LabView and BASIC Stamps
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Posts: 46,084
Hello,
Our educational customers frequently discuss using LabView with a BASIC
Stamp. It seems that we need to offer some sort of hardware or free software
to bridge the gap. Therefore I have the following questions:
(a) What do you want to do with LabView and a BASIC Stamp?
(b) Is it a matter of developing some neat application notes?
(c) Is any special hardware needed to do this, or does LabView simply use a
serial port?
(d) Does the BASIC Stamp really become an inexpensive alternative to Nat
Inst. expensive hardware such that all you need is their free student
software and a pile of Stamps and components?
I'd like Parallax to assemble a couple of LabView/Stamp users to develop the
necessary solutions. Who has expertise with this subject? Can you draw
schematics in ACAD and write well, too? Any interest in this from others,
either as a user or developer?
Let's get the discussion going on this subject. Happy Thanksgiving!
Sincerely,
Ken Gracey, Parallax Inc.
$30 Microcontroller Application Cookbook makes it easy
to build BASIC Stamp circuits - www.parallaxinc.com
Attend one of our courses for instructors in 2001 by
registering at www.stampsinclass.com
(916) 624-8333 ~ fax (916) 624-8003
Our educational customers frequently discuss using LabView with a BASIC
Stamp. It seems that we need to offer some sort of hardware or free software
to bridge the gap. Therefore I have the following questions:
(a) What do you want to do with LabView and a BASIC Stamp?
(b) Is it a matter of developing some neat application notes?
(c) Is any special hardware needed to do this, or does LabView simply use a
serial port?
(d) Does the BASIC Stamp really become an inexpensive alternative to Nat
Inst. expensive hardware such that all you need is their free student
software and a pile of Stamps and components?
I'd like Parallax to assemble a couple of LabView/Stamp users to develop the
necessary solutions. Who has expertise with this subject? Can you draw
schematics in ACAD and write well, too? Any interest in this from others,
either as a user or developer?
Let's get the discussion going on this subject. Happy Thanksgiving!
Sincerely,
Ken Gracey, Parallax Inc.
$30 Microcontroller Application Cookbook makes it easy
to build BASIC Stamp circuits - www.parallaxinc.com
Attend one of our courses for instructors in 2001 by
registering at www.stampsinclass.com
(916) 624-8333 ~ fax (916) 624-8003
Comments
Yes I'd be interested in participating in the development of the LabView
Program. I use ACAD a lot here at home and I'm just getting ready to use it
with my students. And can you explain a little bit about what your plans
are for the program.
Lester J. Snoderly
P. O. Box 303
Hooper Bay, AK 99604
Email: lsnoder1@a...
Web-address: http://www.ljstek.com
Original Message
From: "Ken Gracey" <kgracey@p...>
To: <basicstamps@egroups.com>; <stampsinclass@egroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2000 8:18 AM
Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] LabView and BASIC Stamps
> Hello,
>
> Our educational customers frequently discuss using LabView with a BASIC
> Stamp. It seems that we need to offer some sort of hardware or free
software
> to bridge the gap. Therefore I have the following questions:
>
> (a) What do you want to do with LabView and a BASIC Stamp?
> (b) Is it a matter of developing some neat application notes?
> (c) Is any special hardware needed to do this, or does LabView simply use
a
> serial port?
> (d) Does the BASIC Stamp really become an inexpensive alternative to Nat
> Inst. expensive hardware such that all you need is their free student
> software and a pile of Stamps and components?
>
> I'd like Parallax to assemble a couple of LabView/Stamp users to develop
the
> necessary solutions. Who has expertise with this subject? Can you draw
> schematics in ACAD and write well, too? Any interest in this from others,
> either as a user or developer?
>
> Let's get the discussion going on this subject. Happy Thanksgiving!
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ken Gracey, Parallax Inc.
>
> $30 Microcontroller Application Cookbook makes it easy
> to build BASIC Stamp circuits - www.parallaxinc.com
> Attend one of our courses for instructors in 2001 by
> registering at www.stampsinclass.com
> (916) 624-8333 ~ fax (916) 624-8003
>
>
>
>
>
equipment integration for some manufacturing plants here in Mexico, I
already use the Basic Stamp with LabVIEW in two diferent applications, in
the first one I use the Basic Stamp with one of the IC's from Dallas
Semiconductors to measure the temperature and send it to the main computer
via serial port to compensate some resistor measurments on the main program
made it with LabVIEW. In the second one I used the Basic Stamp to generate
the whole protocol between the main computer (with LabVIEW) and the UUT
(Unit Under Test), in this case a Cylinder Brake Controller for the big
trucks. Using the Basic Stamp instead of some hardware from National
Instruments I found a low cost solution for my desings.
Alfredo Valles
Original Message
From: Ken Gracey [noparse]/noparse]mailto:[url=http://forums.parallaxinc.com/group/basicstamps/post?postID=iIh3bUEoTwo54w4iiYexkoli-RF9gJFFfphhjYDOvvJW_UhZfyRHY3G5ft0UCV4J1lAVNXYHVwQTnrm8VQ]kgracey@p...[/url
Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2000 10:18 AM
To: basicstamps@egroups.com; stampsinclass@egroups.com
Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] LabView and BASIC Stamps
Hello,
Our educational customers frequently discuss using LabView with a BASIC
Stamp. It seems that we need to offer some sort of hardware or free software
to bridge the gap. Therefore I have the following questions:
(a) What do you want to do with LabView and a BASIC Stamp?
