Recive data from sensor circuit
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One night I came up with a random idea to make an ultrasonic underwater exploration robot. This robot will use ultrasonic transducers to communicate with a laptop on the surface of a body of water. I found some test transducers which are water proof and I got a small aquarium tank to test the devices in. Now, I never worked with communications nor have done much analog to digital interface work...long story short I'm a communications newbie who needs a little push in the right direction. What I am asking for is some information or link to a place where I can learn more about how to receive digital output data from my sensor circuit using C#. The output is TTL logic (5v+) and I am not sure how to go about obtaining the data that is being outputted. So I just connect the output to the data line of a USB and open up hyper terminal? Will i receive anything? I apologize for what might be stupid questions. :) Any help would be greatly appreciated.
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One night I came up with a random idea to make an ultrasonic underwater exploration robot. This robot will use ultrasonic transducers to communicate with a laptop on the surface of a body of water. I found some test transducers which are water proof and I got a small aquarium tank to test the devices in. Now, I never worked with communications nor have done much analog to digital interface work...long story short I'm a communications newbie who needs a little push in the right direction. What I am asking for is some information or link to a place where I can learn more about how to receive digital output data from my sensor circuit using C#. The output is TTL logic (5v+) and I am not sure how to go about obtaining the data that is being outputted. So I just connect the output to the data line of a USB and open up hyper terminal? Will i receive anything? I apologize for what might be stupid questions. :) Any help would be greatly appreciated.
AFAIK, the serial port is your best bet, interfacing to an inpout.dll ( there's one on CP somewhere )
Christian Graus Driven to the arms of OSX by Vista. "! i don't exactly like or do programming and it only gives me a headache." - spotted in VB forums. I can do things with my brain that I can't even google. I can flex the front part of my brain instantly anytime I want. It can be exhausting and it even causes me vision problems for some reason. - CaptainSeeSharp
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One night I came up with a random idea to make an ultrasonic underwater exploration robot. This robot will use ultrasonic transducers to communicate with a laptop on the surface of a body of water. I found some test transducers which are water proof and I got a small aquarium tank to test the devices in. Now, I never worked with communications nor have done much analog to digital interface work...long story short I'm a communications newbie who needs a little push in the right direction. What I am asking for is some information or link to a place where I can learn more about how to receive digital output data from my sensor circuit using C#. The output is TTL logic (5v+) and I am not sure how to go about obtaining the data that is being outputted. So I just connect the output to the data line of a USB and open up hyper terminal? Will i receive anything? I apologize for what might be stupid questions. :) Any help would be greatly appreciated.
It may be worth having a look at how external microcontrollers (microchip, atmel etc...) interface with computers to get some pointers. There are lots of examples around. You may find the easiest way could be to connect your hardware to one of those and use that to communicate with the computer via USART/SPI or whatever. It can be done with a USB connection but that is going to be complicated. As Christian said, a serial port connection will probably be the easiest solution.
Dave
BTW, in software, hope and pray is not a viable strategy. (Luc Pattyn)
Visual Basic is not used by normal people so we're not covering it here. (Uncyclopedia)
Why are you using VB6? Do you hate yourself? (Christian Graus) -
One night I came up with a random idea to make an ultrasonic underwater exploration robot. This robot will use ultrasonic transducers to communicate with a laptop on the surface of a body of water. I found some test transducers which are water proof and I got a small aquarium tank to test the devices in. Now, I never worked with communications nor have done much analog to digital interface work...long story short I'm a communications newbie who needs a little push in the right direction. What I am asking for is some information or link to a place where I can learn more about how to receive digital output data from my sensor circuit using C#. The output is TTL logic (5v+) and I am not sure how to go about obtaining the data that is being outputted. So I just connect the output to the data line of a USB and open up hyper terminal? Will i receive anything? I apologize for what might be stupid questions. :) Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Direct connection between the actual transducer and teh serial / USB port won't work, unless (very unlikely) it transducer has an AtoD converter and interface built in. What yours provides is a TTL level: 0V or +5V (nominal, above ~3V is allowed) TTL Levels if you need to know or are interested.[^] What you will need to do is to connect the transducer to either an interface board or some microcontroller (try PIC) that can interface directly to serial / USB. You can then use whatever communications protocol you need (and can implement!) Good luch, and have fun!:thumbsup:
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Direct connection between the actual transducer and teh serial / USB port won't work, unless (very unlikely) it transducer has an AtoD converter and interface built in. What yours provides is a TTL level: 0V or +5V (nominal, above ~3V is allowed) TTL Levels if you need to know or are interested.[^] What you will need to do is to connect the transducer to either an interface board or some microcontroller (try PIC) that can interface directly to serial / USB. You can then use whatever communications protocol you need (and can implement!) Good luch, and have fun!:thumbsup:
No trees were harmed in the sending of this message; however, a significant number of electrons were slightly inconvenienced. This message is made of fully recyclable Zeros and Ones
