IRDA for the Basic Stamp

Humanoido

I'm currently looking at irda communications. The hardware can consist of an IR emitter (IR LED) and IR photodetector. I'd like to keep this as simple as possible and stay away from other chips, and use just the input and output sensors on Penguin Robot. Another Penguin could be the second rx/tx. Is there some simple data communications software for this arrangement?

The code could run on the fast Basic Stamp 2px. I read a lot of material on the web but nothing seems to fit this simple application. There's irda on most robot toys and on many computers. It should be do-able on a basic stamp. So can anyone point me in the right direction with some examples for the stamp? I appreciate this help immensely.

humanoido

Mike Green

I don't think any of the Stamps are fast enough to do IrDA without at least some external hardware. Look at Maxim's MAX3100 which is an SPI UART with IrDA timing.

allanlane5

+1 the Maxim MAX3100. The problem with IRDA (and there are many) include very short range (3"), susceptible to flourescent light noise, the MAX3100 has like 24 pins and not a lot of buffer space and needs an external crystal, AND slow communication rates.

Perhaps what you're really talking about is not IRDA (tm) but simple Infra-red (IR) data sending and recieving. That can be done fairly simply using an IR-LED with 220 ohm resistor on one side, and an inexpensive IR-Decoder chip on the other -- which I believe the Penguin already comes with for IR obstacle detection.

The BS2 can 'output' a bit with a "FREQOUT IR_Pin, 1, 38500". The other BS2 can recieve a bit with "PULSIN IRDecPin, BitValue". Use a 1 millisecond bit-time for zero, 2 millisecond bit-time for one, and you can do data transmission without further hardware of any kind.

Humanoido

Thanks sincerely Mike, and allanlane5. Yes, you are exactly right, it's the simple IR data send and receive that I'm talking about. You suggestion is perfect. Thanks again.

humanoido