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Getting started from...trash! — Parallax Forums

Getting started from...trash!

TomatoTomato Posts: 23
edited 2011-01-15 19:07 in BASIC Stamp
Ok, well not exactly trash. A friend of mine had a Basic Stamp 2 and ended up giving it to me (along with a bunch of other stuff she had). I have a handful of headers that I've fished out of the trash. Got a few female DB9 connectors from the garbage heap too. My laptop has no serial port, but...wait for it...I found a working laptop in the garbage as well!! Who knew? It's an old clunky thing running Windows ME. So I downloaded the Basic Stamp Editor software from Parallax and installed it on my trash laptop (trashtop?). I soldered up some wires onto 4 headers and a DB9 connector, which I plugged into the male 9-pin RS232 port on the Trashtop. That particular port appears to be labeled |O|O|.

Well, I got the software running, and wrote a tiny little "blink an LED" program, but no dice. When I hit "Run," I get a message saying that there is no Basic Stamp detected. What gives? I mean, I pretty much made my own serial cable...I think. Is there something more to a serial cable then just 9 (in this 4) conductors??

BTW, the Trashtop is a Dell Inspiron 7500.

Any help is much appreciated,
Tomato

Comments

  • bsnutbsnut Posts: 521
    edited 2011-01-14 23:07
    She wasn't mad at anyone:smile:. That said, you need to check to see if you have a good 9VDC battery or the plug-in power supply. It needs to between 8 to 9.5V Make sure that the Com port in the Basic Stamp Editor.
    I pretty much made my own serial cable
    Another thing I would check, is your homemade cable. It needs to be straight through, meaning pin for pin. I would try a USB to Serial cable, which should take care of problem.
  • TomatoTomato Posts: 23
    edited 2011-01-15 00:34
    Hey man thanks for the reply. Well, it turns out that I found the problem. ANd the problem is...I'm a retard! Lol, I had just plugged in my ghetto fab serial cable and expected magic to happen. Turns out, electronic things need, uh, electricity. A quick dig through the bonepile and I found a nice 9VDC smps, so I stuck two header pins on there and marked the positive one, slapped a 7805 on my breadboard and now I'm cookin. ROFL I guess I got a little too excited.

    Wrote my first program ever: I got a buzzer to sound a tone. It's basically the same as the Blink-THe-LED program, except I just made the pauses and the on-states both really short. Man, 3:30am and I'm feeling pretty happy. My microcontroller cherry has officially been popped lol.

    Thanks,
    Tomato
  • $WMc%$WMc% Posts: 1,884
    edited 2011-01-15 19:07
    Tomato:
    '
    Congrats!!!
    '
    I hope you bought a LOTO ticket! (your on a lucky streak--laptop find and all)
    '
    Welcome to the forums.
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