How to get data from an ethernet connection to an LED display?

kchriste said:

OK, here ya go. The data I posted below may have to be inverted depending on how the Velleman outputs a logic high/low, but the basic principle is there. I assume a bit set to 1 turns the output transistor off (Makes the output high) in the example data below:
E1
F1
D2
F2
B3
F3
74
F4

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Doh! I only have 2 of the 4511s. But I do have an ICM7212 4 digit decoder driver, any good?

Al

ericgibbs said:

hi Al,
Does the laptop have a parallel printer port.?

Are you planning to use that 'bit serial' 4 digit LED for the Time display.?

If yes and yes, its possible to drive the remote LED thru the parallel port, using a small program in the laptop.

Have you finished all the paint jobs yet.?..

Click to expand...

Hi Eric nice to hear from you again mate. As to the decorating mine is all done, yours done yet?

As to your questions, no parallel port or even serial! Only outputs are USB, Firewire and Ethernet.

Yes I was planning on using the serial LED, but with what everyone is replying with I may end up using ordinary 7 segs instead.

All the best...........Al

Nigel Goodwin said:

The UBW is a cheap and easy way to connect external items to a modern computer, where you don't have parallel or serial ports.

UBW (USB Bit Whacker) Project

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Hi Nigel,

Thanks for the link mate, I am just going to have a looksee, just hope some of it is down to my level!

Al

bigal_scorpio said:

Doh! I only have 2 of the 4511s. But I do have an ICM7212 4 digit decoder driver, any good?

Click to expand...

That would work too. It is very similar to the circuit I posted, but all in one chip.

You really have to decide whether you want to use the USB interface to do the double duty of decoding the Ibus. If not, the Velleman kit and the ICM7212 will work. If you want to decode the Ibus, then the more versatile/complex UBW is the way to go. It could be done with the Velleman too, but you'd need to add a 2nd PIC to decode the Ibus.

kchriste said:

That would work too. It is very similar to the circuit I posted, but all in one chip.

You really have to decide whether you want to use the USB interface to do the double duty of decoding the Ibus. If not, the Velleman kit and the ICM7212 will work. If you want to decode the Ibus, then the more versatile/complex UBW is the way to go. It could be done with the Velleman too, but you'd need to add a 2nd PIC to decode the Ibus.

Click to expand...

Hi mate,

The UBW seems the way to go then but could you explain how I would interface both the 1 wire of the Ibus, the LED display and the USB from the PC at the same time?

I will probably just order one of the kits from sparkfun if it will do all that. Will it? And is there a specific one which would be best?

Thanks for your patience..........Al

bigal_scorpio said:

The UBW seems the way to go then but could you explain how I would interface both the 1 wire of the Ibus, the LED display and the USB from the PC at the same time?

Click to expand...

Since the UBW code is open source, you can modify the 18F2553 firmware to add code. Since the Ibus is really just 1 wire serial in 9600bps (8E1) format, the 18F2553's UART should be able to snoop the Ibus. Though I haven't looked into it in detail, it looks like it would work with the hardware UART on the 18F2553 if interfaced via a TH3044 or equivalent circuitry. To communicate with the LED display, you could use the 18F2553's MSSP module in SPI mode. All this would require modification of the C code supplied with the UBW. If you don't already know C, this is not a good starter project.