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cabracer
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2007
Total Posts : 12

Posted 11/6/2009 3:56 PM (GMT -8)

Hi,

i am interested in using the usb dev tool for two different projects and i was looking for some help

here is what i would like to do:

1) i want to make a usb game controller that can interface with any or most games that a standard off the shelf device would, for instance a joystick or steering wheel and pedals

2) make a usb interface device that could be controlled

for example a remote controlled car with gps and temp sensor on it

i realize that if i wanted to present data like temp and gps that i would need some sort of interface software on the pc, but the simplest version would be a car that i could control with an existing steering wheel and pedals from logitech for example or the one i made in section 1)

i was just looking for some starter points or ideas or anything that could help

thanks

cab

Mike Green
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2004
Total Posts : 13553

Posted 11/6/2009 5:31 PM (GMT -8)

Keep in mind that the USB2SER only does one thing ... it acts as a USB serial port and provides serial data out the transmit pin and accepts serial data on the receive pin. It also provides a "reset" signal triggered by a change in the DTR control line. That's it.

It's a USB client or slave and can only be attached to a USB host like a PC. It can't control any other USB devices, so #1 is impossible without the PC doing pretty much all the work.

As a USB client, it can only send and receive serial info from a PC, so you'd have to have interface software on the PC where other devices might be plugged in (like a steering wheel and pedals) and the interface software would send info from the "other devices" to the USB2SER where it could be acted upon.

One exception might be to have a Vinculum chip based USB host like the Parallax Memorystick Datalogger. You can use one of these as a USB host and can plug in some USB devices instead of a memory stick, like joysticks and keyboards. You might be able to get the Logitech devices to work with it, but that wouldn't use the USB2SER adapter.

cabracer
Registered Member

Date Joined Jun 2007
Total Posts : 12

Posted 11/6/2009 9:39 PM (GMT -8)

mike,

thanks for the quick response as usual

i am interested in interfacing with a pc and i dont mind if it does all the work

for 1) i want to plug it into my pc and use the device as a joystck for my game

and for 2) i want to plug the cotrolled device into my pc and control it with either a sw program that will have gui or with an existing usb device

does this help?

if i cant do this with this product what can i use to build a standard usb human interface device

thanks again

cab

Mike Green
Registered Member

Date Joined Oct 2004
Total Posts : 13553

Posted 11/6/2009 9:55 PM (GMT -8)

Both the Propeller and several different PICs have the ability to behave like a USB HID. The problem is that they all cheat and don't really behave like a real HID according to the USB standards. For most PCs, that's good enough, but don't be surprised if they sometimes don't work. Again, you can't do #1 with any of the USB devices that Parallax sells. Like I said, you might be able to get a Propeller to fake a USB joystick, but it might be easier to buy a cheap USB joystick and hack it to do what you want. You can do #2, but not the way you want. Your "controlled device" can communicate with a program on the PC using serial data (via the USB2SER). One example of this is StampPlot Pro which has a GUI (here: www.parallax.com/tabid/441/Default.aspx).

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