Inspector Gadget Voice Controlled Headband Magnifier.

As I get older, my sight is not what it use to be, ok I need reading glasses etc not too drastic:) and when working working at close quarters on projects I have a very inexpensive Headband Magnifier, it's pretty useful apart from the fact that you have to manually pop the lens down and up each time you want to use it, invariably you are using both hands each time and when doing some tricky projects the magnifier is up and down like a yo-yo and this can become a bit tedious so I thought why not try and make the magnifier lens voice activated and not just the magnifier lens but also the LED light, and also a little fan to blow any solder fumes away from the face when soldering, the original lamp was pretty poor to be honest so I had already removed that, a new 5v 9 LED will be an Improvement you need as much light as possible when tackling finicky soldering or electronics, the fan will be voice activated too, all these components will be housed underneath the visor apart from the lamp which is on top of the visor.

I have a surplus Easyvr 3 voice recognition module which will be great for this purpose and I will use this with an Arduino Nano and house the electronics in a 3D Printed control box this will be on the bench and a suitable(Multicore) cable to to run the Servo, LED Light and fan doing it this way will not be adding any additional weight to the headband, power can either be 5v Wall Power supply(2amps) or 9v battery.

I'm looking forward to building this and seeing how it performs.

Magnifier Headband Visor.

Arduino Nano and Servo Shield

Easyvr3 Module including Microphone and Speaker

2 way 5v Relay

Dupont cables

Small Servo MGs90 or similar

RC control rod

Small 5V Fan

LED Lamp 5v(Kitronic) 9 led's

Hot Glue Gun

Small Enclosure

Multi core Cable

Solder station Flux and Solder

The Magnifier Lens up and down motion will be controlled by a MG90s Servo, the Servo is sited underneath the visor and is secured with Hot glue, there is a slight angle to the visor and its easy to compensate this so the Servo is parallel using hot glue, I take one of the Servo horns and trim it down and screw this to the end of the Lens rotating holder, prior to doing this I had to free up the lens rotating shaft it was a bit stiff, a couple of drops of WD40 and it was free enough so the Servo could move it with ease, then an RC control rod is cut to size and this makes the connection between Magnifier Lens and Servo, before screwing the Servo horn to the Servo I set it up using a Servo tester, I can then use the tester to ensure the action works ok too, trying the headband on and using it with the Servo tester was really good, I placed a small object on the bench, it was blurred, Using the Servo tester the lens dropped into position and the object was clear, just what I wanted.

The Servo cable was secured to the underside edge of the visor the cables from the LED Lamp and Fan will follow the same route, I can then extend them using suitable wires, I sleeve them with Heat shrink and then use something like a flexible Cat 5/6 multicore cable to connect them to the control box, the multicore core cable I have is an Ethernet cable, its more rigid than I would have liked but it's all I have.

With the Servo secured and working I can now move onto Installing a 5v LED lamp, this lamp has 9 LED bulbs and is only 48mm diameter and is far more brighter than the original LED.

The Lamp originally was going to be secured underneath the visor with hot glue, the opposite side to the Servo, then I thought the lamp needs to be pointing in the same direction of the Len's, so what I did was design with Fusion 360 a 3D printed holder, this 3 piece design just has a 3mm Allen head bolt and Lock nut to secure and is glued onto the top of the visor, there is a back plate with a cable outlet this is mounted on the top of the Visor, the lamp pivots so it can be laid flat when not in use the final component is a small fan, this will blow any solder fumes away, its 25mm square and will be simply hot glued to the underneath the Visor, leaving a gap so it can draw air in from the top, the fan and LED lamp only require 5v and Gnd connections whereas the Servo needs a data cable as well.

