Communicating with an USB Device
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Then the device is more-than-likely exposed on a normal COM port. You can probably get to it using any terminal emulator software that uses serial communication (like HyperTerminal). If so, then you can use the SerialPort class in the .NET Framework 2.0 (System.Io.Ports namespace) to talk to it from your code.
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Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007 -
You just told me you HAD a serial cable and had the device connected to it...??
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Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007 -
Hi again.. I found out that the Computer the device has to be connected to, does not contain any serial port.. So I have to use USB to this. Is it really that hard to communicate with an USB port?
haolan wrote:
Is it really that hard to communicate with an USB port?
You don't talk to a USB port. USB is not really a port. What does USB stand for?? "Universial Serial BUS". It works more like the slots inside the computer, not like the ports on the back of it. Yes, it's THAT difficult. You don't take to the bus itself. You talk to each device using whatever methods that device exposes. That could be through drivers, Device I/O calls, normal file system functions, or, in your case, through a COM port.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007 -
haolan wrote:
Is it really that hard to communicate with an USB port?
You don't talk to a USB port. USB is not really a port. What does USB stand for?? "Universial Serial BUS". It works more like the slots inside the computer, not like the ports on the back of it. Yes, it's THAT difficult. You don't take to the bus itself. You talk to each device using whatever methods that device exposes. That could be through drivers, Device I/O calls, normal file system functions, or, in your case, through a COM port.
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Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007Ahh ok.. I connected the device again, and found out that if I run: string[] ports = SerialPort.GetPortNames(); foreach (string p in ports) { Console.WriteLine(p); } It has created a new COM port named COM6. So i guess i should be able to communicate with my device through that port? I have created the following code for communication: SerialPort sp = new SerialPort("COM6", 1200, Parity.None, 8, StopBits.One); try { sp.Open(); sp.Write("GET"); sp.ReadTimeout = 10000; string ans = sp.ReadLine(); } catch (Exception e) { Console.WriteLine(e.Message); } finally { sp.Close(); } I get timeout when I am waiting for answer, but I guess it could be a mistake of how to communicate with the device.
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Ahh ok.. I connected the device again, and found out that if I run: string[] ports = SerialPort.GetPortNames(); foreach (string p in ports) { Console.WriteLine(p); } It has created a new COM port named COM6. So i guess i should be able to communicate with my device through that port? I have created the following code for communication: SerialPort sp = new SerialPort("COM6", 1200, Parity.None, 8, StopBits.One); try { sp.Open(); sp.Write("GET"); sp.ReadTimeout = 10000; string ans = sp.ReadLine(); } catch (Exception e) { Console.WriteLine(e.Message); } finally { sp.Close(); } I get timeout when I am waiting for answer, but I guess it could be a mistake of how to communicate with the device.
haolan wrote:
It has created a new COM port named COM6. So i guess i should be able to communicate with my device through that port?
Probably. Noone except you can relly tell that. Open up HyperTerminal, set the port to COM6, set the parameters to what the device expects, connect, type in your commands and see what happens.
haolan wrote:
SerialPort sp = new SerialPort("COM6", 1200, Parity.None, 8, StopBits.One);
If you don't get a response, or you get a response containing garbage, then you've most likely either got the wrong COM port, or got the communication parameters wrong.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007 -
haolan wrote:
It has created a new COM port named COM6. So i guess i should be able to communicate with my device through that port?
Probably. Noone except you can relly tell that. Open up HyperTerminal, set the port to COM6, set the parameters to what the device expects, connect, type in your commands and see what happens.
haolan wrote:
SerialPort sp = new SerialPort("COM6", 1200, Parity.None, 8, StopBits.One);
If you don't get a response, or you get a response containing garbage, then you've most likely either got the wrong COM port, or got the communication parameters wrong.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007The communication parameters should be ok. My laptop is a bit weird though.. It has a lot of COM ports (from 3 to 16).. When i connect my device it has two COM3 ports, I hope that it wont make any trouple with my communication.. But how do I use HyperTerminal for such a thing? When I open HyperTermial it seems that it only can communicate with Modems??
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The communication parameters should be ok. My laptop is a bit weird though.. It has a lot of COM ports (from 3 to 16).. When i connect my device it has two COM3 ports, I hope that it wont make any trouple with my communication.. But how do I use HyperTerminal for such a thing? When I open HyperTermial it seems that it only can communicate with Modems??
haolan wrote:
When i connect my device it has two COM3 ports,
Yeah, that's a problem. You can't have multiple ports having the same COM number.
haolan wrote:
It has a lot of COM ports (from 3 to 16)..
Why so many?? I hope this isn't normal for your machine...
haolan wrote:
When I open HyperTermial it seems that it only can communicate with Modems??
HyperTerminal talks to any serial device, not just Modems. BTW, a modem is just another serial device. All you do is launch HyperTerminal, give the session a name, pick the COM port you want to use, give it the communication parameters, and go...
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007 -
haolan wrote:
When i connect my device it has two COM3 ports,
Yeah, that's a problem. You can't have multiple ports having the same COM number.
haolan wrote:
It has a lot of COM ports (from 3 to 16)..