(b) Is it a matter of developing some neat application notes?
(c) Is any special hardware needed to do this, or does LabView simply use a
serial port?
(d) Does the BASIC Stamp really become an inexpensive alternative to Nat
Inst. expensive hardware such that all you need is their free student
software and a pile of Stamps and components?
I'd like Parallax to assemble a couple of LabView/Stamp users to develop the
necessary solutions. Who has expertise with this subject? Can you draw
schematics in ACAD and write well, too? Any interest in this from others,
either as a user or developer?
Let's get the discussion going on this subject. Happy Thanksgiving!
Sincerely,
Ken Gracey, Parallax Inc.
$30 Microcontroller Application Cookbook makes it easy
to build BASIC Stamp circuits - www.parallaxinc.com
Attend one of our courses for instructors in 2001 by
registering at www.stampsinclass.com
(916) 624-8333 ~ fax (916) 624-8003
I'm not a LabView user, but I do use MatLab (MathWorks). MathWorks
recently announced a MatLab-LabView compatibility, so I would expect that
any Stamp-LabView bridge would also be easily adaptible also to MatLab.
MatLab is now used extensively in engineering classes, so a Stamp interface
would be a real plus.
Dennis
Original Message
From: Ken Gracey [noparse]/noparse]mailto:[url=http://forums.parallaxinc.com/group/basicstamps/post?postID=L8bfoWT8kx6e-9pBaV26BczKOGMfHQVHdXV4LQIAjCxKSJyI31iOi45RHGfCG7r5IpjaeFwAZ3o_W4raIDxxj41d]kgracey@p...[/url
Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2000 9:18 AM
To: basicstamps@egroups.com; stampsinclass@egroups.com
Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] LabView and BASIC Stamps
Hello,
Our educational customers frequently discuss using LabView with a BASIC
Stamp. It seems that we need to offer some sort of hardware or free software
to bridge the gap. Therefore I have the following questions:
(a) What do you want to do with LabView and a BASIC Stamp?
(b) Is it a matter of developing some neat application notes?
(c) Is any special hardware needed to do this, or does LabView simply use a
serial port?
(d) Does the BASIC Stamp really become an inexpensive alternative to Nat
Inst. expensive hardware such that all you need is their free student
software and a pile of Stamps and components?
I'd like Parallax to assemble a couple of LabView/Stamp users to develop the
necessary solutions. Who has expertise with this subject? Can you draw
schematics in ACAD and write well, too? Any interest in this from others,
either as a user or developer?
Let's get the discussion going on this subject. Happy Thanksgiving!
Sincerely,
Ken Gracey, Parallax Inc.
$30 Microcontroller Application Cookbook makes it easy
to build BASIC Stamp circuits - www.parallaxinc.com
Attend one of our courses for instructors in 2001 by
registering at www.stampsinclass.com
(916) 624-8333 ~ fax (916) 624-8003
work I need to measure and control physical parameters like speed, torque,
stress, temperature, force, pressure etc. I have one room at my consulting
firm dedicated to instrumetation design - nothing fancy - just power
supplies, scopes, function generators, etc. I have a web page that I post
progress on various hobby related projects. Since I only make progress on
these projects on an intermittent basis, the page cannot compete with the
commercial pages in terms of either content or a new project every month.
http://www.inetport.com/~davisele/fc.html
The stamp projects that I have done do not talk to labview. However, I have
done several commercial projects that use lab view to communicate over their
serial port to control industrial processes (I wrote a program in lab view
that talks to a Partlow industrial oven controller via rs-422 [noparse][[/noparse]rs-232]).
In general, yes, instruct labview to use its serial port as its i/o device -
Very easy. I cannot comment on wether or not it is necessary to use a signal
level shifter like a max232 to connect the two (ttl to rs-232). 80c32 and
8051 projects that I have done definitely needed the max232 chip. The your
competitors clone chip did not. I cannot recall precisely - but I believe
that the stamp did not need one either.
I use OLD version 3 student version of labview - it works great - it was $50
several years ago and is probably free by now. I also have access to lab
view ver 5 and it too works great - but is much more expensive.
Check my webpage - I believe that I have sample labview code for free on
it. It uses national instruments AT bus a/d card. I bought the card at a
used book store near the Univ ot Texas campus. New the card was over $1000 -
I bought it for $30-$50. All drivers were available on national instruments
web site. Its purpose is to monitor voltage and temperature of a ni-cd
battery pack during charge and discharge. It also plots out these variables
as a function of time. I was going to complete the design and make a fully
programmable battery charger/conditioner for ni-cd packs. It used the a/d on
the card to measure temp (100x op-amp) with a j thermocouple and voltage
divider to measure voltages in excess of range of a/d capacity. I didnt ever
finish project or convert it over to stamp and eliminate the national
instruments card because I read severl threads on this group that indicated
someone was already doing that (seems like it was about two years ago - some
one had "s-plot" hooked up to a stamp). So yes, I believe that the stamp is
a viable alternative to Nat. Inst. hardware. The last time I worked with a
stampII was about a year ago. At that time they did not have a built-in a/d
channel. If the stampII now has built-in a/d that then it would be an
easy, great, simple project.
