Need help getting VB.net 3.5 app to talk to USB Scale

Question

I have a Mettler Toledo postal scale (PS60) that I need to configure and read weights from using a USB connection. The scale uses the Microsoft USB POS HID for scales driver. I will have 11 to 12 of these scales connected, and will need to identify each as well. The idea being my users will remove something from one scale and place it on another, I need to make sure they do so from the correct scales.

I've not done any work with USB development and I'm really spinning my wheels trying to get started. Can anyone point me to some simple examples, or documentation that will help me quickly get up to speed? I have to have some idea about how to do this for Monday.

Summary of what I need to do:

• Detect scales connecting and disconnecting
• Send configuration commands to each individual scale
• Detect changes in stable weight on each scale

Answer 1

You need to contact the scale vendor and ask them how they publish data from their hardware for automated systems to use. They might have an api, if you're lucky.

Answer 2

http://github.com/nricciar/usb_scale for a c# example for getting data from a PS60 scale. I just wrote it this morning though, so beware.