Why so many?? I hope this isn't normal for your machine...
haolan wrote:
When I open HyperTermial it seems that it only can communicate with Modems??
HyperTerminal talks to any serial device, not just Modems. BTW, a modem is just another serial device. All you do is launch HyperTerminal, give the session a name, pick the COM port you want to use, give it the communication parameters, and go...
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007I do not know why there are so many ports.. It doesn't have any physical comports. But nevermind.. I got my program to work.. The only problem was that the baudrate was only 1200, so I had to wait a little time after I have wrote the GET method to the device before trying to read from it. I have tried in a windows application to add a timer, but that doesn't seem to work, but if I place a for (int i; i < 100000; i++) between the read and write, it probably works fine. I really cant figure out what the difference is. I gotta find out, because the program can be run at different CPU's. Maybe you have a solution? Another thing that I am worried about is the COM Port name. It is different for each computer I connect it to.. Is there any way to find out which COM port my device is connected to?
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I do not know why there are so many ports.. It doesn't have any physical comports. But nevermind.. I got my program to work.. The only problem was that the baudrate was only 1200, so I had to wait a little time after I have wrote the GET method to the device before trying to read from it. I have tried in a windows application to add a timer, but that doesn't seem to work, but if I place a for (int i; i < 100000; i++) between the read and write, it probably works fine. I really cant figure out what the difference is. I gotta find out, because the program can be run at different CPU's. Maybe you have a solution? Another thing that I am worried about is the COM Port name. It is different for each computer I connect it to.. Is there any way to find out which COM port my device is connected to?
You can't simply put a Write, then a Read, then a Write for the next command, then a Read, ..., in order an expect it to work. Your design is going to have to be much more flexible, like writing a method to send a command, another method to setup an asynchronous read of the port, another method to handle timeouts. A timer is completely useless to you. <blockquote class="FQ"><div class="FQA">haolan wrote:</div>Another thing that I am worried about is the COM Port name. It is different for each computer I connect it to.. Is there any way to find out which COM port my device is connected to? </blockquote> The only way to know is to go through each COM port on the machine and issue some command to it that the device understands and responds to. If the response in what you expect, you found the device. There is no other way to do it.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007 -
You can't simply put a Write, then a Read, then a Write for the next command, then a Read, ..., in order an expect it to work. Your design is going to have to be much more flexible, like writing a method to send a command, another method to setup an asynchronous read of the port, another method to handle timeouts. A timer is completely useless to you. <blockquote class="FQ"><div class="FQA">haolan wrote:</div>Another thing that I am worried about is the COM Port name. It is different for each computer I connect it to.. Is there any way to find out which COM port my device is connected to? </blockquote> The only way to know is to go through each COM port on the machine and issue some command to it that the device understands and responds to. If the response in what you expect, you found the device. There is no other way to do it.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007Ok.. So translated into code you are saying that I should do something like this when i read: while(true) { DoRead(); if(TimeOutException) ReadAgain; else { if(bytesToRead > 10) ReadAgain; else break; } } I know this isn't a real code, just a little theory.. The 10 bytes to read is because I know that the valid data always will be 10 characters long. Is this correct understood? By the way.. I really appreciate your patience in this thread ;) Sorry if my english seems a little bad sometimes, I am not originally english and it has been a while since I last got lections in it. :)
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Ok.. So translated into code you are saying that I should do something like this when i read: while(true) { DoRead(); if(TimeOutException) ReadAgain; else { if(bytesToRead > 10) ReadAgain; else break; } } I know this isn't a real code, just a little theory.. The 10 bytes to read is because I know that the valid data always will be 10 characters long. Is this correct understood? By the way.. I really appreciate your patience in this thread ;) Sorry if my english seems a little bad sometimes, I am not originally english and it has been a while since I last got lections in it. :)
haolan wrote:
So translated into code you are saying that I should do something like this when i read:
Kind of, though there are async read methods that do all of this work for you and call you when there is some data to read.
haolan wrote:
The 10 bytes to read is because I know that the valid data always will be 10 characters long.
That's not how you do it. Even though your return data may be 10 bytes, you can still get it in several small chunks in multiple reads. Your code has to be able to reassemble the data as it comes in so it can provide a completed message back to the code that's expecting a 10 byte message.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007 -
haolan wrote:
So translated into code you are saying that I should do something like this when i read:
Kind of, though there are async read methods that do all of this work for you and call you when there is some data to read.
haolan wrote:
The 10 bytes to read is because I know that the valid data always will be 10 characters long.
That's not how you do it. Even though your return data may be 10 bytes, you can still get it in several small chunks in multiple reads. Your code has to be able to reassemble the data as it comes in so it can provide a completed message back to the code that's expecting a 10 byte message.
A guide to posting questions on CodeProject[^]
Dave Kreskowiak Microsoft MVP Visual Developer - Visual Basic
2006, 2007Ok.. I found this example at MSDN: public static void Read() { while (_continue) { try { string message = _serialPort.ReadLine(); Console.WriteLine(message); } catch (TimeoutException) { } } } And then you say I have to create a method that tries to parse the code, to check if it is a valid message, and if not, then it should run the read() again until the code can be parsed right?