I have access to acad 14. I have drawn some schematics - aparently I am not
all that good with acad - several examples are in my web page.
I have a fair amount of experience with communications (rs-232), stamps, and
lab view . . . I see no reason that they cannot be used together. The only
reason I stopped my progress on that project is becaue I thought someone
else had picked up that ball. My goal was to use a stamp to measure some
physical property and then plot the output in a graphical window from within
labview.
I will happily donate some time to the project - but I am somewhat
unreliable in that when I need to make money or do the consulting thing - I
drop the freebie projects and head for the money projects - right ?
richard
Original Message
From: "Ken Gracey" <kgracey@p...>
To: <basicstamps@egroups.com>; <stampsinclass@egroups.com>
Sent: Thursday, November 23, 2000 11:18 AM
Subject: [noparse][[/noparse]basicstamps] LabView and BASIC Stamps
> Hello,
>
> Our educational customers frequently discuss using LabView with a BASIC
> Stamp. It seems that we need to offer some sort of hardware or free
software
> to bridge the gap. Therefore I have the following questions:
>
> (a) What do you want to do with LabView and a BASIC Stamp?
> (b) Is it a matter of developing some neat application notes?
> (c) Is any special hardware needed to do this, or does LabView simply use
a
> serial port?
> (d) Does the BASIC Stamp really become an inexpensive alternative to Nat
> Inst. expensive hardware such that all you need is their free student
> software and a pile of Stamps and components?
>
> I'd like Parallax to assemble a couple of LabView/Stamp users to develop
the
> necessary solutions. Who has expertise with this subject? Can you draw
> schematics in ACAD and write well, too? Any interest in this from others,
> either as a user or developer?
>
> Let's get the discussion going on this subject. Happy Thanksgiving!
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Ken Gracey, Parallax Inc.
>
> $30 Microcontroller Application Cookbook makes it easy
> to build BASIC Stamp circuits - www.parallaxinc.com
> Attend one of our courses for instructors in 2001 by
> registering at www.stampsinclass.com
> (916) 624-8333 ~ fax (916) 624-8003
>
>
>
>
>
>
I have seen a ten year trend in the education and educational research
community to move toward using virtual instruments and specifically
National Instruments' LabView. Education and research dollars being rather
tight, they would choose to use a Stamp or a Pic device to wiggle their 16
bits. I have developed several devices where the main experiment was
controlled by LabView and the Stamp or other embedded controller was doing
a remote function. This combination is happiest when LabView is able to
communicate with the standalone processor via a serial port (which just
happens to be a freebie on the Stamp2). Most recently, complaints have come
from end users who would like a more reliable serial link with LabView.
These problems haven't occurred in similar instruments using Micromint RTC
boards, so it has been assumed that the weak communication link is in the
Stamp. I'm not so sure that people are looking for a way to run the Stamps
in place of the NI boards. These users are usually looking for a high speed
interface with direct control of their A/Ds, D/As and RTCs.
I am an ACAD 14 and Protel user. I am not a LabView coder ( I can hack, but
wouldn't put my self in the league with those who write real virtual
instruments ), I would be interested in seeing a forum develop for
Stamp/LabView projects.
Thanks, Ken!
Mike
At 09:18 AM 11/23/2000 -0800, you wrote:
>Hello,
>
>Our educational customers frequently discuss using LabView with a BASIC
>Stamp. It seems that we need to offer some sort of hardware or free software
>to bridge the gap. Therefore I have the following questions:
>
>(a) What do you want to do with LabView and a BASIC Stamp?
>(b) Is it a matter of developing some neat application notes?
>(c) Is any special hardware needed to do this, or does LabView simply use a
>serial port?
>(d) Does the BASIC Stamp really become an inexpensive alternative to Nat
>Inst. expensive hardware such that all you need is their free student
>software and a pile of Stamps and components?
>
>I'd like Parallax to assemble a couple of LabView/Stamp users to develop the
>necessary solutions. Who has expertise with this subject? Can you draw
>schematics in ACAD and write well, too? Any interest in this from others,
>either as a user or developer?
>
>Let's get the discussion going on this subject. Happy Thanksgiving!
>
>Sincerely,
>
>Ken Gracey, Parallax Inc.
>
>$30 Microcontroller Application Cookbook makes it easy
>to build BASIC Stamp circuits - www.parallaxinc.com
>Attend one of our courses for instructors in 2001 by
>registering at www.stampsinclass.com
>(916) 624-8333 ~ fax (916) 624-8003
>
_________________________________
Mike Walsh
walsh@i...
California Institute of Technology
Biology Electronics Shop
MS 216-76
Pasadena, CA 91125
626-395-6825 , FAX 626-584-1654
237 Beckman Behavioral Biology Bldg.