In this step we go over the control box, the box can either be made out of wood or 3D Printed, I think on this occasion a 3D printed enclosure will work better, unless I can find a suitable plastic box with a lid( I found a plastic box)

Within the enclosure will be an Arduino Nano with a Servo Shield, I use the Servo Shield for ease, It's very cheap, it's a smaller footprint than the Uno and I like the pin arrangement, it has a couple of 5v and Gnd pins which are useful, and the Servo pins make using Servos a breeze, plus the Signal pins on the shield can be used to send any data, it has the Analog pins as well, along with this will be the EasyVR 3 Voice recognition module and a 2 Way relay, I think powering a single LED from a data pin is fine, 9 Leds and a fan is a different story, so I have the 2 way relay which will turn on both the LED Lamp and Fans using digital pins for signal and power from source there needs to be provision on the enclosure for the EasyVR 3 Microphone and speaker, I cut holes out of the lid and used hot glue to secure both the speaker and Microphone I will also make provision for a power connector for mains or battery power, the shield has a female barrel power input and I can use either mains power or 9v Battery

This will be a permanent addition to the armoury for me, I think it will come in very useful in many applications and I will be using it a lot so all components in the control box are secured with Hot Glue as are the cables.

The EasyVR 3 Manual is very complicated well to me it is and there are few tutorials about it online, I have done a couple of projects with the EasyVR3 and it's quite easy to work with once you understand the general principle.

The Easyvr Commander software not only interprets the voice recognition commands but this also generates the Arduino code as well, and within the code are actions with each voice command attached, you then add Arduino functions to these actions, could be a Servo or Stepper motor or LED or anything really, I go over the procedure in great detail in some earlier Wall-E Robot projects if you want to know more about it.

There are a few key points.

Have ready the voice commands you want to give, the first command is the Trigger, this wakes up your project.

Have any sound clips you want ready, these need to be in the correct format and can be converted to the correct format using Audacity.

Sound files are uploaded to the Commander software using the QS 5 software which is part of the Easyvr3 software download.

You will notice when using the the Easyvr3 that it needs a special cable when using it with the Commander software, the cable is called a quick USB, this plugs into your computer, when you try to connect it initially it asks for the bridge to be updated.

This bridge is in the Easyvr3 example sketches, you connect an Arduino Uno or Nano up to the TX and RX on the Easyvr module also 5v and Gnd disconnect the quick usb cable and then run the bridge code, disconnect the Arduino and connect the quick USB cable to the Easyvr3 module in the commander software select the port and it will now connect.

I'm keeping things very simple in terms of using voice recognition commands, up and down for the Magnifier lens, LED Light is on/ off and for the Fan, Fan on/turn fan off, it's best not to have commands that conflict the Commander flags these conflicts up as you go along.

I have programmed a couple of sound bytes in, I used a free online text to speech site to convert to some mp3's I then changed the format of the MP3's to 8000hz 16bit using Audacity, these files can now be built using the QS5 software so they can be uploaded to the commander software, these bytes are for Magnifier on, and Power down

With the voice commands added for each component we can now generate the Arduino code, the first part of the code, we still need to add Servo, led and fan codes in the corresponding actions within the code.

I will include the code for this project so those of you who want to see how it works, but the code wont work with a different Module.

With everything assembled I can now go on to test the components and tweak anything, I needed to adjust the Servo connector rod a bit, it was digging into the Headband, adjusting the code slightly did it, it's still very close but ok now, the voice recognition is pretty good, it doesn't work sometimes but that is my fault, I have a sore throat so my voice keeps changing, I have to repeat on the odd occasion.

When I put the headband on, I can still manually move the Visor into a position where it will work the best for that particular job, I then power up the Magnifier, the trigger word is Magnifier on, with a sound byte to confirm this, then I say "Down" and the lens is rotated down to magnify whatever I'm looking at, the "Up" command rotates the lens back up, the "On" command Switches the LED Lamp on "Off" turns it off, "Fan on" turns the fan on and finally "Turn fan off" turns the fan off, Power down is the final voice command, it doesn't really do anything, but there is a Sound byte with it which sounds good.

So there you have it, a very simple but very effective bit of kit, having a voice controlled Magnifier Headband is a revelation for me, leaving my hands free to do the important things and having voice activated Magnifier lens, Light and Fan is really useful, the headband is fairly comfortable, the additional weight is minimal.

I will use self adhesive Velcro to secure control box to the front of my work bench, the top of the bench overhangs a bit which is good, then I will make a hook for the Magnifier Headband, then its just a matter of putting it on when needed, switch it on and happy days, there is still the option of changing the lens for different strengths of Magnification, these are just a push fit into the holder, there are 5 to choose from.

I hope you enjoyed this Instructable and many thanks for looking.