
> >
> > If as you implied, each part is individually barcoded then you could scan
> > every barcode then use vba to count how many of each unique barcode it
> > found.
> >
> > If not individually barcoded, then just scan the bin barcode as many
> times
> > as there are parts in that bin.
> >
> > It means that the button gets pressed 50 000 or 1000 times if there are 5
> > scanners in the wild.
> >
> > The ones we used had buttons to remove the last entry.  Additionally for
> > errors or quick quantity addition you could have a print out of your home
> > made barcode code (is used the free barcode font) that you can scan, such
> > as -1, x2, x5, x10 etc. Then VBA uses those code to do the post
> processing.
> >
> > The closest image match I could find online for the ones we used were
> > Symbol CS1504,  They are cheap and charge when connected via usb.  I
> never
> > had one go flat.
> >
> > They turned a 2 person day task into single person 30mins.  No longer
> > having to data enter each item found or find it in a massive list to
> cross
> > it off.
> >
> > It also could scan barcodes that were visually out of reach or where the
> > numbers were human unreadable.  Obviously badly damaged is no go but
> > impressive to see what it could scan.  It did find a couple of items that
> > we had thought lost.
> >
> > Justin
> >
> > On Mon, Nov 17, 2025 at 3:44 AM Alan Pearce <
> [email protected]>
> > wrote:
> >
> >> Depending on the format of the barcode, it should be possible to use a
> >> readily available barcode reader to enter the barcode into a spreadsheet
> >> column, with the count then being entered into the next column. A simple
> >> bit of VBS programming could then move the cursor to the first column in
> >> the next row.
> >>
> >> Easy to do if the barcode is a UPC, possibly more difficult if the
> barcode
> >> is a 2D one that could contain other info as well (e.g. UPC, supplier,
> >> etc)
> >> although this wouldn't be impossible to deal with using some VBS.
> >>
> >> Then you have everything in a spread sheet that you can sort on barcode
> to
> >> match against whatever stock program you use.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> On Sun, 16 Nov 2025 at 19:30, smplx <[email protected]> wrote:
> >>
> >> > If you're thinking of writing your own code the simplest solution
> might
> >> be
> >> > to take a picture of the barcode along with a hand written count then
> >> dump
> >> > all the pictures to a PC and post process. It should be trivial to
> >> process
> >> > the pics.
> >> >
> >> > Regards
> >> > Sergio Masci
> >> >
> >> > On Sun, 16 Nov 2025, Denny Esterline wrote:
> >> >
> >> > > I'm overseeing a physical inventory count at year end and looking
> for
> >> > tools
> >> > > or suggestions.
> >> > >
> >> > > We’ve got about 7,000 part numbers and roughly 50,000 total parts.
> >> Every
> >> > > item has a barcode label with its part number.
> >> > >
> >> > > Ideally, I’d like to deploy 2–3 people with mobile phones or tablets
> >> > using
> >> > > a simple workflow:
> >> > > Scan bin -> enter count -> upload to spreadsheet -> repeat.
> >> > > Seems straightforward, and if we can get it down to ~10 seconds per
> >> > cycle,
> >> > > I think we could cover everything in a day. That’s not a hard
> >> > requirement,
> >> > > just a ballpark that feels reasonable.
> >> > >
> >> > > I’ve done some searching and haven’t found anything that even
> remotely
> >> > > matches this workflow. Most tools I’ve seen are layered with
> features
> >> —
> >> > > inventory management, purchasing, stock levels, etc. They may be
> >> great in
> >> > > their own right, but they’re not built for this kind of “count only”
> >> > audit,
> >> > > and they seem to take several minutes per cycle and the math on that
> >> > looks
> >> > > like multiple weeks. That doesn't feel reasonable.
> >> > >
> >> > > I cannot possibly be the first person to want to do this.
> >> > >
> >> > > Usually when I can’t find something that “just has to exist,” it’s
> >> > either:
> >> > >
> >> > >   - I’m describing it wrong / using the wrong search terms
> >> > >   - Or I’ve got my head up my backside and there’s something I’m not
> >> > seeing
> >> > >
> >> > > There’s precedent for both. :-)
> >> > >
> >> > > I’m about 90% convinced I need to write my own app for this, but
> >> before I
> >> > > commit, I wanted to ask the hivemind:
> >> > >
> >> > >   - Am I asking the wrong questions?
> >> > >   - Am I thinking about this wrong?
> >> > >   - Any tools, workflows, or suggestions you’ve seen or used?
> >> > >
> >> > > At this point, I’d even settle for slings and arrows.
> >> > >
> >> > >
> >> > > -Denny
> >> > > --
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