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Contents

Introduction

Cosoft has been asked to develop an alternative to the current numeric keypad solution we use for our Kitchen Display Screens. The request is based on the following 3 principles.

  1. Kitchens by nature are messy environments. Sauces, flour, and grease are consistent ingredients and the keypads quite quickly gunk up. This results in the keypad not working correctly, the buttons sticking or the keypad breaking down during a busy trade time. As a result, the current numeric keypads are frequently replaced.

  2. The keypads are held into place using a numeric keypad bracket which is bolted directly to the KDS pole. This gives it no mobility and during peak periods when a coordinator is used to call out and bump orders off, they need to stand at the makeline to do so.

  3. The KDS pole is a hybrid aluminium / stainless steel pole that is bolted to either a brace in the ceiling or mounted directly to the floor. There was consideration made in the design to be able to extend the pole if necessary due to different hight requirements from both ceiling and floor in stores. This was achieved by creating a sleeve using two aluminium square poles that could be extended over each other to reach a
    maximum extension length of 3 meters. Once mounted and extended, if the numeric keypad was pushed there was a slight wobble that would occur. Slowly over time this would cause damage to the surrounding ceiling board.

Solution

To address these issues, Cosoft has developed a new Bump Bar (pictured below). The new Bump Bar has the following benefits:

  1. The internal components of the device are housed in a PVC container that has a 12-button membrane that is covered by a plastic button sheet. This allows for easy cleaning of the device using generic cleaning agents used in kitchens.

  2. The device connects to the KDS system using the in-built Bluetooth on the Raspberry Pi. During the testing phase, the battery in the device lasted 2 weeks before requiring a recharge. The recharge takes 1hr and is done by plugging the Bump Bar into any computer using the supplied USB cable. It can also recharge from the Pi and the Bump Bar can still be used while charging takes place.

  3. With the mobility of Bluetooth, the device can be moved anywhere in the kitchen within a 10m range. We have also applied a magnet film on the back of the enclosure that allows for the Bump Bar to stick to any of the available metal surfaces in the kitchen.

Setup and Configuration of the Bump Bar

Step 1: Access the Bluetooth configuration menu.

To start the process of connecting the Bump Bar to the Raspberry Pi for use via the Bluetooth connection you will need to pair the Bump Bar to the Raspberry Pi. The Configure Bluetooth menu will need to be accessed from the Aura POS Menu. The Aura POS menu can be accessed by right clicking the desktop and selecting Simple Configuration and then Configure Bluetooth

The Bluetooth Devices window will then be displayed. 

Please note the Bluetooth devices screen can take up to 1 minute to load. Please do not open multiple instances of the same screen.

Step 2: Connecting the Bump Bar to the Raspberry Pi 

First the Bump Bar needs to be put in discovery mode. This is done by inserting a pin or small paperclip into the reset hole on the base of the Bump Bar.

Push and hold the reset button that is located next to the USB port on the Bump bar and then connect the Bump Bar to the Raspberry Pi using the supplied USB cable. Once connected with the USB cable wait 10 – 15 seconds and then release the reset pin. 

On the previous Bluetooth Device Windows click on the search button. 

The Bluetooth devices application window will then list all the Bluetooth devices it detects. The Cosoft Bump Bar will be listed as Cosoft nRF52 BumpBar.

Step 3: Pairing the bump bar to the Raspberry Pi

Select the device named Cosoft BumpBar or Cosoft nrF52 BumpBar

and click on the button with a key logo to pair the bump bar to the Raspberry Pi.

Once the Bump bar has been paired to the Raspberry Pi, a key logo will appear on the left-hand side of the entry for the Bump bar as pictured below.

Step 4: Saving the pairing configuration

Once the bump bar has been paired to the raspberry pi, click on the button with the four-pointed star logo to save the configuration so that the Raspberry Pi remembers the pairing to the bump bar going forward.

The entry for the Bump bar will now have a star logo in addition to the key logo on the left-hand side of the device name as pictured below.

Step 5: Testing the Bump Bar.

Disconnect the USB cable connecting the Bump bar to the Raspberry Pi. Press the Reboot button on the Bump Bar and check to see if the Raspberry Pi reboots. Once the Raspberry Pi has rebooted, press the launch application button and/or Next and Previous buttons and check for proper functionality of all the bump bar buttons.

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