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Building a basic USB device?

Greetings, all.

I have a requirement for getting some external sensor-data (possibly analogue, possible digital, not sure yet) into a PC (Linux, not Windows).

This will need to be a USB connection, as it needs to be easily assembled by an untrained user.

Can anyone recommend a good place to look for initial information about creating a USB device, alternatives, etc?

Basically, I'm not sure where to start. Is there such a thing as a generic USB controller that I can integrate into a circuit? Am I barking up the wrong tree completely?

Thanks.

Reply to
cylindric
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You can buy USB cards here:

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Regards,
  Bob Monsen

I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World
War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.
    Albert Einstein
Reply to
Bob Monsen

Hi. To work on making a USB interface, get "USB Complete: Everything You Need to Develop Custom USB Peripherals", Third Edition by Jan Axelson. You could also look at the Jan Axelson/Lakeview Research USB homepage for supplemental information, as well as other weblinks.

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Good luck Chris

Reply to
Chris

there are a heap of variants at:

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all the items based on the FTDI devices have Linux drivers. may give you some ideas.

Don...

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Don McKenzie
E-Mail Contact Page:               http://www.dontronics.com/e-mail.html

Micro,TTL,USB to 1.5" color LCD http://www.dontronics.com/micro-lcd.html
USB,RS232 or TTL to VGA Monitor http://www.dontronics.com/micro-vga.html
World\'s smallest USB 2 TTL Conv http://www.dontronics.com/micro-usb.html
Reply to
Don McKenzie

Hi,

have a look at this one:

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This one is Human Interface Device driver compatible which is present on almost every OS. Gives you 6 analog and 28 digital inputs with a minimal effort. Should be enough for most applications. (Haven't tested it though.)

Regards, Leo

schrieb im Newsbeitrag news: snipped-for-privacy@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...

Reply to
Leo Meyer

Thanks guys, that's exactly the sort of info I need to get started. I'm completely out of my depth, so it will be an interesting learning experience :D

Basically I need to get data from several environmental sensors to a black-box monitor PC (sbc/embedded/etc) for ultimate presentation via http. I think the sensor-data is probably going to be from analogue varying-resistance devices, so I may need to build a small component to enable multiple different types of sensors to interface with the monitor PC.

I'm new to programming anything with "real" devices, rather than data-only services like websites etc, so this should be an interesting project!

Reply to
cylindric

Good. You may want to look at the Lab Jack, a USB-interface device with built-in 20 digital I/O, 8 ea. 12-bit analog inputs and two 10-bit analog outputs. It's got a lot of other features. They do have Linux drivers, but they primarily support the Windows environment. If the hardware is appropriate, for $119 in single quantities you can just wire up your terminal blocks, plug the LabJack into the PC USB, and move on to the programming issues. It's worth checking out:

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Good luck Chris

Reply to
Chris

Those futurlec guys are also selling some kind of web based sensor thingy, which you might want to take a look at.

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--
Regards,
  Bob Monsen

He who cherishes the values of culture cannot fail to be a pacifist.
    Albert Einstein (1879 - 1955)
Reply to
Bob Monsen

Circuit Cellar magazine has had some hands-on articles in the last year or so, at least in the dead-tree version. You might check what they have on their Web site.

Best regards,

Bob Masta dqatechATdaqartaDOTcom D A Q A R T A Data AcQuisition And Real-Time Analysis

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Home of DaqGen, the FREEWARE signal generator

Reply to
Bob Masta

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