Seamless Serial Communications with the Stamp

Otter

Crew,

Okay, now I'm convinced that I should use a microcontroller, however, since this (planned) robot is only now allowed to have one processor, I'm going to have to pile a lot of responsibilities onto this one simple little stamp.

Now, there is this Parallax 433 MHz RF Transceiver Package... do they actually function in tandem as a transciever?· Will that only cost me one I/O pin to perform that task?· Has anybody run into I/O problems with these things (signal loss... LONG waits for throughput, etc.).

Granted, I don't want to waste the team's time too much on this one... we can drop this thread after a few guys give me your advice... we don't have to drag this one on too long.

Sincerely,

-Todd


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Mike Green

The transceiver package consists of two transmitters and two receivers. You put a transmitter and a receiver on each end and you can have one direction at a time communicating. Since a Stamp can only receive serial information or transmit serial information at one time, this is not an additional limitation. Each direction will use one I/O pin.

Signal loss: Of course, if you separate the two units sufficiently or if there's overriding noise from another device on the same frequency.

Throughput: These units just transmit a signal when activated. There's no buffering or error control for that matter. You have to do that yourself.

These are simple units. They do their job. They're not Bluetooth or xBee, but one unit transmits an on/off signal and the other will receive it and present it to the microcontroller at the other end.