Vinculum II with Prop1
Rayman
Posts: 14,670
I've been trying out the Vinculum II a bit.... I'm pretty excited about the possibilities here....
Things I'd like to do:
Wireless keyboard and mouse
flash drive
camera
Keyboard and mouse look to be not too hard.
I've got a V2DIP-32 plugged into the breadboard of a Propeller Demo board and have it talking to the Prop using 9600 baud serial connection using just 2 pins.
Was able to get it working with a vanilla USB keyboard and also a USB mouse.
But, that was just one of the two USB ports at a time. Controlling 2 simultaneous USB ports over a single serial connection will require a bit of work...
Might not be too hard though because it looks like the "reports" from the keyboard are longer than from the mouse...
Things I'd like to do:
Wireless keyboard and mouse
flash drive
camera
Keyboard and mouse look to be not too hard.
I've got a V2DIP-32 plugged into the breadboard of a Propeller Demo board and have it talking to the Prop using 9600 baud serial connection using just 2 pins.
Was able to get it working with a vanilla USB keyboard and also a USB mouse.
But, that was just one of the two USB ports at a time. Controlling 2 simultaneous USB ports over a single serial connection will require a bit of work...
Might not be too hard though because it looks like the "reports" from the keyboard are longer than from the mouse...
Comments
(I'm thinking of ways of speeding up downloads to an sd card).
But, the VNC2 can actually do what you describe all by itself (I think)... It has a SPI master bus and code to talk to a FAT SD card. Also, it can act as a slave. I'm not quite sure if there is existing code for the VNC2 to act like a flashdrive slave to a PC, but I'd guess there is...
As for camera, well if you can do that, you would gain *respect*.
There is an application note for getting a video stream from a logitech webcam.
Also one of its family is backwards pin compatible with the Vnc1, so in theory it should be possible to take say the Parallax Serial Datalogger and upgrade it...
cheers
tubular
Hello!
Not exactly. But well stated. I've been involved with these gadgets since June, (I actually saw it mentioned on Linux For Devices in May:
http://www.linuxfordevices.com/c/a/News/FTDI-Vinco-and-Microchip-starter-kit/ )
According to FTDI the VNC2 is indeed backward compatible with the VNC1. But only just. The V2DIP32 is the next generation device to the V1 design. Incidentally people over on the other side of things, the A*********** one, were meeting with limited success to talk to the VNC1 based device.
The device described in that site is basically one of several designer kits that FTDI released earlier on, November last year as it happens.
Rayman how did you get your unit to talk to the Prop board? Reason being is that a chap over in the UK came up with the ideas to confuse a Palm based device to pose as a Matrox Orbital display via emulation. And that's here http://palmorb.sf.net I've gotten the BS2 to talk to the serial based Palms, but now I want figure out an easier method of sending stuff to a USB based Palm Z device, without detailing an embedded PC to work between the Prop and the Palm.....
Reason why I got involved incidentally is described in that site. Of course now that I also know that the Prop boards can discuss USB with a android, its an even spread.
I'm just using 2 Prop pins RX,TX to talk to the VNC2...
But, this was an HID class example. Other types of devices might be a lot harder...
I'm actually just using one prop pin to receive serial data.
The other wire is ground.
(Ignore the wires on the right side, those are my hotwired +5VDC from the Demo board's USB connector...).
You also need the VNC2 programmer module that you see attached to the V2DIP2-32 module.
Also tried a Bluetooth combo keyboard and mouse. The keyboard works, but the mouse part doesn't, not sure what's going on there...
Rayman:
Which firmware did you use? We are using the HIDUart.zip firmware with the only modification of disabling UART flow control.
If you plug an HID-compatible keyboard into a V2DIP2-32 board running this firmware, does it recognize a keyboard immediately and begin sending keystrokes out the VNC2 board's UART immediately without any configuration? I plug my key board in, but I can't get any lights like caps lock to come on, and the UART output stays in the high idle state-- no activity at all. Did you have to do any other modifications to the firmware or hardware?
But, later I learned that it works just fine with the stock code (maybe due to weak pullups on control signals). I think it's called HID1 demo or something...
Sadly, it does not light the caps lock LED. That's something I think we need to program ourselves... Haven't tried doing that yet...
But, it does connect and transmit "reports" automatically when you hit keyboard key or move mouse.
The size and format of the "reports" depends on the type of device connected...
Note that the HID1 example only works with one of the two USB ports, so you need to figure out which one...
All LED's on PC-Keyboards are controlled by HOST with special control codes.
http://www.ftdichip.com/Products/ICs/FT311D.html
We also considered a VNC2 for a touch-screen with USB connector - even tho PS/2 is probably the best uC link, USB seems to be the 'Chinese default'.
http://www.rayslogic.com/propeller/Programming/VNC2/VNC2.htm