gramo
New Member
USB is probably a lot of overkill for this application, perhaps the USART would be suffice?
I should have though before I typed earlier, Use Swordfish if your heading down the 18F road, it too has USB support. Many people rate it as the best 18F compiler available considering its time on the market.
USART is serial transfer over a single wire, and communicating with your PC is quite simple via a COM Port. There are many alternatives out there, I use the DS275 and MAX232.
The DS275 is a single chip solution, but costs more, **broken link removed**
The MAX232 requires 4 external capacitors, but is less than half the cost of the DS275, **broken link removed** (still being designed - but the jist of it is there)
The reason why you need another device to buffer between the PIC and the PC is because of the large voltages that the RS232 signals from the PC have. The 'interface' device acts like a buffer, and reduces the signals to 0 to 5V.
A simple, crude series resistor would limit the current, but is not really recommended...
Now you can bypass the USB learning curve and settle for something a little simpler.
I should have though before I typed earlier, Use Swordfish if your heading down the 18F road, it too has USB support. Many people rate it as the best 18F compiler available considering its time on the market.
USART is serial transfer over a single wire, and communicating with your PC is quite simple via a COM Port. There are many alternatives out there, I use the DS275 and MAX232.
The DS275 is a single chip solution, but costs more, **broken link removed**
The MAX232 requires 4 external capacitors, but is less than half the cost of the DS275, **broken link removed** (still being designed - but the jist of it is there)
The reason why you need another device to buffer between the PIC and the PC is because of the large voltages that the RS232 signals from the PC have. The 'interface' device acts like a buffer, and reduces the signals to 0 to 5V.
A simple, crude series resistor would limit the current, but is not really recommended...
Now you can bypass the USB learning curve and settle for something a little simpler.