Re: Electronics Projects and PC Interfacing

[Herbie <technowombat@yahoo.com>]

An old friend of mine uses a linux mini computer for running his rotary 
mazda (RX6 I think), I think it does the engine management and the 
dashboard display.

http://pengaru.com was the website.

h.

On Sat, 19 Dec 2009, mattkotys@gmail.com wrote:

> Thanks very much for the insights.
>
> Tim, I will order an Arduino kit when my wife isn't looking.  I already have a PICkit2 and several breadboards, misc ICs, ... so I can play with those throughout the holidays, but Make magazine and others have certainly sold me on that platform.  The Morse decoder seems like a formidable challenge - maybe just the right project for a GPL debut.  I've never published any software before, and eager to get my feet wet.  I'll let LUCI know about my progress.
>
> Don and Herbie - I see from http://www.epanorama.net/circuits/parallel_output.html that a darlington uln2803 array will make it safer to do this stuff.  And maybe I will find a proper LCD to use, rather than a hack.
>
> Let me know if you have any ideas for these and other cool projects.
>
>
> Sent from my Verizon Wireless BlackBerry
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Don Parth <don-p@comcast.net>
> Date: Sat, 19 Dec 2009 12:30:29
> To: <luci-discuss@luci.org>
> Subject: Re: Electronics Projects and PC Interfacing
>
> I haven't messed with direct hardware interfacing in a long, long time.
>  Generally, USB and serial ports are best used for communications, with
> a computer (i.e. PIC) on the other end to decode.
>
> If you want to directly control the wires, say to control a stepper
> motor, I think the parallel port would be the one to use.  It has at
> least 12 output and 5-13 input lines (all modern ports can be made
> bi-directional).  But here is a 2006 link to get a TV remote to talk to
> a serial port:
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/8811
> and here is a 2004 article on writing your own USB driver to control a
> specific USB device:
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7353
>
> Most information on direct hardware port interfaces will be from the
> last millennium.  Here is a link to a 1998 article on parallel port
> interfacing with examples in C:
> http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/2662
>
> For the nasty low-level details on how to build electronic interfaces at
> the wire level, look to electronic magazines - Circuit Cellar
> (especially stuff from the 80's), and defunct magazines like Popular
> Electronics, Radio-Electronics, and Byte. These had a lot of info in the
> late 70's and early 80's.  Libraries probably have dead-tree archives of
> these.  Also look to the amateur radio magazines, maybe Nuts & Volts,
> and possibly Make. Also look for books on building robots.
>
> Good luck on your projects!
> Don
>
> On 12/18/2009 04:49 PM, Herbie wrote:
>> Way, way back in the day I was using a Darlington Transistor Array to
>> buffer/amplify the signals on a parallel I/O on the old BBC Micro they
>> used in schools in the UK, part of a class project I was assisting in.
>>
>> My other thought is to look at the Linux Car MP3 player. CAJUN.
>>
>> http://cajun.sourceforge.net/
>>
>> as it has LCD drivers as part of it's code, but it's using a serial
>> driveable LCD not just some random calculator display, but it may help.
>>
>> h.
>>
>> On Fri, 18 Dec 2009, Matthew Kotys wrote:
>>
>>> Does anybody here have experience with electronics design, and
>>> interfacing
>>> USB / Serial / Parallel ports on Linux hosts? My intent is to mess around
>>> with controlling DC/stepper motors, temperature sensors, maybe a USB
>>> <--> IR
>>> adapter for TV remotes. I have done a few "Hello World" projects on PIC
>>> uCs, but I'm sort of bored with blinking lights in succession and
>>> triggering
>>> a piezo buzzer. I have a basic understanding of DC circuits, but I'm
>>> not so
>>> good at peripherals and drivers. I use C, Perl, Python, PHP, bash
>>> scripting
>>> all the time...
>>>
>>> Maybe I would start like this:
>>>
>>> project 1: build a USB morse code receiver, translating to text as it
>>> takes
>>> in user input
>>> The translation software for this would be interesting to write
>>>
>>> project 2: build a USB morse code* transceiver*, allowing for tty
>>> sessions
>>> entirely in morse - (funny)
>>>
>>> project 3: rip out an LCD from an old calculator, connect it to a
>>> keyboard
>>> and a breadboard, and run a serial (or USB) cable across the room from my
>>> PC. So, an actual (and really dumb) tty
>>>
>>> Any pushes in the right direction are welcome, since googling tends to
>>> make
>>> the hours pass way too quickly.
>>>
>>> --
>>> Matt Kotys
>>>
>>
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