USB prototyping and VID/PIDs

I'm very new to USB but have done enough study (I think) to be ready to do a prototype development for a high speed bulk transfer project. But one thing confuses me and that is the need for a VID and PID. I'm looking at the Phillips ISP1581 (which I can get today at DigiKey) and want to build a custom peripheral which I probably will never sell or distribute but will use for my own benefit or use.

If I design my project to fit within a standard Visual Studio.Net class for bulk transfer (and therefore should not need to develop a driver, how do I come up with the VIDs and PIDs so my peripheral will be recognized and communicated with? I obviously don't want to pay $1500 for a VID/PID.

Thanks for any help on this - (by the way I did try to search for an answer within groups but haven't found one yet that clearly answers my question).

Reply to
porscheGuy
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For prototyping or internal use, just make one up.

For production, you can buy a small block of PIDs here :

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Reply to
Mike Harrison

If your project is a one-time deal for personal use only on computers that you control which USB drivers are installed on it, you can simply pick a VID and PID of a manufacturer whose products you will never use. The chances are good that you'll never have a problem. You will need to obtain the VID list from USB.org and scan it for the least likely VID owner. The PID is your second line of defense to a VID collision.

Beware, there are at least two sources of problems with this plan:

  1. Drivers referring to VIDs and PIDs are sometimes installed automatically by the OS vendor whether you use them or not. I don't know why but I've seen these USB entries in my registry.
  2. It's not so easy to correlate company names to products. There's so much subcontracting going on out there that one VID owner might use his VIDs in several of his client company's products. That leaves PID allocation the responsibility of the subcontractor and management are generally clueless about VIDs and PIDs and the mysterious problems that users will encounter when a VID/PID collision happens.

A VID/PID collision is not something you'll want to suffer through. It's repairable but a PIA.

(BTW, you don't buy a VID/PID. You just buy a VID. Then you're free to allocate the 65000 PIDs anyway you like.)

JJS

Reply to
johnspeth

"just make one up"? How do I do that, and isn't the issue that the standard classes require the VID and PID to be recognized before they will allow USB communication?

I need a real step-by-step instruction here - or a link to one. Maybe this is one of those - "oh, that's simple, I should have figured that out" things but it seems like people do a lot of work on drivers to allow recognition of a USB peripheral and they also complain of paying for a VID and PID.

Reply to
porscheGuy

Ahhhh - that is a useful response.

Thanks --

Reply to
porscheGuy

Reply to
Elan Magavi

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