PIC24 Host

Hey everyone. I am a final year engineering student and my project is to capture data from a USB Blood Sugar Meter(It is a Mass storage device) through a PIC microcontroller acting as a USB host. Now i am a newbie and i need help regarding about what development tools to use. Some say i should use PICkit2 to program, others recommend i should buy PIC explorer 16 Dev board. I am confused about what hardware to use. Till now i have decided to use PIC24FJ64GA004.

Please ANY help/guidance will be MUCH appreciated.

P.S oh yes ! it HAS to be a PIC. i am not using Atmel or AVR.

Please just put me in a right direction.

THANKS. Aimen.

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Reply to
peenukimaa
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First YOU should learn the difference between USB HOST and USB SLAVE.

The PIC24FJ64GA004 is fine, but it does not have any USB support.

see

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for details.

The pickit2 will work fine if you have a PCB with chips soldered on it already.

If not, buying a pre-assembled PIC board would be a good idea.

good luck, let us know if you get this done in time.

hamilton

Reply to
hamilton

That doesn't add up. If it's a mass storage device, then the data has _already_ been captured by that device. There's no capturing left to do by you.

That's going to be tricky. _Real_ tricky. Being a USB host requires a serious processor. PICs generally aren't.

Is that qualified to be a USB _host_?

Be careful you don't put yourself on an impossible mission there.

Reply to
Hans-Bernhard Bröker

I think the OP may mean that they want to read out the existing data on the device and that it presents itself as a mass storage device when data extraction is required.

Depends on the PIC range. The PIC32MX has OTG capability in some of it's devices, although if you want to do anything serious (with any significant memory requirements for example), I still think that will not be viable.

A quick look on the Microchip website would seem to suggest no.

However, the PIC24FJ64GB004 (instead of PIC24FJ64GA004) does appear to have OTG capability.

If the chip has to have Microchip written on it, I wonder if the OP will find more headroom with a PIC32MX ?

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
Reply to
Simon Clubley

This is exactly what we plan to do. We want to read the data stored in that sugar meter.

significant

PIC24FJ256GB004 has OTG capability.

what Development tool would you suggest Sir ? Please reply me and thanks for the previous reply.

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Reply to
peenukimaa

You are right sir, it isn't.. therefore i have now planned to use PIC24FJ256GB110, this supports USB OTG capability.

Example ? Are you talking about Explorer 16 Dev Board ? If you could just tell me that i could use the dev board without PICkit 2. I have my own universal burner that i will use to bun the program.. What do you think ?

Btw you guys really put me in a right direction.

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Reply to
peenukimaa

I see in your other response you have chosen another PIC24.

Once you have read the data from the device, what do you intend to do with it ?

In other words, are you going to have, for example, enough RAM present in your chosen PIC24 device to be able to process your data once you have read it from the device ?

What are you going to use for the USB host stack ? Are you allowed to use the Microchip example stack, or do you have to write your own basic stack as part of your project ?

I will let others here make some PIC32MX toolkit suggestions; I only came across this device a couple of months ago, and while evaluating it is on my todo list, I have not done anything with it yet.

[The initial approach I intend to take with the PIC32MX is to use a recent mainstream FSF gcc toolchain (not the Microchip supplied version), write my own headers/startup code and use the AVR based programmer I built to program PIC18F MCUs, but with software enhancements to support the PIC32MX.

I doubt this type of approach would be suitable for you and would suggest you look at existing PIC32MX toolkit options if you find the PIC24 to not be suitable, but do find the PIC32MX to be suitable.]

To get you started however, Olimex make PIC32MX boards, so you may want to ask on the Sparkfun forums what development environments people are using with those boards.

Simon.

--
Simon Clubley, clubley@remove_me.eisner.decus.org-Earth.UFP
Microsoft: Bringing you 1980s technology to a 21st century world
Reply to
Simon Clubley

at

PICKIT3.

Work fine for PIC24FJDAs and PIC32MXs, both with USB Host. I would go for PIC32, simple because i don't see much savings in PIC24.

Reply to
linnix

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